Chapter 13

Chapter 13
Designing Electronic Communication
Baden and Borth


Characterizing Electronic Communication:
Users and designers often have different perspectives about electronic communication. Users tend to think about tasks they want to accomplish, such as finding information, purchasing a product, or playing a game. Designers tend to think in terms of design and functionality. Both the user and designer see electronic communication as...

Interactive and nonlinear- Electronic communication environments are established by multiple possibilities for interactions among users, computers, software, interface components and developers.

Virtual and open- Virtual spaces do not have a material, face-to-face reality. Open means two things, both related to consistency and user expectations: (1) spaces allow users to move beyond boundaries at will. (2) Standards and conventions are fluid, leading varied designs and functionality and often uneven experiences for users.

Complex and dynamic- Complex development efforts include managing both static and dynamic content, hundreds of individual text and graphic files, multimedia components, and databases. Technology changes rapidly, becoming more dynamic and multidimensional; designers must plan for differences in users’ available technology.

Audiences and Electronic Communication-
Meeting the needs of audiences should be a primary goal of writers and designers of electronic communication. Electronic environments offer audiences unique opportunities to co-construct the environment and information each time they enter it. The sequence of links that users select leads to individual interpretations of information.

Reading and Navigating Electronic Communication:
Reading in electronic communication environments is different from reading on paper because it involves interface; it is interactive and brings with it a number of complications.

Screen and page size-
How much text can a reader see at one time? Larger screens enable the reader to see more, however, a reader has complications even with large screens because reading on a computer monitor reduces their awareness of where they are in relation to the whole document.

Legibility-
How easy is it to read what’s on the screen? Factors such as spacing, background and text color affect legibility. Readers also have difficulty with visual cues such as boldface and italics may not show on the screen and spacing is sometimes difficult to judge.

Responsiveness-
How quickly should a system respond to users’ actions? If the response time is more than ten seconds, people usually lose attention and wander to other tasks.

Navigation-
How easily can readers navigate the Web site? How easily can readers move through and locate places in the text? Web readers and users are influenced by images and icons that affect their ability to navigate on the Web, by color, links and backgrounds, typography and layout.

Equipment and service-
How much are readers constrained by physical realities? Even though fast modems and higher bandwidths are available, the modems and lines used by most people are too slow for decent Web response times.

Principles and Practices of Effective Design:
Information architecture- Is the framework that structures content. The structure should meet the goals and expectations of the user. Structure can be sequential (Web pages that link to the next in a linear style), hierarchical (outline format), or interlinked (less structured, liberally linked).

Page/screen design- Is the look and feel of the information the space on the screen. Organization and context help users understand the information.
Identification- Include critical information and site identification at or near the top of each page.
White Space- Don’t fill every pixel of your page. White space is important to help guide the user’s eye around the page. Leaving space is often preferable to creating divisions with graphics or color bars that detract from your content.
Scrolling- Prevent horizontal scrolling.

Content- Is organized and written differently for electronic communication that for traditional print documents. The style of content should match users’ ways of finding and reading information using electronic devices.

Graphics:
-Enhance the design and usability of the information
-Help establish identities for Web sites and create excitement and interest
-Help users navigate by calling attention to links, sections of sites, special features and different areas of pages.
-Provide information to illustrate products to consumers or as integral parts of Web-based articles, reports, or other documents

JPG image (“j-peg”) - named for the Joint Photographic Experts Group that created the type. Works well for photographic images, images with a high number of colors (above 265) and images with graduated color.

GIF image (“gif” or “jif”) - short for Graphics Interchange Format developed by CompuServe. Works well for images with ‘flat’ color areas, transparent images and for small images such as icons. Gifs manage up to 256 colors.

PNG image (“ping”) – for Portable Network Graphics. A new graphics type that promises to offer qualities of both .jpgs and .gifs with smaller file sizes. Older browsers do not support this image type and some graphic production software packages do not include the capability of saving images in the .png format.

Web sites follow several useful rules of thumb:
-Balance graphics and text on a page
-Coordinate graphics throughout a site
-Keep size of image files as small as possible to reduce load time
-Notify users when you must include a slow-loading graphic
-Use larger images on lower-level pages -Don’t rely on images alone to convey informati

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

William Wegner

Jen Real

Objectives:

• Understand that visuals not only attract attention and create appeal but also benefit cognitive processing and learning

• Adapt visuals by varying the complexity of content, presentation, color and size to different audiences and different situation

• Make effective decisions about textual references and labeling and placement of visuals

• Carefully design of select visuals to fulfill specific functions:
  
  • provide immediate visual recognition
  • organize numeric or verbal data
  • show relationships among numeric or verbal data
  • Define or explain concepts, objects, and processes
  • Present chronology, sequence, or processes
  • Illustrate appearance of structure
  • Identify facilities or locations

• Use color appropriately and productively

• Visuals can be more specific than words
  • Words may be too general, and not express the exact thing you are trying to represent.
• Well-designed visuals can usually be understood more easily than text
  • Graphs can sometimes make numical data easier to translate.
• Visuals can be processed more quickly than text
  • Can take less time to process data in graph than text
• Visuals help readers learn.
  • Readers can be able to hold information longer from visuals rather than text.

