Stop, Collaborate, and Listen: A Look at "What do Technical Communicators Need to Know about Collaboration?"

Introduction
The problem presented in this article is very straightforward: being able to successfully collaborate in technical communication is crucial, especially now, but there are definite dangers and "pitfalls" (Burnett et al. 454) to avoid. Unsurprisingly, the authors plan on presenting a heuristic to help the reader navigate collaborative projects effectively. In this chapter, they apply this heuristic to Cassandra and her work environment. Cassandra is the technical communicator for a five-person team working to produce recruitment brochures, tracking forms, and informational sheets for bilingual (English/Korean), female patients with breast cancer. The goal is to pair women who have been recently diagnosed with volunteer breast cancer survivors. The authors present the team as working effectively together, but Cassandra notes that communication strategies will have to change based on who she is interacting with and the potential conflict of being friends with her boss.

Literature Review

The authors cite studies that show that between 75 and 85% of writing in the workplace is collaborative. They also outline 3 assumptions about collaboration (457).

1. Collaboration is rhetorical = consider context

2. Collaboration is a process = dual responsibility

3. Collaboration is multimodal = must understand forms

They aver that collaboration is more than writing different sections of a group paper or simply using computer-mediated technology, but rather that it requires people who interact using different tools in different settings to achieved shared goals, either because the project has too much complexity (procedural, social, or intellectual) for one or because it requires multiple perspectives. Furthermore, the authors discuss cognition and learning, small group processes, and technology. In their section on cognition and learning, they briefly mention:

1. The importance of positive interdependence (we can reach individual goals only if the whole group is doing well)

www.learning-knowledge.com

2. And a way of explaining it: the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky 1978)

http://talonsphilosophy.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/jonathan-toews-modern-education-and-zpd/

They also indicate that smaller groups may be better (Lowry et al. 2006) and that classroom and workplace groups vary in terms of construction, environment, and interaction (e.g. in a workplace the participants are likely to realize that they may collaborate again, not necessarily true in a classroom, semester vs. years, etc.). This leads to a discussion of: 

1. Social loafing (which happens more often in big groups or groups with undefined goals)

www.oecam.com

2. Groupthink (which can hinder productive conflict)

3forward.com

The authors go on to suggest that effective collaborations often require defined leadership. Leaders plan, organize, and motivate. They help group members "articulate and accomplish a shared vision" (464). They may also be facilitators, though this can also be a separate position. Facilitators are responsible for scheduling, organizing and sharing documents, and monitoring participation. They briefly indicate that classroom interaction often involves an unfortunate reduction in uncertainty and that leadership can be gendered (e.g. conventions of female or male leadership, women denied leadership roles). 

The last part of the literature review talks about the role of technology and how different technologies can be used depending on time (synchronous or asynchronous) and space (co-located or remote) (i.e. the cool table on 466). I appreciate that they mention that collaboration depends on how the technology is being used and that all technology does not necessarily enhance communication.     

Heuristic and case study

The heuristic the authors propose is a series of framing questions in Table 18.3 (468) relating the seven components of collaboration (see above) to cognition/learning, small group processes, and technology. For example, one of the questions dealing with setting and technology was "how do different settings affect your group's use of technology?" (469). They state that the answers to some of these questions may be partially or completely predetermined (e.g. goal of grant, job titles). They end by stressing the importance of compromise and the unique challenges faced in different groups.

Reflecting on the example and using the heuristic in this chapter should help you minimize problems and maximize rewards, but expect each collaboration to involve unique challenges, disagreements, and setbacks. Ultimately, your ability to turn moments of difficulty into sites of productivity could make the difference between success and failure (473).  

Questions

1. Lowry et al. found that groups of three had higher quality interactions than groups of six (but not significantly so). They also had greater openness, accuracy and richness. I wish this chapter would have cited some other studies as well, but Lowry's research made me think a lot about collaboration in the classroom. For example, how important is group size? Should students work in both smaller and bigger groups, or just smaller groups? Should the instructor construct the groups or should students have some ability to decide? Should students work with the same people over the course of the semester or should the groups be switched up? 

2. Should we ask each student to pick a role (leader, facilitator, etc) during group work? 

3. When describing the difference between productive and unproductive conflict, the authors stress considering attitudes, self-confidence, motivation, and sense of responsibility. Later, they indicate that students may instead look for a leader who instead minimizes uncertainty and reduce conflict. Can we teach productive conflict? Should we talk about it? How can we get students to consider all of these variables?   

4. There are A LOT of questions and variables in the authors' heuristic, and the discussion questions make me think they realize that students will not address them all and that some might be more important than others. How might this heuristic be reduced to be more manageable? Might that be an exercise for students as well as modifying it for their own workplace?

5. What do you think of using Second Life (discussion question 8) or the scenario between working at home or at work (discussion question 10)?

Connections 

This chapter easily connects to several others we've read this semester. For example, "What is the Future of Technical Communication?" and this one both discuss intellectual complexity (i.e. wicked problems) and how collaboration has increased in contemporary settings. The chapter also connects to Hart-Davidson's chapter because they both emphasize that work in technical communication can be interdisciplinary. For example, "What are the Work Patterns of Technical Communication?" talks about all the different genres of the papers Elena is working on in the coffee shop, and the people working on Cassandra's team all have very different skill sets and backgrounds. In this case, it is interesting to think about what role technical communicators play, especially in a group vs. alone. For example, there is a database administrator (and assistant) on this team, and I'm curious about the difference between recruitment materials and draft documents in the task list (456). These tasks seemed clear-cut to me at first, but now they still seems vague, and I would like to know more about Cassandra's specific role.

