Reading #7: Chapter 9

I think that for me, this was the most useful chapter so far from this book. There is still lots of what ifs and a series of questions that you can ask yourself or others in order to find the correct path. They even threw in the word heuristic a few times. But despite this, the chapter seemed to present genuinely useful information for navigating the ethical dilemmas that may and probably will crop up in the technical writer's workplace. Some information that has been beat to death by the other chapters was presented as well, with a few new insights. "Whenever you write you take a position a you establish a value vis a vis existing systems of power." This was thought provoking for me; I had never considered that any writing you do is situated within a greater power structure, and especially so for technical writing for a business. The chapter did a good job of showing just how complicated the business world can be. Based on the info at the beginning, I found myself thinking that surely some of these things the writers were asked to do must be unethical, but by the end was informed that there are always exceptions, in much the same way as the field of technical writing.

Reading #6: Introductory Material

After reading all of the introductory material that the book prefaces each section with, I think I have a better understanding of the manner in which the editors hoped this book would be useful. That said, I do not believe that their approach to organization and content really works. Lots of technical language is routinely used over the course of the text, but the one word that keeps resurfacing is "heuristic." Indeed, it seems like an anthem that was blared over loudspeakers, or some sort of rallying point that the editors got behind. The definitions of the word as I found them include, "enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves," and "a hands on or interactive approach to learning." This is significant in that there is no hands on teaching presented in the book. All of this is dialectic in nature:  "knowledgeable" figures in the fields present their information based around a central theme for each chapter, and we as students are, presumably, expected to take all of this information as correct or the right way to do these things. Not only do I not think this is heuristic as I understand it, but I think that it is totally out of character with the nature of technical writing and communication. They do a wonderful job of expressing the ever changing state of the field, but really don't offer anything good in the way of instruction. What I came to realize is that I can't come up with a better approach than they did. Even if you were able to provide a course that was entirely based around going into an internship situation and leaning how tech writers do their job in that situation, the very moment that you moved to a different environment, you would have to throw out the entire rule book that you had assembled. There a number of very important topics that are broached by the text, for example the use of social media, the importance of working with the members of the work force, but the only sort of information given is usually an example of someone in the work place (again, an infinite number of this kind of examples are severely limited in their ability to teach anything) and then a series of questions that you should ask to make sure that you cover all bases and fit in appropriately and acceptably.

Reading #5: Ch. 8

Chapter eight took a rather different approach to the topics of technical writing than most of the other chapters we have read so far, and introduced a few new ideas. The notion of wicked vs. tame problems was something that  I had never heard of before. As I understood it, a wicked problem is one that does not operate by a set of rules or within a stable/reliable environment whilst a tame problem, like chess or any other game, is reliable and predictable. This seems like a very important idea that will end up being central to any technical writing environment. Working with incomplete software or other designed products that are either still being tested or have not yet been tested is something that is discussed in the chapter and sounds like a common occurrence in the real world. "The information that technical communicators produce is as much formed by our technological contexts as it it forms our technological contexts." I found this to be the most interesting and important message of the chapter, and further emphasizes the idea that technical communicators need to be able to adapt and roll with changes quickly and effectively or they will be left behind. The section about the change in phone technology was fascinating as well, dealing with the change from "your calls" to "my calls." It really shows the massive shifts that technology has and will continue to undergo as we continue into the twenty first century.

Reading #4: Ch. 15

Chapter 15 focused on giving a more real world view of what the technical writing landscape actually looks like by introducing a young professional about to embark on her first project at her new technical writing job. What followed was a series of different questions and the various answers that the author's received from the professional writers that they asked. The idea that regardless of the specialization that you find yourself in, I found it interesting, and reassuring, that having a strong background in writing is essential, and most of the rest tends to follow. The chapter also addressed the ever changing nature of the profession very well, better than any of the other chapters we've read so far in my opinion, by providing many rapid fire examples of research and opinions. I'm starting to think that, based on the way that these authors are referring to "tech" writers, that none of them actually exist. Whether they are someone's imagined work force, or some other such strange thing, it is strange how these  people are written about. Questions, rules, and maxims are all layed out in painstakingly explicit detail. These people are so thoroughly characterized that it feels like the authors are more concerned with molding their ideal tech writer, than offering practical help to those going into the field. For example, all of the questions that are provided for all of the situations that one might find around them are all basically restating the same thing:  you need to be able to multitask, work well with others, learn quickly, and not be afraid of rapid change. It's like there's some giant elephant in the corner of the room that no one wants to or is willing to address. Is this due to the ever changing nature? Are these people afraid of making a statement that is invalidated by a technical shift minutes later?