Incorporating Visuals

• Visuals/Verbal Combinations .
  • The combination of visuals and text can complement each other.
• Well-designed visual situations:
  • Limited technical oriented audiences.
  • Speed of presentation.
  • Could be more clearly illustrated.

Adapting Visuals to Audiences

• Visuals need to be adapted to the correct audience and experience of the audience.

Conventions in Referencing and Placing Visuals

• Textual Reference.
  • Visuals should be refered by text.
• Labeling.
  • Explain what the visuals is and what parts are included in the visuals.
• Placement.
• Visuals should be close the text that is describing the visual.

Visual Functions

Function 1: Provide Immediate Visual Recognition

• Common sybols are sometimes more vonvenient and can be standard for any audiences.
• Examples.
• Bathroom signs
• Traffic signs
• Critical safety signs

Function 2: Organize Numeric or Textual Data

• Numerical tables with rows and columns allow for eaily sortable data.
• Text can also be presented in tables for easy explanations.

Function 3: Show Relationships

• Spatials relationships can show a small section of a larger visual for more definition.
• Quantitative relationships effectively show comparisons between data sets. (Line, Scatter, Pie, and Bar Graphs)
• Floating graph conventions are good ways to show more details of a general data set.

Function 4: Define Concepts, Objects, and Processes

• The use of visuals can show a process or a transformation.

Function 5: Present Action or Process

• Actions can be shown using visuals in a sequence.
• Charts can be used to show flow and sequence.

Function 6: illustrate appearance, structure, or function

• Physical characteristics are easier to present visually
• Diagrams and drawings are two of the more effective ways to show of parts of an item

• Diagrams illustrate the complex physical and structures of objects, mechanisms, and organisms.
• Drawings depict the actual appearance of an object, or organism.

Function 7: Identifying Facilities or Locations

• Identifying facilities and locations traditionally has meant maps and photographs.

• Maps also refer to a navigational tool used on the web, and workplace.
• Photographs are often made with digital cameras as well as traditional camera

• Maps – graphic information displayed on maps (called charts not maps for air or water). Maps are not only navigational tools but may also show topographical, demographic, agricultural, meteorological, and geological data.
• Photographs – are best used when you actually want to display the object it’s self. Appropriate when you want to emphasize the realism, particularly the natural features of a setting.

Conventions in Use of Color

Cautions against misuse of color

• Overuse of decorative color –eliminates functionality
• Too much color – distracts or annoys the readers
• Cultural insensitivity – violating cultural expectations can mean the use of color contradictions in either the workplace culture or the broader social culture.

Suggestions for Appropriate use of color

When color is used in technical documents it should be an integral part of the information that readers need.

• A few of the most important purposes

• Signal safety – use of colors to make a statement of safety (ex. Green=go, yellow=caution, red= stop).
• Attract attention – draw readers to the topic.
• Enable accurate identification – helps readers focus on critical features of the object.
• Show structure or organization – enable readers to better understand the structure displayed.
• Highlight components and their process or movement – show the readers a path for moving components.
• Aid comprehension – make and image easier to understand by adding colors where colors where not present before.
• Influence interpretation – enhance the ability for readers to understand and interpret visuals in a presentation.

Color in Designing Electronic Documents

• Consider the following when designing electronic documents

• Will the document be viewed on a screen with different resolution then the one you’re using?
• What will the lighting in the room be like? Brighter or darker then the room your currently in?
• Will the document be printed? If so test what the colors look like on paper as there is a big difference between the colors on the computer screen and on paper. And if the document will be printed in black and white instead of color how will the color images look when not in color.

Chapter 11

Designing Information

By Brandis Miller & Cheng Vue

Designing Information

All jobs require some sort of information design, whether electronic, print, or sometimes both. Knowledge is the key to setting you apart from those who have little understanding of information design. Information design deals with how you organize and present information to increase audience comprehension. Information design deals with five categories of elements:

1. Textual elements (letters, numbers, symbols, etc.)

2. Spatial elements (spaces between elements, size & placement of text & graphics, etc.)

3. Graphic elements (punctuation marks, bullets & icons, lines & arrows, tables, graphs, photos, etc.)

4. Color & textual elements (color, saturation, value, brightness, texture, etc.)

5. Dynamic elements (layout, placement of images, and in an electronic document, animation)

Chunking & Labeling Information

Chunking and labeling information involves two factors: logical topical relationships & audience need for the information. Interesting examples of these are given in three sets: undifferentiated text, chunked text, and labeled text. Undifferentiated text gives, in no particular order, information on several topics. Chunked text groups information into various subtopics and separates each one into a different paragraph. Labeled text has bold text in the headings and many are bulleted. Examples of all three are given in Figure 11.1 on page 383.

White space is the part of any page or screen that is blank, without print or visuals. Many times, white space makes the document or page more appealing. It can be used for margins, lines between paragraphs, or space around visuals. Many examples are listed in our text on how to better utilize the white space in our technical documents. Some key examples are margins, text alignment, and leading & line length. The four margins in a paper can be use for chucking. Margins can be wide allowing room for note-taking or narrow to store more information.