The end of the chapter connects to Spilka's "Communicating Across Organizational Boundaries: A Challenge for Workplace Professionals". Spilka indicates that external goals may have to come before internal goals in work with multiple organizations, and the current chapter describes Cassandra's willingness to compromise on the brochure's design for the good of the team. The authors state: "Collaborators should be receptive to compromise, putting the collective goal ahead of individual interests" (472).  It is also apparent that Cassandra (and others in the group) know about information design; perhaps they learned from "What do Technical Communicators Need to Know about Information Design?". For example, they were concerned with brochures and thus how to structure visual content and materials in order "to make an argument or tell a story, creating purpose-driven groups..." (Schriver 390). Furthermore, Wysocki's chapter connects to this one in the discussion of new media and networking. Wysocki mentions games such as World of Warcraft and how they allow for interaction even when players are in different spaces. Similarly, Burnett et al. talk about how collaborators could communicate in remote locations, both synchronously and asynchronously.    

Here's a Heuristic: Solving Problems in Technical Communication

I really wanted to like this book before I even opened it; Solving Problems in Technical Communication sounds so definitive, so action-oriented! Party! Well, maybe. I opened it and immediately noticed differences between this book and the other texts we've read this semester. After all, the first sentence of the introduction states, "This book is for students who are leaning about the field of technical communication" (1). Though they are quick to add that people with "some experience" (1) could also use make use of their work, it functions more as an academic introduction for the new student, at least to me. Thus, I think it's useful that they bring up the functional, social, and workplace aspects of technical communication early (though their example of a "broad social concern" being users who desire to save paper is perhaps a bit flimsy). It has also made me think about whether or not I want to treat these as discrete subjects in my own course (between 101 and 402 I've been reflecting quite a bit on break down vs. integration), and I'd be interested to hear people's opinions about that in class.

I also enjoyed the focus on adaptability, because it stresses the importance of electronic literacy instead of computer literacy, but what troubled me was the invisible emphasis on trial and error. For example, they say, "you also learn (or should learn) that the ease with which e-mail can be misread in volatile situations suggests that, in some cases, calling for a face-to-face meeting will be slightly less efficient but more likely to be productive in the long run" (8). This sentence suggests to me that there are some people who will never learn what they "should learn" and that "in some cases" I should call a face-to-face meeting that will "most likely" be productive. In other words, there's a struggle between the straightforward rules and the intuition of it all. I do think that is what they are trying to stress with the heuristics in general (e.g. the final word section), but I wonder how much room there is for error in the workplace and the differences between performing trials in the classroom and in the 'real world'. If this book offers heuristics as places to start, how do we teach students when it is time to deviate and how to deviate, or is it enough to teach them that they exist in the first place? How do we "teach" intuition and does this vary based on the student or the teacher? Is this a goal of remediation? Are the ways their practice will be limited in the classroom similar what they might face in the future? Should we even try to mimic that?

After reading a few Selfe (and Selfe) pieces, I think the first chapter might be my least favorite of their pieces. I appreciate that they talk about the different techniques used to map the field and problems with each, but I'm unconvinced that clouds are the answer, if only because they also have an extreme amount of subjectivity. However, I do think that it could be a really cool exercise for students. For example, I like their idea of using resumes (or some other assignment) to generate a cloud, which could be analyzed using some of their questions from page 32. I'm simply not convinced that all of the adjustments and choices the generator of a cloud has to make (e.g. what texts to use, how to use/manipulate them, what to exclude or enhance) really allows someone to get at the definition of technical communication. If you are making choices about what to include and how to include it, might you already have some idea of what your definition is? Furthermore, the cloud cannot function without interpretation. For example, there seem to be many terms that appear once (problematic?), and a person looking at one would have no idea about the relationship between writing and communication and how that has changed over time.

The Davidson chapter made me wonder about the use of the personal in technical communication texts for students, and I wonder how common that is. We've now moved from Amanda to Elena, and later we'll hear about Kate and and a variety of other early practitioners. However, Elena is the only one in the first section to be "made-up," as a composite character. The author states that her "job titles and work patterns are borrowed from several real people" (73) and it made me question how one would quantify several. Is several enough to describe "folks like Elena" as "contemporary technical communicators" (51), especially considering the fact that the field is too diverse to define? How does this differ from describing several real people and which would you (as a reader) prefer? This article did make me come back to users and usability testing in the classroom, and I liked the discussion on 'usability' vs. 'usefulness'; it was cool to hear about some of the studies throughout, and texting is an accessible example.

Henry's chapter brought back ethnography and autoethnography, and I was wondering how difficult it currently is to publish an autoethnography and the ways in which we might motivate someone to publish a scholarly work instead of a professional one. I appreciated that the chapter outlined various ways in which one could use a cultural analysis (e.g. journal, report, informal notes etc.) It was also entertaining to see the concessions made to students. For example, after talking about conducting an interview, the article continues: "Though these steps may seem time consuming..." (87). Yes, perhaps being ethical is time consuming. I also chuckled at the survival of the fittest part in the conclusion, though it's an apt generalization.

