Carter Codell – ENGW 3302

Docs: Ethics in the Technical Workplace

Sat, 11 Jan 2020 13:38:45 -0500

Values come from personal ethics (family, culture, faith), social ethics (constitutional, legal, utilitarian, caring sources), and conservation ethics (protect and preserve the ecosystem in which we live).

The Golden Rule is an example of personal ethics. For social ethics, here is an ordering for making ethical decisions: issues involving rights > laws > utility > care. Conservation ethics are about sustainability and the health of humans and their community.

Resolving Ethical Dilemmas

Personal - How does my upbringing in a family, culture, and faith guide my decision? How can I do unto others as I would have them do unto me?
Social - What rights or laws are involved in my decision? What is the best for the majority? How can I demonstrate caring by being tolerant and compassionate?
Conservation - How will my decision affect the ecosystem? Will my choice be ecologically sustainable in the long term?

When you Disagree with the Company

Persuasion through cost and benefits, seak legal advice, mediation, memos to file, and whistleblowing.

Docs: The Technical Writing Process Today

Sat, 11 Jan 2020 12:37:00 -0500

There are some stages of technical writing: planning and researching; organizing and drafting; improving the style; designing; revising and editing;

Stage 1: Planning and Researching

Defining the rhetorical situation - identify the document's subject, purpose, readers, and context of use.
Defining the purpose - spend extra time sharpening the purpose into a one-sentence statement that will guide your research and drafting of the document.
Researching your subject - use electronic, print, and empirical sources, collect information on your subject.

Ask yourself the five-W questions in the scope of your document. Is the document going to be informational or persuasive? Finish the sentence: “The purpose of my document is …”

Stage 2: Organizing and Drafting

Organizing the content - using common genres to shape your ideas into documents that will be familiar to the readers.
Drafting the content - generating and composing the content of your document by including facts, data, reasoning, and examples.

A genre is a common pattern for a document that readers will find familiar. Example: reports usually have methodology, results, discussion, and recommendations.

Some techniques for drafting include: freewriting, logical mapping, and outlining.

Stage 3: Improving the Style

Plain style - This style stresses clarity and accuracy. By simply paying attention to where words appear in a sentence and in paragraphy, you can make your ideas clearer and easier to understand.
Persuasive style - Using persiasion strategies, you can motivate readers by appealing to their values and emotions. You can use similes, analogies, metaphors, and tone and pace to add visual quality, change your readers’ perspective, and add energy to your work.

Stage 4: Designing

Make the important ideas stand out.

Stage 5: Revising and Editing

Revising - During revising, you are tring to “re-vision” the document to see if it meets your original goals.
Substantive editing - The content of your document should be complete and organized in a way that is familiar to your readers.
Copyediting - Copyediting makes the document easier to read and more persuasive.
Proofreading - In the technical workplace, quality is taken very seriously.

Docs: Communicating in the Workplace

Sat, 11 Jan 2020 12:20:15 -0500

What is Technical Communication

Technical communication is hard to define but it has many qualities:

interactive and adaptable
reader oriented (easy to read)
produced collaboratively
visual
bound ethically and politically
international and cross-cultural

Technical communication puts much more emphasis on managing information and taking action than do most other forms of writing. It is important to think about communication in the shoes of the other person. What would they want to read/hear/see and how would they want it?

Computers, the Internet, and instant forms of communicatino have had an enormous impact on communication in the technical workplace. Technical communication is defined as a process of managing technical information in ways that allow people to take action. It is a blend of action, words, and images. Readers expect technical documents to use writing, visuals, and design to commnuicate effectively.