Justified alignment gives a neater, more professional look to many documents but can make text harder to read. Unjustified alignment is when all the lines begin at the same left (right) margin and the right (left) margin is ragged. This generally is easier for a reader to read. Many times this depends on the type of document being prepared.

Leading and line length can improve accessibility and legibility while increasing ease and speed of reading. Larger leading length with short lines is frequently found to be easier to read. Examples are given in Figures 11.3 and 11.4 on page 385.

Using headings to label chunked information can be used to label and identify the information about to be given. Headings give the reader a mental and literal break. They also establish a subject for the next section in the document. Headings can be tricky, however. Readers need to be helped, not confused, by headings and subheadings.

Arranging Related Chunks of Verbal and Visual Information

Selecting appropriate grids and careful placement of visuals near related text are two key factors to designing and effective document. When selecting a grid, it is important to keep in mind the type of document you are producing.

• Typically, one column grids are used for correspondence & reports, two column grids are used for manuals & brochures, and three column grids are used for newsletters.
  
• When dealing with the placement of visuals, it is important to keep in mind that readers do not want to have to turn pages back and forth. A study by NASA found that many readers prefer visuals located within the text rather than in an appendix at the end of the document.

Chart junk, tombstoning, heading placement, and windows & orphans are problems to avoid when arranging information.

• Chart junk is miscellaneous graphic “junk” that does nothing to help people understand the information they are reading. Many documents to not need any fancy extras.
• Tombstoning involves aligning headings so that the readers mistakenly chunk the text when they look at the page.
  
• Heading placement comes from leaving too few lines after a heading or subheading at the top or bottom of a column or page.
• Windows are left over words (one or two) hanging awkwardly at the last line of a paragraph. Orphans are left over words hanging awkwardly at the beginning of a page break. Examples of all are given in Figures 11.10-11.13 on pages 392 and 393.

Emphasizing Information

Emphasizing portions of text makes information more accessible, comprehensible, and useful. Typeface (font) affects readers’ attitudes and reactions to a print or electronic document as well as their ability to access, comprehend, and use the information easily and quickly. Some basic characteristics include serif or sans serif. Serifs are tiny fine lines usually at the tops or bottoms of letters (i.e. in the letters “R” and “X” as opposed to “R” and “X”). Making the wrong choice about typeface variations can also make it difficult for the reader to read and understand any given document. Too small of a font can be hard to read whereas too large of a font can seem elementary to readers. Keeping in mind many businesses prefer 10-12 point font can be helpful. Of course headings, power points, etc. will need to be larger. Style choices can also be helpful or harmful. CAPITALIZATION, boldface, italics, etc. can be used alone or combined to create emphasis. Make sure, however, your choice of style compliments your document and is appropriately used.

Typographic devises can also be used to create emphasis. Numbered lists, bulleted lists, shading, and color are all great examples. Numbered lists are popular with instructions when the order of the given information is important. Bulleted lists are used when each item listed is equally important. Shading works well to highlight and emphasize information. Although often restricted by cost, color is said to be the most effective way to set important information apart from the rest of your text. It helps to identify a text hierarchy, chunk information, and emphasize key points. If well designed, other visual devices can be as effective as color.

Chapter 10 – Organizing Information

Paulina Manzo & Scott Bertrand

Developing the Organization for Information

· Outlines

o Tools to help you manage the material for a document

o Help you arrange and examine and then rearrange collected information

o Sequence must be logical

o Also serve as a table of contents

· Storyboards

o Another way to organize information – two purposes and audiences

1. A powerful organization tool for writers and designers who create them

2. A short dramatic visual summary showing the gist of the final project for clients or customers.

o Passive Storyboard – the writer or designer usually walks a client through the sequence

o Active/interactive Storyboard – requires the user to be engaged in the process; ex: PowerPoint’s.

o Animatics Storyboard – drafts of animated presentations that are “produced by photographing storyboard sketches on a film strip or video with audio”

o Benefits – saves time and money, reduces changes later in the process, people involved in the project can review and revise the storyboard, and a way to explore alternative ideas.

· Tables and Spreadsheets

o Enable you to classify information into comparable groups and then identify categories of details about each group

· Implementing the Organization of Information

o Print Documents – chunk information into paragraphs that readers can see

o Electronic Documents – chunk information as well, they have additional benefit of hyperlinks

o Oral Presentations – the audience has to listen for cues about shifts to another topic, so changes in vocal pacing, pitch, and inflection take the place of indentation and line spacing.

o Technical Visuals – labels and cues direct movement through the visual

· Organization Basics

o Alphabetical order, numeric order, and continuums

o Topic sentence and transitions to signal organizations

§ Topic sentence – indentifies both the content and organization of a paragraph so the audience anticipates what forthcoming information is about and how it will be sequenced.