"It's a hard life running in and out of the workplace!"
www.australiangeographic.com

I found "How Can Technical Communicators Develop as Both Students and Professionals" interesting, and I'm curious to hear what the class thinks about technical writing as a profession (or not) and the authors' thoughts. I had some trouble with the statements "In many ways, the road to professional success seems easy to understand and navigate. Almost everyone has at least a basic understanding of how to find a job and keep it" (100) as well as "If work is not an option, then the time may be perfect to earn a graduate degree" (111). Also, I enjoyed reading the professionals' stories and the emphasis on pragmatic steps and tools, but I'm curious how this would affect students (these three all sound as if they have their lives perfectly together). Also, should we be teaching networking skills or is that up to the student? If we should, how might we do that? For example, should we have students set up profiles on professional networking sites? Would using some of these discussion questions to point out that internship opportunities etc. are available be enough?

Porter's work is immediately connected to the user-centered approach (he even cites Johnson), and it was interesting to see how it was presented for an audience of students. I very much appreciated that they talked about all the definitions of theory and connected different ways of viewing theory to the different ways of viewing writing. I was hoping that the article would address what Max did as well as what he should do (I often prefer more specifics) but I thought it was a useful general introduction to move students from thinking exclusively about documents to thinking about users. On the other hand, Swarts article inspired more thoughts about distinct assignments. For example, it might be interesting to have students do a modified version of question 1 in the discussion questions along with the drawing activity we did in class the other week. As in many of the other articles we've discussed, this one also stresses the importance of context (though I have to admit I'm still not sure I quite understand the purpose of Figures 6.3 and 6.4).

By this point, Longo and Fountain's chapter sounds pretty familiar (Side note: Has anyone read Spurious Coin?), though I did appreciate the humor. Oh, file cabinets. It reminds me of a conversation I was part of in another course where we talked about chain novels and whether an author was more constrained within a paper or by the conventions of genre (the discussion on 173) and also our earlier discussion about Angel and whether or not it was more useful to just keep using it because we finally had it figured out. I'm also curious about socialization as a two-way street and how it is influenced by power dynamics. Does socialization always require more sacrifice from the newcomer to "absorb the culture" (176). Should some cultures not be absorbed, and how does that fit in with enjoying the work, pay, etc.? I think these questions also relate to discussion questions 5 and 6. Lastly, Mehlenbacher's chapter mentions Janine's useful ability to work under tight deadlines, and it makes me wonder about the time students will have for reflection in their career. There is a definite emphasis in this text on being "reflective problem solvers" (3), but I wonder about the balance between reflection and problem-solving, especially when the reflective part is largely invisible compared to the desired problem-solving one. As Mehlenbacher states, "Given the pressures to solve problems quickly while working with complex problems in ill-structured environments, the technical communicator's ability to achieve what Bazerman (1988) describes as "rhetorical self-consciousness" is exceedingly difficult" (193). It's interesting that this is the first chapter in which that has been brought up (at least that I noticed). How do we teach students to transcend this idea of information overload? Have we?    



 
  

       

Research and Pedagogy in CPT Part 2

The first thing I learned while reading the third section of Critical Power Tools is that Bernadette Longo must be a pretty important person in technical communication research, and you should probably cite her if you want to discuss cultural context and rhetorical boundaries. I was, in fact, most interested in her article because I'm partial to discussions about this qualitative/quantitative dichotomy and what knowledge is privileged and why. Without attempting to summarize the article, Longo argues that we need to examine technical writing beyond the limits of an organization and pushes for cultural studies as a part of technical writing research. I understand her points; however, I cannot help but think that other discourses and institutions have even more power through the guise of appearing "scientific". For example, Longo mentions that the engineers' data was ignored during the Challenger crisis and, for many, no amount of research is going to convince them that climate change is human-driven, because that would have economic consequences. Also, scientists may "...make princesses out of all these Cinderellas" (117), but we have to make sure to carefully quantify how sure we are that each one is really royalty. As I was reading this, an NPR report was discussing how confidence intervals are being linked to adjectives; for example, 'very likely' is 90% confident and 'extremely likely' is 95% confident. Thus, I do not think that the public always sees science or numbers as offering them "objective truths" (123).

"It's extremely likely that this outfit is going to allow you to dazzle the prince, and you know what that means!" 

I like the statement by Saur:

Regulations based on objective empirical data and experimentation can reinforce and support workers' subjective experience...we do not close a coal mine every time a miner feels a chill or hears an unexpected noise. As McCloskey concludes,"The alternative to modernism is not irrationalism" (168; cf. Dawes "Irrationality," Rational as cited in Saur, 183).

I see science as attempting to gather enough information to draw conclusions and to be useful, and I think the same is true for cultural studies. For example, one person may notice how an object is acting in a historical context, another author may notice something else and add to it, and another may use that historical context to examine a different object. Furthermore, this article (and others) brought up additional questions for me:

1. Is an "incitement to discourse" enough to validate cultural studies? Isn't that the goal of all (okay, the vast majority of) research?
2. Doesn't theory drive methodology, or am I confused?
3. Is technical writing conquering "users' native know-how" and transforming it into powerful scientific discourse? (117) Is it building on know-how? What might happen if we compare it to the goal later proposed by Salvo: "the technical communicator takes raw data...and transforms it into usable knowledge" (232)?
4. If we place a high value on speculative knowledge, does that bring up other power struggles? For example, do we value the speculative knowledge of a professor from Harvard over one from a community college? Doesn't the institution still reign?
5. What would technical writing and scientific discourse look like if it were 'open' (Salvo 236)? Is uncertainty a part of that? Would it be more exciting to read a text that includes the relationship between the author and research? What about the engineer, the technical writer, and the research?

