Chapter One Summary

Greg Gehrman and Jake Vorhies

Chapter One Summary:

Characterizing workplace communication

Objectives:

· Define technical communication, its criticality in the workplace, and its relation to job success.

· Understand the role of genre, technology, and ethics in technical communication.

· Describe rhetorical elements that experienced communicators consider, including context, purpose, audience, organization, and document design.

· Identify factors that contribute to accessibility, comprehensibility, and usability.

· Identify constraints that affect workplace communication.

Importance of effective communication:

Professionals who communicate effectively, whether technical communicators or technical experts, usually achieve more career success and have greater job satisfaction than those without the skills to communicate their technical knowledge. More than 90% of the technical professionals have reported that speaking and writing skills are important to their success.

Defining technical communication:

• Recent definitions of technical communication consider it rhetorical.
• Technical communication is rhetorical because it is the art and craft of communicating technical information appropriately and persuasively to intended audiences, in complex contexts, for particular purposes.
• These rhetorical elements also are important because they are the very factors that experienced communicators typically consider when planning, drafting, and revising documents, oral presentations, and visuals.

Genre in technical communication:

· Genres (information and situations) are dynamic: they change synergistically in response to particular circumstances – that is, each affects the other. They are also situated in a particular community’s workplace tasks or activities.

· This book as a whole is about genres in technical communication – the ways documents, oral presentations, and visuals are created and used for particular purposes, in particular situations and cultures, at particular points in time.

Communities:

· Discourse communities- identifiable groups with a common, often specialized, language.

· Communities of practice- a group of people who have a joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and shared repertoire of resources.

Technology in technical communication:

Interpretation is not only influenced by genres and communities, it is also influenced by the technology you use. What is broadly called computer-mediated communication (CMC) is a process of human communication via computers. Technology influences several factors:

• Sustaining reading of lengthy text or reading for extended periods.
• Keeping track of your place in the text.
• Managing and maintaining multiple, active on-screen windows.
• Locating and reviewing difficult or confusing information.
• Taking notes, highlighting relevant text, adding personal comments and questions.
• Checking other places in the text and returning to your original place

Technology further influences what you say and how you say it, affecting privacy, immediacy, and permanency.

• Privacy- virtually all electronic communication in the workplace can be monitored. It is simply not private - ever.
• Immediacy- You can decide when to communicate by participating in Synchronous communication (real time) or Asynchronous communication or delayed communication like mail or email.
• Permanency- Information on a computer- especially on corporate and institutional servers- is frequently backed up and archived.

Ethics in technical communication:

Preparing documents, oral presentations, and visuals that are accessible, comprehensible, and usable is not enough for workplace professionals. Beyond those considerations, you must also respond to the context and culture, define and focus the content, analyze the task and audience, organize the information, and design the specific document. To be an affective communicator, you must also consider factors that influence you and your audience as you and they construct meaning.

Accessibility, Comprehensibility, and Usability:

Each document, presentation, or visual must meet these criteria:

1. Be physically accessible, so a reader, listener, or viewer can see or hear it
2. Be comprehensible, so a reader, listener, or viewer can understand it
3. Be usable, so a reader, listener, or viewer can use it easily and productively

Remember that effective communicators need to make information accessible, understandable, and usable. Your communication should be timely and purposeful, which can happen if you follow these four maxims:

• Quality- What you say should be accurate and verifiable.
• Quantity- What you say should be as informative as necessary – not too much information or too little information.
• Relevance- What you say should be relevant.
• Manner- What you say should be “perspicuous”; thus, you need to avoid obscurity and ambiguity and also be brief and well organized.

Communication in the Workplace:

Elements that you can use in your own communication:

• Preview what’s to come.
• Define critical terms.
• Use headings to call attention to key points.
• Select details appropriate for the audience’s level of understanding.
• Use a design that contributes to accessibility, comprehensibility, and usability.
• Use and accessible font appropriate for print or on-screen use.
• Select typographic devices (such as bullets, italics, and boldfacing) to call attention to information.
• Use visuals to reinforce, illustrate, or explain the text.

Constraints that communicators encounter:

• Time constraints
• Subject and format constraints
• Audience constraints
• Collaboration as a constraint
• Constraints in data collection
• Constraints in technology
• Constraints caused by noise

Individual and collaborative assignments:

1. Define technical communication
2. Identify general audiences
3. Identify accessibility, comprehensibility, and usability
4. Assess a short memo
5. Assess a technical explanation