§ Transitions – words, phrases and sentences that act as the glue to connecting ideas and sentences within a single paragraph.

o Whole/Parts Organization

§ Presents readers with a relationship between the whole (whether an idea, object, or entire system) and parts of that whole (whether on a micro level or macro level)

§ Involves separating a single item into individual components and related types of an item.

o Chronological order

§ Presents readers with material arranged by sequence or order of occurrence.

o Spatial Order

§ Arrangement by relative physical location

§ Describes the physical parts of nearly anything, from cellular structures to the orbital path of a satellite.

o Ascending/Descending Order

§ Ascending order – least-to-most important

§ Descending order – most-to-least important

o Comparison/Contrast

§ Tells readers about similarities and differences

· Comparisons identifies the similarities of various ideas, objects, or situations

· Contrast is the differences

o Cause and Effect

§ Focuses on precipitating factors and results

§ You can move from cause to effect or from effect to cause

· Inductive reasoning – moves from specific instances to broad generalizations

· Deductive reasoning – moving general premises to specific causes

CHAPTER 9 "Ensuring Usability"

Shannon Claybaugh and Kevin Pagel

MAIN POINTS

• Usability focuses on the needs of the user as it relates to the design.
• Texts affecting usability can be written, graphic, and oral (307).
• Documents that usability pertains to include but are not limited to: Tech reports, language and visual displays, and Web sites.
• Technical Reports:
• The five critical principles that usability is applied to are: Learnability, Efficiency, Memorability, Error Recovery and Satisfaction.
  • Learnability: How easily can people learn and use the product.
  • Efficiency: How productive people are using a the product.
  • Memorability: How easy is it to memorize the product from one use to the next.
  • Error Recovery: How errors are made using the product and how easy is is to fix.
  • Satisfaction: How satisfied are the people using the product.
• People take longer to learn complex tasks.
• Usability testing is used to determine whether or not the document is understandable.
• A long term purpose for usability testing is to have historical documents to refer back to during product development (310).
• A short term purpose is to find solutions to problems or concerns before delivering a document.
• These four things are considered when determining which test to preform: Cognition, Perception, Affect, and Performance and behavior.
  • Cognition: How are users thinking about the text?
  • Perception: How do users understand the text?
  • Affect: How do the users respond to the text?
  • Performance and Behavior: What do users actually do with the text and product?
• These limitations can affect Usability: Test participants, Test situation, Test techniques, and Testing procedures.
  • Test Participants: People who reflect the needs and attitudes of the actual end users of the product.
  • Test Situation: Testing doesn't guarantee a communications usefulness. In order to generalize the a specific situation you must take into consideration a variety of different situations in which the communication will be used.
  • Test Techniques: Test techniques must be appropriate at various stages of text development. Different stages require different procedures. Your goal should be to design appropriate testing for each stage of development.
  • Testing Procedures: Testing procedures can also affect results. However, with effective planning, implementation, and evaluation, testing can provide more specific and useful information than other forms of feedback.
• The benefits of usability testing outweigh the time and cost.
• The three main kinds of usability testing are: text-based, expert-based, and user-based.
• Text-based testing includes: The Flesch Reading Ease, and The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. However, these tests are not fool proof, because they don't look at the word's understandability, only its syllables.
• Expert-based testing includes several different types of reviews (316).
• User-based testing is reviews by the intended audience of the document.
• Before testing, one needs to consider the following about the test: Goals, Critically, Constraints, Schedule, Involvement, Timing, Goodness of fit, Ease of use, Usable form, and Updating.
  • Goals: Establish the goals for your testing. What do you want to find out? Ways to reduce time, and increase accuracy.
  • Critically: Assess the importance of the text you plan to test and decide what kind of testing feedback you need.
  • Constraints: How much time you have to conduct the test and how many participants do you have for the test.
  • Schedule: Make time for all the tests you plan to do. Establish a schedule that if possible, includes testing of different kinds as a ongoing part of the project.
  • Involvement: Explain the purpose and procedures to everyone who is helping conduct the test so they understand the goals and cooperate with the testing.
  • Timing: Test products and texts at various points in the development cycle, including the initial stages. Feedback is vital for test results to become part of the design process.
  • Goodness of fit: The test procedures should be in line with your specific goals.
  • Ease of use: Test procedures must be easy for the participants to understand and testers to facilitate.
  • Usable form: Manage the production of test data so that usable results are achieved.
  • Updating: Determine how the test results will be used as part of the development and revision process.
• A good test incorporates text-based, expert-based, and user-based testing at some point in one test.
• These steps are involved in the testing process:
  • Analyze the rhetorical situation
  • Find participants
  • Strategize
  • Find a location
  • Explain to participants what is expected of them
  • Report
• Make sure your document is accessible, even for people with disabilities.
• Consider these things with accessibility:
  • Equitable use
  • Flexibility
  • Simplicity
  • Perceptible information
  • Error
  • Low physical effort
  • Approachability

KEY TERMS

USABILITY: Documents need to be comprehensible for the audience in "complex situations".

USABILITY TESTING: "A structured process that gathers information about specific use from people similar to the intended users" (310).