I was happy to read Britt's article after Longo's because I was wondering how we should define an institution. However, I would like to know more about the levels she purposes:

At the most local level are sites such as composition classrooms; at the most global level there are disciplines (such as English studies) and macroinstitutions (such as the family or state). Situation in between are what Porter et al. call microinsitiutions/organizations (such as literacy centers or writing centers (Britt 135).

I like that the authors mention that we cannot always critique the local level to be effective, because that's part of my argument in 501. I also understand that institutions rely on rhetoric, and I thought it was so interesting how they emerge as taken-for-granted. However, I'm still not 100% sure I could define one. For instance, how do we know what separates a macroinstituation from a microinstitution? Is discipline synonymous with institution? Does that make 'the university' a macroinstitution? Therefore, when reading Grabill's article, I appreciated that he articulated the distinction between method and methodology, and I thought it was an interesting way to show that methodology is "shaped by a number of issues" (154), including ideology.

In terms of pedagogy, Henry's article reiterated technical writers' second class statuses, their tendency to be neglected, and their assumed role as "handbooks" (208). He suggests that technical writing in the classroom suffers because faculty hired to teach it are over-worked and underpaid; they don't have time to do meaningful work. Also, most of them don't have technical writing experience. After our discussion last week, I wonder how important experience in that specific arena is? Also, could there be problems with autoethonography if one is asked to do it without anonymity? One of the science programs I have heard of allows students to work for a government agency and write a chapter as part of their dissertation. Should it be problematic that organizations might read this work, knowing who published it?

Scott's article was useful because it provided some specific pedagogical strategies and examples. However, I think that it is possible to show that personal success and "civic involvement and democratic social reform" (242) can connect in helpful and motivating ways. Also, is service-learning the same as having an internship with a non-profit? How do we distinguishing volunteering from service-learning? I also found myself getting confused about his stance at certain points. For example, in the last paragraph of 246, he talks about how certain instructors would place questions and reflections near the end, which I'm guessing he is arguing against, but I was left waiting for a wrap up that he never provides. Later, when he fully articulates his stance, I appreciate it; I like that reflection is not an "afterthought" (250) or "more of an exercise [students complete] for their instructor and grade" (250), because I have experienced that before. Wills' work is also interesting, but I wonder how her argument would change (or wouldn't change) if she was discussing teaching undergraduates instead of graduate students. I also found some of the quotes in the afterward to be particularly powerful.

"...we might begin with the simple fact that language, as Jim Berlin often wrote, is never innocent. Language matters. The uses of language matter" (272).

Is Casper Really a Friendly Ghost? (An Examination of "The Phantom Machine")

Reading "The Phantom Machine: The Invisible Ideology of Email (A Cultural Critique)" immediately reminded me of of Johnson's User-Centered Technology. The authors argue that as technology becomes naturalized (mundane), it becomes invisible and thus innocuous. However, instead of examining technology as a broad category, Moses and Katz focus specifically on email and the way it problematically conceals its ideology, which leads to life feeling a lot like a project.

"In a culture that has seen the work week increase and leisure decline, this paradox of electronic communication points to one of contemporary life's great ironies: Labor-saving devices make more work" (Lee 324 as cited in Moses and Katz 71).  

Katz and Moses are quick to point out that email is commonly viewed as very efficient and "freeing" in that it allows for quick communication without physical proximity and lacks many of the conventions that define a traditional business memo. Therefore, it is often seen as democratic, even considered a "social panacea" (72) by some, because it removes social inequalities, at least to a certain extent (standardized structure, informal). However, other critics suggest that the internet and email simply repackage traditional power structures or potentially create new ones. For example, they mention the U.S. dominance on the web, the reality of internet-poor places and peoples, and government intervention. Katz and Moses suggest that more work is needed to supplement the little research performed on email and ideology and indicate that their article is not meant to bash or praise email but "critique the hidden ideologies that underlie mail as a cultural practice" (74) using the theory of Habermas.

"Much like the Sprint cell phone commercials where problems in relationships are cured by the purchase of a cell phone, the general conception is that email facilitates and enhances personal communication and even personal relations" (75).

Habermas examines the relationship between work and communication and suggests that technology shifts the focus from a balance between work and interaction to work. He's also concerned with the disappearance of the distinction between work and leisure and the way technology makes itself normal and invisible, especially the relationship between technological ideology and the "capitalistic goals of production" (77), so that one appears to determine the other. Furthermore, the authors argue that, unlike other forms of technology, users cannot choose to use email to either maintain or cross the boundary between the workplace and "private life". Therefore, life is a project.

Habermas also outlines two possible relationships between work and communication.

1. Traditional Institutional Framework: interaction is controlled via social norms, common expectations, if rules are broken also enforced by punishments which are determined socially, "systems of ideals (myths, religion, laws) authorize political power" (79), focus on individual and domination-free communication, may have purposive-rational subsystems

2. Purposive-rational system: system controlled by technical rules, technology and science rule, actions motivated by desired outcomes, outcomes also determined by technology e.g. if the rules aren't followed, the task is not completed successfully

The article then jumps to talking about how email began: it was the result of the the United States Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Their aim was to have researchers share data to "speed up production" (81). In addition, when Ray Tomlinson invented "network mail" he communicated with another computer in the same room in order to see if the technical possibility was there. This focus on efficiency and productivity has continued to reign in email, as evidenced by the designs of Microsoft and IBM (see page 82 for examples).