Reading #3: Ch. 4

I found this chapter to be the most useful out of all those that we have read thus far, because it focused on several real life individuals and their experiences within the technical writing profession. It was nice to get the perspective of people who had worked their way through college, not knowing exactly what they would end up doing with their technical writing degree, and then hearing from them in regards to what they did during that time. I found it interesting that most of the articles that are referenced in this chapter come from 2003 or 2004, more than ten years old at this point. It seems to me that, while some aspects of the profession certainly must have stayed relatively the same, much of it has likely shifted completely, and I think that more up to date sources could help. The articles used here are used more in the vein of the theory or definition discussion, which has likely changed less than the more technology heavy areas of the discipline. I think the most important thing I found in the text was the section that mentioned, "learn all you can about tech comm, engage with others who do work similar to yours, lead if you are called upon to do so." I think that this emphasizes the importance of being well rounded, of having a deep pool of experience form which to draw from, and the ability to take control when needed. Most, if not all of the students mentioned in the chapter also varied their studies while still at university, which is something that I can see being very helpful later on in a technical writing career. They also discussed how they were trying to learn or stay on top of new technology whilst still working full time.

Reading #2: Henry

I felt that this chapter, while offering a rather interesting reflection on the similarities between anthropology and technical writing, didn't really do much at all. It seemed to me that someone had an initial idea of the fact that these two things were similar, and then proceeded to concoct a thirty-something page article to explain their "discovery." I've been having a problem with most of my other textbooks over the course of this, the first week of class, 2015, and I find the same issues within the pages of this book. These books seem vastly more concerned with academic masturbatory language, than with getting across a succinct point or enlightening the potential reader. What is the main point of this article? That to fully understand any workplace, especially one that is "contemporary" in the authors words, in an effort to produce any sort of effective technical writing about the establishment, one needs to fully understand the business, people, and most importantly the culture. I think that this is trite, banal and unnecessarily overblown. The entirety of this paper could, and should have been condensed down into a two page summary. An example of these fictional people is unnecessary, and in my opinion does nothing to clarify the very simple point of the paper. I think that anyone who is at the college level, and has taken a professional interest in writing for these types of settings already understands the importance of being informed prior to taking on any sort of project, already knows how to take notes and even reflect on them later, and is likely already aware of effective interview tactics either from their experience as interviewer or interviewee. I expected this article to deal with topics such as how a technical communicator might mesh with unorthodox technical environments, such as bakeries, delis, restaurants, or any other business that does in fact have need of a technically leaning writer, whether they know it or not.

Reading #1: Selfe & Selfe

One of the things that has bothered me greatly throughout all of the technical/professional leaning classes that I have participated in was the lack of a unifying definition of the discipline. This essay, while not overtly answering the question of an all encompassing definition, certainly address the issue, and is mainly focused on the different approaches that individuals and organizations have taken to try to provide an answer. All of the traditional methods of surveying the modern/current state of tech/pro writing, including historical accounts, research base, and general skills/understandings, made sense in the context which they were discussed, mainly within professional and academic settings, but I could also see their shortcomings. The method supplied by the authors is that of the text cloud, which through taking a sample of pages and the text contained therein, the surveyor then creates a "map" of all the most frequently used words which can then be further grouped or divided based on different attributes. The size of the more frequently used words is larger than those found less often. Selfe & Self claim that the text cloud provides a convenient and effective snapshot of any given field. The article, in typical academic article fashion, provided no convenient answers to the problem it suggested early on, and instead provided a survey and a possible alternative. I found it very interesting to read through the different approaches that have been attempted over the years, but found myself wondering if the problem is not quite a bit bigger than what is being discussed, and that maybe what this article concerns itself with isn't just a part of the larger beast. I'm also not sure that the text cloud would be that potentially effective beyond the initial wow factor and the fact that it looks cool and is easy to read.