STRUCTURED TESTING: Planned questions and tasks

UNSTRUCTURED TESTING: Feedback without specifics

CONCURRENT TESTING: When you get feedback from the audience as they are reading

RETROSPECTIVE TESTING: Feedback after the audience is done reading it

ACCESSIBILITY: Consider the access to information as it pertains to mobility, hearing, vision, and cognition

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 Revising and Editing
-McCabe, Larson
Objectives and Outcomes:
· Be able to make a distinction between different types of revising and editing and develop skills required to finish the task.
· Revise and edit to make documents, presentations, and visuals more available, understandable and useable.
· Understand that revising is a global function involving difficult interrelated strategies and decisions.
· Identify and correct errors in a draft.
· Review a draft of a document that has been edited and analyzed.

Revising generally refers to the process of changing overall elements of documents.

Editing generally refers to:
1. Changing specific or local elements of documents and,
2. Managing administrative details necessary for document publication.

Chapter 8 focuses on two different levels of revision:
· Global: Redesigning and reorganizing the overall document.
· Local Revision: Revising sentences or paragraphs.

Types of Revising and editing:

· Revising: Looks at Global aspect such as content, organization, and design.
· Substantive Editing: Focuses on overall Global aspects of the document.
· Design Review: The design of the document.
· Copyediting: Focuses on Global aspects such as logic and formatting and local aspects such as language conventions and consistencies.
· Proofreading: It involves eliminating errors.
· Administrative Editing: Editing to a certain standard of a company.

Revising and Revision Process:

*When revising a paper be sure to read and reread a draft carefully and thoroughly to examine choices in content, structure, organization, coherence, logic, and design.

The 6 steps to Revising a paper:
1. Get feedback-Have an outside source read through document and ask for opinion, making sure you understand their feedback.
2. Assess Feedback-Talk about the feedback, and have the reader explain feedback.
3. Make attribution- Make sure there is a problem with the text.
4. Test Text-Finding the problem in the text.
5. Set Goal-Decide if you want to fix problem within text or if you need to change something else in the text.
6. Select Strategy-Choose a way to solve the problem in the text.
7. Revise

Revision Strategies:
-Among experience writers revision is easier and more effective if you focus on one thing at a time.
· Focus on how well the information is adapted to the audience.
· Focus on how the information is organized.
· Focus on whether or not the information is responsive to the specific situation.
· Get feedback from a peer-reviewer.
· Reading aloud will help you hear problems in the document.

Common Copyediting Problems:
· Concrete Details
· Directness
· Positive phrasing
· Elimination of several kinds of wordiness

Using Concrete Details:
Using concrete words that refer to touchable objects are easier for readers to understand abstract words.
Example: use Jean Thompson, PPI President instead of ,the abstract information, important client

Use of Direct Language:
Using plain and simple language- the language goes straight to the point.
Example: The instructor authorized the approval of the celebration.
The teacher agreed to the party.

Using Positive Phrasing:
Readers and listeners comprehend positively phrased sentences quickly and more accurately than negative phrases.
Examples: instead of using-
Not many use few
Do not accept use reject

Eliminating Wordiness
Wordiness makes your writing hard to understand. The most effective way to avoid wordiness is to avoid redundancy.
Examples: -It has come to my attention that the lights in my office have not been working…
Use: I notice the lights in my office aren’t working…

Chapter 5 Collaborating in the Workplace

Hansmeyer and Gesimba
Objectives and Outcomes
*Understand that much of the writing you will do in the workplace will involve collaboration.
*Recognize situations that make collaboration appropriate –subject, process, product, and benefits.
*Develop skills to participate in different types of collaboration: coauthoring, consulting with colleagues, and contributing to team projects.
*Develop behaviors typical to skillful, engaged, and cooperative collaborators: listen, ask questions, share, use technology effectively, and reflect.
Reasons to Collaborate
There are many reasons in which you may find collaborating useful. Some useful reason to work in collaboration could be: subject, process, product, or benefits. In some examples of work many backgrounds of professionals are needed to perform a project. In large projects such as engineering, or construction many forms of professionals need to use their expertise to influence the project as a whole. Process is a helpful benefit of collaborating with others. Two heads are better than one could simply summarize process. Finding new alternatives and receiving feedback from ideas helps to innovate better documents. Having others to provide ideas or thoughts not only helps the document, but stimulates your own thoughts. Collaboration may also be needed when difficult or dynamic products are being made. Complexity of products drives the need for collaboration. Products such as manuals need collaboration due to lengthy and complex layouts. Benefits such as less travel, and a better work atmosphere could be apparent collaborating. Getting more work done, faster decisions, and being more competitive were all results of working with others.
Reasons Collaboration is a Problem
Time, discomfort, control, credit, conflict, criticism
Although collaboration has many benefits it also has several problems. Many argue that working individually is more productive in terms of time. Initial discomfort getting to know each other could tend to be awkward. Accepting different ideas or modifications to first ideas may cause criticism.
Being a good Collaborator
To become a good collaborator you must first assess yourself. Prejudices and preconceptions need to be left out of group meetings. Having a clear mind and being positive will greatly benefit your project. Being prepared for the collaboration, and being able to express your own views provides good ideas. Staying interested in the current topic, being an active listener, and supporting your fellow teammates helps to stay productive. Remaining polite and waiting your turn to add to an idea or supporting an idea is benefitial. Conversations must remain two sided with supportive information and questions to follow. Open ended questions are a great way to get the ideas flowing. Reflecting on ideas or thoughts will also help people to properly collaborate. Setting away ample amount of time to think over the current opinions helps to sort all the ideas from the members of your collaborating team.