"Improved general communication is really a spin-off" (83). 

Therefore, though providers like Hotmail cater to keeping in touch with family and friends, they are still focused on productivity and the intuitiveness of tasks.  In addition, the relationship between Microsoft and Hotmail allows leisure to interfere in the workplace. Though Microsoft and Hotmail offer some control to users in that they will change aspects of email in response to popular demands (making interface look like Outlook), the authors assert that it is only the illusion of control: "We do not own the company, we do not own the means of production, we do not have the power to make changes; we only have the power to imbibe expectations, and make suggestions based on them" (87). We do not realize that these are ideological products, and that we want what is already being "manufactured" by the purposive-rational system in applications (e.g. the calendar function in Hotmail). Blurring expectations means we want the same things we have at work in the home; a purposive-rational system conditions both the economic and emotional.

Because of this system, we now have new behavioral expectations:

1. When a person sends an email, he/she expects the recipient to receive it and be aware of the information instantaneously

2. Because email is quick, people expect that they will be able to respond faster

3. One should always be able to check his/her email: "emailoholism" and "communication enslavement" (90)

FYI when this article was published, 42% of Americans who used email checked in on vacation!

Also, though email doesn't have rigid rules, its standardization (the technology) determines its conventions (e.g. the header section). Not placing something in the subject line, for example, would not change the format and would also result in efficiency failure. Furthermore, it is the technology that determines what the email is going to look like in this purposive-rational way (and puts less emphasis on formatting due to software compatibility). There is no punishment determined by society if a non-optional rule is broken, but a reality that the email has not been sent and even breaking optional rules can result in misunderstandings or difficulties.   

The authors then talk about the shift to more informal language in email (e.g. salutations or lack thereof, writing more like speaking, less emphasis on grammar and spelling). They indicate that other scholars see this as a result of mixing the oral and literary modes and personal relations. However, they say that the informality "may be based on the values of efficiency and speed in communication...[a] move away from rules established within the traditional social institutional framework to those inscribed in the purposive-rational institutional framework" (96). Email and technology change the rhetorical situation and, therefore, relationships. This influences the way we teach (informal vs. formal language, away from rhetorical strategy and toward conciseness).    

I found the statistics and facts in the article's conclusion to be some of the most interesting information in the piece. For example, they mention that productivity is raised by $9,000 dollars per person due to email, but some companies are banning it due to a lack of essential face-to-face communication. They conclude that people are very dependent on email, with some even stating that it is their preferred mode of communication, but such technology can also lead to "communication overload" and stress. 

"Most people, if they think about the increase in work at all, probably see it as just an incidental effect of email use, and not part of the essential nature of email technology. However, this analysis reveals that increased productivity is not a coincidental extension of email technology, but the result of it" (99).

Questions:

1. Moses and Katz say, "What's at stake here is changing how people relate to each other" (85). How true do you think this is? Has email fundamentally changed the way you communicate? Is it different than a letter or phone call in means-to-an end communication?

2. Are these "computer violations" important simply because they make technology visible? Is this a good thing? How else might we make technology visible and will this make people think about it more?

3. Is the transition from traditional rules to the "freer" conventions of email always more freeing (e.g. I'm sometimes very nervous when I'm trying to formulate an email salutation)? Is this just the "transition period"? Are there still traditional roles in the closing information after one's name?

4. How is Skype influencing communication? For example, should we prepare our students for a Skype interview? A phone interview? How long would that take? Is it any different than a face-to-face interview?

5. My last article addressed teaching new and fading technologies; is the business letter a fading technology? Is formal/academic language a fading technology?

6. What do we most want personal email to do that professional email cannot? If productivity isn't the focus of such email, how do we make 'reaching out' the focus?

Connections:

Besides the aforementioned connection to Johnson's work, this article relates to Dilger's "Extreme Usability and Technical Communication" in that email could be considered a system that is plagued by extreme usability. For example, many of the product endorsements described by Moses and Katz stress ease of use (which also contributes to a transparency or invisibility in technology). In addition, both articles mention that the user has the illusion of the technology being user-centered. When he is discussing the fact that businesses attempt know what customers want before they do, Dilger says, "Obviously, in such a relationship, there is room for businesses to shape "needs" to be congruent with profitability, but little room for consideration of the user-centered" (55). A few sentences later he connects this to the ideology of consumer culture, the same production-driven ideology Moses and Katz attempt to get readers to acknowledge.

Interesting questions come to mind when one compares this article to "The Technical Communicator as Author". For instance, do emails have authors or are they like "private letters"? Can email ever be truly private? Does email help employees become the robots that the recruiter wants at the end of Slack et al.? Both articles deal with teaching implications as well (in rather large and perhaps intimidating ways). Is it the job of the technical communicator to ensure that the public understands that email is not value neutral or reveal information that organizations would prefer remain hidden?

Education and Electronic Literacy

The problem addressed by Selfe and Hawisher in their article "A Historical Look at Electronic Literacy: Implications for the Education of Technical Communicators" is that, though electronics are now ubiquitous in the workplace, "...the profession itself knows less than it might about the social, economic, political, and educational factors that affect the acquisition and practice of electronic literacy, in either preprofessional or professional environments, and the nature of the support systems that technical communicators need..." (505).  In order to help solve these issues, the authors examine how technical communicators have gained electronic literacy between 1978 and 2000. They focus on important factors influencing this acquisition and possible patterns that could inform more effective teaching.