Types of collaboration
There are three types of collaboration in the work place:
· Coauthoring collaboration is when each collaborator is free to contribute ideas but is willing to abandon and modify them. Coauthoring collaborator is able to analyze the strengths and weakness of his own ideas and also to evaluate the ideas of others by bringing arguments to the tables to have a mutual conclusion, thus he receives credit as coauthor.
· Second type of collaboration is consulting with colleagues. This type of collaboration is working hand in hand with people from different departments such engineering, marketing ,technical communicators graphic design e.t.c
· Lastly contributing to the team projects is another type of collaboration. Each collaborator should have some say on he or she is responsible for and collaborative approach that should b used in the project.
Negotiating Conflicts
To be a good collaborator you must know how to negotiate conflicts that may arise in the work place. The kinds of conflicts that may arise are affective, procedural and substantive.
Affective conflicts are your attitudes, biases, personality, and your values. These factors may affect how you collaborate with others. Effective interpersonal collaboration such as how you relate others is very important when working together. Ways to avoid affective conflicts to acknowledge your biases and prejudice and try to work on it. Another way to avoid affective conflicts is to pay attention to differences and changes in footing: - the assumption you may have for others that change your behavior.
Procedural conflicts arise when the procedure that governs the group fails. Example of procedures are meeting details, roles and responsibilities and lastly cost and material of the project. To avoid such conflicts meeting time should be set up and agreed upon, assigns responsibilities to each individual and agreeing ways to minimize effective conflicts.
Substantive conflicts arise when one member of the group agrees and disagrees on the agenda of the topic. To avoid this each collaborator must understand the purpose, and content of the project. By the understanding the purpose of the project he or she should remember the intended audience. Ask provocative questions that supports the argument and that need clarification and explanations, take a productive and critical perspectives and lastly separate ideas and personality.
Conflict may also arise by cultural difference in the workplace. As a collaborator look for ways to avoid such conflict and work against such conflict

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 Summary

Objectives & Outcomes of Chapter 4

1. Understand that professionals who plan, prepare, and present technical documents, presentations, and visuals usually have two broad purposes: to convey verifiable information and to persuade the audience to attend to this information.
2. Identify initial, primary, secondary, and external audiences, and determine whether these audiences are experts, professional nonexperts, technicians, equipment operators, students, generalists, or children.
3. Collect and analyze information about your audiences - the context in which they work, their attitudes and motivations, education, professional experiences, reading level, and organizational role.
4. Adjust material for different audiences in two broad ways: (1) address audiences with different levels of expertise by adjudsting the complexity of the material; (2) address audiences with different organizational roles by shifting the focus of the discussion and the choice of details, including an acknowledgement of audiences' ethical stance or point of view.
Chapter 4 descibes how to modify your technical document presentations and visuals in order to satisfy the type of audience. In order to achieve this, one must be able to identify their purpose, their audience, and also the factors influencing the audience.

Identifying Purposes

Professionals who are about to give presentations or present technical documents usually have two goals in mind: (1) to convey accurate information and (2) to persuade the audience to use the information. To do achieve these goals, the professional in preperation can ask themselves a few questions such as:
• What/Why do I want my audience to learn?
• What decisions will be based off this information and what information is needed to make those decisions?
• What information will persuade the audience?
• What objections might the audiences have and how can I overcome them?

Identifying Audiences

Once the purpose of the presentation has been established, professionals presenting technical documents also need to identify the intended audience. In order to do so, the professional needs to realize that their audience will typically want to hear about specifics rather than general ideas. The presenter also needs to prepare material for a variety of audiences (i.e. initial audience, primary audience).

Types of Audiences:
• Initial Audience: usually the person to whom you submit a document though not necessarily the ultimate decision maker.
• Primary Audience: a person for whom your document is actually intended, the one who will actually use the information, the decision maker.
• Secondary Audience: people who receive and read your document; they have an interest because they are affected by the information or base decisions on it.
• External Audience: people who are outside the immediate organization but are affected by the information or decisions based on it.

Analyzing Audiences

After identifing the audience and purpose of the presentation, an analysis of the audience is needed so you can adjust your presentation accordingly. The chapter suggests considering the following characteristics throughout the final stages of planning:

• Context in which a document is interpreted:

The context in which the document is presented is essential to how easily the audience can comprehend the information. If the information isn't presented correctly, there is a possibility that it could be ignored. There are a few elements that can be adjusted in order to make the document/presentation more aesthetically pleasing such as: paragraph division, headings, page design, and type/size of font or illustrations. Also, defining terms, descending the information from most important to least important, and an uncluttered page layout, will help the "political" context -- this makes sure the audience believes it is important and worth their time to read.

• Purpose and motivation of the audience:

If you know the intended audience, it is pretty easy to determine their purposes and motivations. You will either have a receptive or resistant audience. The order in which you present information is crucial when you know which audience you will have. With receptive audiences, you can present your recommendations and then support them later in the document/presentation. However with a resistant audience, you have to present the problems, discuss alternatives, and then try to persuade them to believe your idea is the best option.

• Prior knowledge the audience may possess:

When you know what your audience's prior knowledge is, you can alter the vocabulary and content to fit their style. Vocational/technical trainined people will require you to focus on a practical uses for the information where as professional or academic trained people can take the theoretical applications as well as practical.

• The reading level of the audience:

Obviously you need to use a vocabulary and statistical information that are relevant to your audience. You have to write your presentation or document around the ability of your audience to comprehend your information. If they can't understand it, they'll more than likely skip over information that could be very important. If the information is concrete and logically organized, the ease of reading will increase, and your information will be conveyed to a wider audience.

• Organizational role of the audience:

The organizational role of your audience is equally important as identifying your audience. They are generally categorized as hierarchical (bosses at the top, managers in the middle, workers at the bottom) or nonhierarchical (everyone contributes equally to the productivity of the organization). Since most of the chapter focused on the audience that was within the presenters area of interest, this part focuses on the audience that does not belong to the area of interest. It is important to keep in mind that your audience may not know much about your product or ideas and to provide them with more background information than any internal audience(audience that is familiar with area of interest).

• Differences in Expertise

Your audience will more than likely have different levels of knowledge with technical communication, therefore, you will need to change and adjust your tone, examples, concepts and language.

• Differences in Roles and Stances

This section of the chapter explains that it is a good idea to maintain the same level of difficulty or simplicity throughout your presentation if the audience is of similar or parallel roles within their organization (i.e. managers of different departments). You can also emphasize on aspects of your presentation that would relatively relate to each group within the organization.

Chapter 6. Locating and Using Information

Chapter 6
Locating and Using Information

Objectives and Outcomes
Identify and use electronic database resources relevant to your research
Execute a specific, targeted electronic search using advanced search techniques
Gather research data using several nonelectronic techniques
Integrate research successfully into your text
Avoid plagiarism

Locating Primary and Secondary Sources
Primary source information is first-hand information reported by people directly involved with an action or event, not interpreted by a second or third party. Secondary source information does not come directly from people involved in the action or event. Instead, the information is interpreted and reported by a second or third person.
Some ways of collecting information includes print and electronic resources, internal records, personal observations, interviews and letters of inquiry, or surveys and polls.

Finding Information Using Electronic Resources
Probably the most used resource today is electronic; not only in the World Wide Web form, but in library databases and online catalogs.
The internet is not always the most accurate and reliable resource. When researching a new topic, consider the following order:
· Library’s online catalog
o A database that lists all of the library’s holdings including books, bound periodicals, audiovisual, and electronic resources.
· Online reference materials
o Available through electronic library resources include handbooks and specialized encyclopedias, give a general overview of a topic before you continue with more specific research.
· General reference databases
o Include published articles in the common general reference databases available at most college, corporate, and community libraries. Three common databases found are Expanded Academic ASAP, LexisNexis, and Web of Science.
· Discipline-specific databases
o Most academic majors have electronic databases that index research and publications in that specific field. Some are published by professionals, others by for-profit companies. There are hundreds of discipline-specific indexes available.
· Government databases
o The U.S. government is required by law to post many of its documents, research findings, and proceedings online, making their information easily and cheaply accessible.
· The Internet and World Wide Web
o The web might have the most resources however if proper research is not done it can also be highly opinionated. Anybody can create their own webpage with inaccurate knowledge.

Finding Information Using other Resources
Electronic databases provide a lot of information but cannot always provide specific data. There are a variety of other sources available for this task.
· Internal records
o The data an organization keeps about its own transactions- often serve as supporting material in documents, presentations, and visuals. Might provide facts and details about finances, personnel, manufacturing, marketing, or shipping.
· Corporate libraries
o Many organizations build extensive resource libraries for their employees. This estimates that it saves employees some 28 hours per project.
· Personal observations
o Personal observations are legitimate primary sources if the observer is trained in the area of investigation. Even if you are not a specialist, your own involvement and observations are important and valid sources of primary information.
· Interviews and letters of inquiry
o When you’re conducting an information interview, you need to be prepared and persistent about asking the right questions in order to get the information you need. Three ways you can prepare are by gathering necessary information, approach the person you want to interview, and identify the categories of questions you want to ask.
· Surveys and polls
o Surveys and polls are extremely useful tools for gathering information about opinions and preferences from large groups of people. They are usually based on a set of questions called a questionnaire which can be administered in a variety of ways.

Using Sources Ethically
As a writer and reader, you are responsible for assessing and using information ethically.
· Assessing Credibility
o Many readers assume that information published in professional journals or books is reliable and valid because of the peer-review process. The ease of posting information on the Web has changed how you need to approach online information.
· Avoiding PlagiarismAvoiding plagiarism is just as important in the workplace as it is in academics. Plagiarism is using work that is not your own without giving them proper credit.