Thus, the authors analyze the voluntary written responses from 55 members (interestingly, 46 females and 9 males) of a listserv dedicated to technical writing and conduct face-to-face interviews with 4 additional participants. They acknowledge the limitations of their sample (e.g. only one person of color, almost all currently consider themselves middle to upper-middle class, mean age 40), so they say that their article does not attempt to generalize results but rather provides a rich and personal history of electronic literacy acquisition (510).

Unsurprisingly, they find that autobiographical accounts of technological interaction are very different based on age, early exposure, and socioeconomic status. For example, in the 1970s and 1980s, interactions with technology involved programming and the transition from horror stories and FORTRAN to a less hostile but still limited view of electronic literary (an introduction to computer literary). Though two of the participants they interview, Barbara Evans and Doug Williams, have very different backgrounds (the authors describe Barbara as exceptionally talented with writing and technology though her life was full of ups and downs, while Doug is a regular, successful, 'middle-of-the-road' man), they both learn electronic literary largely in a workplace environment.

Conversely, in the 1980s and 1990s, college-aged students started receiving informal training in electronic literacy because computers were now such a part of everyday life, and they often relied on friends, manuals, and younger siblings to teach them instead of parents or teachers. Again, though the two interviewees' (Pauline Patterson and Angela Ashton) stories are quite different (Pauline is African American and from a working class family, while Angela is white and from a middle-class background), they both achieve a sophistication with computers during their education that Barbara and Doug had to obtain through years of work. However, in these narratives, the authors also stress the difference in exposure to technology between students based on race and economic status.

These autobiographies, along with their own experiences, lead Selfe and Hawisher to make six observations:

#1 A technical communicator who is fully literate now must be able to "read, write, and navigate in technological contexts" (528).

#2 Literacies have life-spans influenced by cultural ecology and technical communicators need to be flexible in response

#3 Race and class (and possibly age and gender) all influence the acquisition of digital literacy, and educational and professional institutions should provide programming to help ameliorate these effects

#4 Teachers in technical communication "may need to be increasingly active in learning to value and teach both emerging and fading literacy practices" (532).

#5 Technical communicators must learn emerging literacies from active self-engagement and interactions with peers

#6 We need to see electronic literacy as part of a cultural ecology in order to address the digital divide

Questions:

1. How has being able to "read, write, and navigate in technological contexts" (528) changed since 2000? How do we figure out what we need to teach in electronic literacy and what students are already familiar with? Is computer literacy a given? Is it still okay to learn on the job or informally (and does that carry the same weight)?

2. How do we as teachers decide what fading literacies to value? (I'm thinking about the controversy over some schools no longer teaching cursive, for example.) Is it simply uselessly nostalgic to miss some of that know-how, like Johnson claims in User-centered Technology?

3. How do we get students to take charge of their own electronic literacy and learn from peers while still valuing their formal education? Is it simply about providing them with the opportunities to use technology?

Connections:

One of the aims of this article is to address electronic literacy in the larger context of cultural ecology and therefore confront issues related to age, gender, race, etc. As evidenced by the title, the first article in chapter 6, "Learning Intercultural Communication Competence," also stresses the importance of the cultural component of technical communication. Thus, both works want readers to acknowledge diversity, the first explicit step in Beamer's intercultural learning model. In the following article, Thrush further examines the importance of multicultural awareness for technical communicators. She says to avoid claims such as "people are really all alike underneath" (416), because it implies a sense of cultural imperialism. By using personal narratives, Selfe and Hawisher underline individual differences that are also dangerous to ignore, even if these stories have the same outcome overall. Lastly Thrush, Selfe, and Hawisher all say that workplace diversity and the effect of subcultures are not well studied even within the United States.

Reading Lay's article, "Feminist theory and the Redefinition of Technical Communication" made me see the ethnographers stand-point in my article. For example, "ethnography does not claim that anyone using the same methods would come to the same conclusions" (438), and Selfe and Hawisher are careful to claim that their results are not able to be generalized, that they are providing a "rich history" instead of the "similarities or universals" (Lay, 438) sought by traditional science. They also align with the next article in making gender visible and echo some early feminist critics that women need "equal access...to education, credentials, and job opportunities" (Gurak and Bayer, 453). Though Selfe and Hawisher do not often engage specifically with gender in this essay (other than to say that it may determine whether or not an individual becomes electronically literate) they do provide the specific example of single-parent homes having less internet access, especially homes where the single parent is the mother.

Looking at definitions of important terms is useful for drawing connections in chapter 7. First and foremost, Self and Hawisher define electronic literacy as being able to communicate online. They state, "we mean the practices involved in reading, writing, and exchanging information in online environments as well as the values associated with such practices-social, cultural, political, educational" (506), and claim that their definition of electronic literacy is synonymous to digital or technological literary. What they want to avoid is talking about is simply computer literacy, which is the skill set required to operate a computer. Conversely, when Breuch defines technological literacy she encompasses both electronic and computer literacy; however, she reveals the dangers of taking a tool-based approach to technology and, even citing Selfe, acknowledges the importance of context, the social, political, and cultural factors that are linked to technology. Furthermore, though they do not specifically mention electronic literacy, Selber, Johnson-Eilola, and Selfe also indicate the importance of the social environment and cultural context. In looking toward the future of technical communication in the final chapter, Ornatowski also brings in society, this time to emphasize the importance of the technical communicator's role. "...in a society increasingly driven by technology, the technical communicator is becoming an important voice in determining how the issues involving technology...are framed and approached...Controversies over technologies often also reflect other issues and broader tensions in society" (597).