Chapter 7

Planning and Drafting

Chapter Seven

Andrew Hebert

Heidi Knott

This chapter explains experienced writers how to go through the exploring process, the planning process, and the drafting process. Experienced writers tend to investigate their subject, plan their approach, and organize their information. Three things they want to verify about their information is that it is accessible, comprehensible, and usable. Professionals go through a series of steps during their process: inventing and exploring, planning and organizing, drafting and designing, revising, and finally editing.

Differences Between Writing Processes

The writing process use to be described as a linear process of prewriting, drafting, and revising. Today it is known that it does not work that way. Instead, as people write it is very common that they will change their minds and change parts of their document often. Their is a list of important questions you need to ask before you plan a document. Figure 7.1, page 229, is a chart of questions that is worth looking at. This section also gave a list of some of the habits, concerns and working procedures that are used by experienced writers. It involves four stages made up of; inventing and exploring, planning and organizing, drafting/designing, and revising and editing.

Inventing and Exploring

During the inventing and exploring process there are problems that will arise. Experienced and skilled writers use the problem-solving process to help them get through it. The problem-solving process has eight steps. 1) Identify the context and the problem. 2) Gather and evaluate information to set your priorities. 3) Create different possible solutions. 4) Think of other experiences you have had with this problem so you have an idea of the success of it. 5) Asses all of the other options and select your plan of action. 6) Get started on the most appropriate solution. 7) Monitor the performance against the outcome. 8) Evaluate everything to determine the success of the final product.

Four commonly used strategies for problem solving:

Brainstorming- throwing out many suggestions, without judgment.

5 Ws + H- ask yourself; who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Cause and effect analysis- focuses on the cause of problems.

Synectics- meaning to bring together diversity. Used to stimulate creative thinking.

Planning and Organizing

Types of Expert Planning

• Schema-driven planning- This type of planning is based on the knowledge that you already have. When you use this kind of planning you can usually finish projects relatively quickly. When writers’ use this style of planning they can usually finish their project without much thought or work.

• Knowledge-driven planning- People may not have an idea about the format of the paper, however, they do have a large amount of knowledge about the topic they are writing about. For this planning style to work all of the information written about the topic needs to be very well organized and appropriate.

• Constructive planning- This type is sometimes considered the most difficult type of planning because you don’t have a great deal of knowledge on the subject or have much knowledge on how to format the project. Many types of research needs to be done to determine the purpose, audience, task, and constraints.

Assessing the Logic

-Using Data from Authorities- This is very important because many people take information a lot more seriously from a figure with higher authority, if this person’s data is flawed it could seriously affect your project.

-Presenting Facts without Drawing Inferences- When you present information that can be verified as facts.

-Drawing Inferences- These can be made when enough evidence is gathered, however it is important that there is enough evidence

-Establishing Causal relationships
Drafting

Drafting is defined as writing the text and preparing the visuals. An important part of drafting is trying many different approaches to find out which way works the best. Their are six important things you need to keep in mind when drafting:

• Selecting Persons- One of the first things you need to do in the drafting process is to decide if you want it to be in first, second, or third person. This depends on the purpose and the audience of the document.
• Verb Mood- Another thing that is very important to establish is the verb mood. The verb mood conveys the author’s opinion on a statement.
• Active or Passive Voice- It is also important to decide on active or passive voice. Active voice emphasizes the doer of the action and de-emphasizes the receiver. Passive voice occurs when the receiver is more important than the doer.
• Plain Language- After you decide on the person, verb mood, and active or passive voice, you need to work on plain language. Plain language communicates information in a way that it makes sense to most people.
• Density- This section also talks about the density of your document. By avoiding density you make your information comprehensible and usable. You can do this by using smaller sentences, add examples and illustrations, add transitions within paragraphs, use headings and subheadings.
• Given-New Analysis- If the writer believes that the audience has prior knowledge on a topic they tend to leave out important background information, even though the audience may not have any prior knowledge.

Individual and Collaborative Assignments

Individual and Collaborative Assignments

• Track your Writing Process- If you would like to learn about your writing process you can do several things. Tape-record the planning of the writing and when it is finished listen to the tape to figure out patterns you can place in your log.
• Analyze your writing process- After collecting the information from the tracking part and write a 1-2 page discussion paper on just one aspect and reread your log looking for that aspect.
• Create a rubric- Analyze the document that was created and assess your skills and figure out where you have made improvements.
• Interview a professional- Interview a professional technical writer and ask for tips on how to approach a planning and drafting situation. An important thing to do when talking to a professional is to ask as many questions as possible. When the answers are all gathered, organize that information and post it so the rest of the class can see.
• Look at the process of translation- It is possible that the some people in the audience may not be able to speak English. A great way to translate a technical writing assignment would be to have a native speaker read the document to check for errors.
• Determine the appropriate voice- You should work in a small group to decide to use an active or passive voice.

Welcome to our (second) course blog!

Here we go. Please get us caught up by class time on Wednesday, February 6.