Negotiating Cross-Boundary Communication

In her article "Communicating Across Organizational Boundaries: A Challenge for Workplace Professionals", Rachel Spilka asserts that communicating outside of one's own organizational unit can be difficult and confusing. The act remains problematic because "little is known about how to interact and negotiate across organizational boundaries" (372). Spilka proposes to solve the problem by discussing the results of a longitudinal qualitative research project, including an overview of the research that has been done, the costs and benefits of cross-boundary communication in two case studies, the most effective strategies, and the study's implications.

Case #1

A small division of the state government, the Soil and Water Division (SWD), wants to create a memorandum with other agencies to define duties of different levels of government on a urban conversation program. Difficulties they encountered included an unwillingness of other organizations to (a) collaborate in the first place and (b) trust them during the collaboration.

Case #2

The upper-level management of the SWD of the state government is forming their plans for the next five years and asks for input from lower-level workers. However, they only listen to lower-level workers during early meetings, and very few of their suggestions are incorporated into the final plan, breeding resentment.

Bottom Line:

The inability to effectively communicate across boundaries is bad.

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Thus, it is surprising that little research has been done in the past 15 years, especially by scholars in rhetoric and communication. The article suggests that it is perhaps because qualitative studies within organizations are still relatively recent.

Spilka's observations from these two cases suggest groups should share a common goal or attribute in order to be successful, but also have dissimilarities to ensure that the groups need one another. The SWD benefited from relationships with other organizations through access to their resources and an association that helped increase their status, but had problems balancing internal and external goals and values, which caused tension. The SWD also had to deal with incompatible internal goals (empowering others vs. becoming indispensable to districts) and a rapid turnover of personnel.

Strategies Employed:

Social

1.  Consider goals and needs of other organizations involved
2. Try to fulfill all goals, but acknowledge that external ones may need to come first
3. Accept that some internal goals may not be productive
4. Always display public loyalty to other organizations
5. Learn as much as possible about other organizations and context
6. Don't act on a problem until you know all the information
7. Always work to maintain power of individual organizations working together
8. Be proactive
9. Volunteer for leadership roles and be involved
10. Determine which organization has ultimate authority
11. Educate others about their social roles
12. Display solidarity in some circumstances

Rhetorical

1. Make sure documents are clear, accurate, and detailed
2. Ensure that organizations in partnership are visible and acknowledged
3. Use reports and evaluation checklists to justify work and accomplishments
4. Repeatedly explain the organization's responsibilities
5. Use visual mapping
6. Change wording in later documents (negative outcome)
7. Watch timing of information and what facts to present
8. Express gratitude, but make your organization very visible
9. Cite information from other organizations to increase own authority

Spilka concludes with implications for other organizations that are thinking about cross-boundary communications; her suggestions include trying some of the above strategies, analyzing the goals and communication tactics of the partnership organization early on, and considering ethics and complications.

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"Educators could make a stronger effort to diversify and expand the types of rhetorical situations their students encounter in courses, particularly in terms of providing them with the experience of communicating with varied, complex internal and external audience with different, possibly conflicting, goals" (389).

Questions

1. When readers are first introduced to the case studies, a lot of the costs are emphasized (tensions, mistrust, etc.). However, Spilka later lists a plethora of effective strategies they employed. How effective were these relationships in reality? How do the other organizations feel about the collaboration? What was the result of the divide between lower-level and upper-level management? Should you ask other organizations or organizational units to be part of the process in the first place, if you know you are not going to value their input?

2. Should newly formed organizations use cross-organizational collaboration in the same way as older or more powerful organizations? Similarly, how does size influence this dynamic? 

3.  How do we decide what represents an "organizational unit"? (Spilka talks about the importance of related questions on 389.)

4. Do workers have more practice with cross-boundary communication than we might think? For example, is collaborating on a paper a cross-organizational activity (e.g. order of author's names, acknowledgements, etc.)

5. Are some of these strategies common sense and, if they are, do we really need to study them?

6. Is communicating only within the department or even a departmental unit the exception instead of the norm (quote on 373) now?

Connections

It is fairly easy to connect this article with others, because it covers a great deal of social and rhetorical strategies for communication that may also apply to users and members within  an organization. In addition, many of these articles bring up cross-boundary communication. For example, "What is Information Design?" by Janice C. Redish suggests that it is important to consider goals for the product early in the process, and Spilka expands on that idea to consider the goals of all the organizations involved. Furthermore, Redish states: "We may specialize or call on colleagues who specialize in helping us with aspects of the process, such as user and task analysis, usability evaluations, copyediting, and proofreading" (215). This is likely to involve collaboration between organizations or organizational units to produce a technical document and may require consideration of who has authority etc.

The next article by Mirel, "Following User-Centered Design Practices", states that any project that considers usability has a variety of objectives, such as enjoyment and ease of learning, and that development teams "choose to build for some dimensions while neglecting others based on project deadlines, resources, and other constraints" (221). Though Spilka asserts that that an organization should to attempt to fulfill all goals, she also admits that external goals may have to be given priority, given the constraint of conflict. Overall, it is a lot about prioritizing. The following article by Kramer and Bernhardt emphasizes general rules about style, and I feel like Spilka attempts to do the same for cross-boundary communication, though both admit that the 'rules' can be expanded and refined.

"The Rhetoric of Design: Implications for Corporate Intranets" also indicates that goals should be conceptualized and considered early, connecting it to Redish and Spilka, and stresses the importance of simplicity and clarity (274). This directly aligns with Spilka's first rhetorical strategy. I find it interesting that Spilka does not directly mention the need for consistency within communications with the same other organization(s) or even in cross-boundary communication in general, and I wonder what she would have to say about that. Foreshadowing the next section, should there be a genre for cross-boundary communication, for example?

As aforementioned, the next article by Berkenkotter and Huckin discusses the sociocognitive view of genres. They state that genres are not just static but flexible and changing. "Genre knowledge embraces both form and content, including a sense of what content is appropriate to a particular purpose in a particular situation at a particular point in time" (294). This relates to Spilka's realization that organizations need to be careful of what information to present and when (rhetorical strategy #7) and also that they need to consider content (e.g. rhetorical strategies #1, #4 and #9) as well as form (e.g. rhetorical strategies #2 and #5).

The next article by Freedman and Adam discusses the differences between participation in the classroom and participation in the workplace. They talk about issues of authority (interns not taking the advice of newcomers, for example, or simply referring to it as her or his opinion), and authority is also something that needs to be dealt with in cross-boundary communication. By taking away the teacher-student evaluation framework, issues of collaboration and who plays what role are bound to occur. The dismissive interns remind me of the upper-level management who removed the comments of the lower-level workers, though the situation is, to an extent, reversed.

To generalize, the last two articles before Spilka also address how the classroom and the workplace should interact. Spinuzzi suggests considering the integration of activity networks into classroom practices, and Blakeslee talks about classroom-workplace collaborations, their issues, and their value. Audience also comes up in Spilka's article when she says, "Students might encounter his type of complex audience in internships [Spinuzzi], but they could also encounter it in courses requiring them to produce documentation for actual clients, reviewers, and multiple audience segments [Blakeslee]..." (389). It is interesting to note that she mentions that adapting to varies genres and activity networks have been well studied, though their methods seem to be what she suggests for the classroom (see above quote).

"Human language (including writing) can be understood only from the perspective of a society rather than a single individual" (110)

In the article "The Social Perspective and Pedagogy in Technical Communication", Thralls and Blyler suggest that social pedagogy is often problematically considered a uniform concept. Thus, they intend to describe the four distinct categories of social pedagogy, including their disparate ideologies, aims, and classroom practices.

1. The Social Constructionist Pedagogy

Communities shape and determine discourse via "communal norms" (111) 

Aim: Acculturation, participation in community discourse, collaboration

Classroom Practices: case studies (both researching and creating), write in situation (internships), peer review, group writing, computer-supported collaboration

2. The Ideologic Pedagogy

Community norms should be resisted, because they ignore hierarchies/power structures and leave language unquestioned

Aim: emancipation, controlling community norms instead of being controlled

Classroom Practices: Analyzing conventions, problematizing discourse, experimentation with alternative discourse, focus on larger good, teleconferencing, computer lab for breaking traditional relations

3. Social Cognitive Pedagogy

Community norms internalized by individual to determine how they view writing tasks, "doubly social" (118)

Aim: Focus on acculturation to situation, metacognitive awareness

Classroom Practices: reflect on writing through self-study, use experts as models, research large social topics, heuristics, role-play

"...constructionist, ideologic, and social cognitivist pedagogies all embrace the idea that a system of norms enables communication within communities and thus links writers, writing, and culture...paralogic hermeneutic pedagogy thus poses a radical departure from other socially based pedagogies" (119).

4.  Paralogic Hermenuetic Pedagogy

Communication cannot be codified or taught because it is not systematic, occurs instead at the moment conversation takes place as codes are interpreted; external view

Aim: "passing theory"-reach understanding through guesses and assumptions of words' meanings, writing open-ended

Classroom Practices: dialogic discourse, one-on-one student and teacher interaction, no case studies

Implications

Authors suggest that melding these viewpoints is impossible, giving examples. Furthermore, they suggest that the paralogic hermenuetic pedagogy would have drastic institutional implications, including the breakdown of the traditional classroom and a reduction in student-to-teacher ratios.      

Questions

1. Why do the authors leave out the institutional implications for the other three stances? Because they all allow for a technical writing classroom? 

2. Why do social constructionists oppose cognitive principles? Do they disregard social concerns? (124)

3. Are the programs that are mentioned as useful for collaboration in the social constructionist pedagogy (e.g. "word processing, computer conferencing, electronic mail..." (113)) really specific to a certain pedagogy? Can computers aid us no matter what our aim is?

4. What pedagogy do you identify with (or do your objectives identify with)? Were you aware of that when you wrote them?

5. Should students have a say in classroom pedagogy, or should they at least be aware of what the pedagogies are? What would happen if we had a mix of classroom strategies?

Connections

1. The first article by Miller shows how a positivist approach has been replaced (or should be replaced) by a communalist one; this article goes on to describe the differences between these communal approaches.

2. Johnson stresses the importance of comprehension, the differences between historians, sociologists, and philologists, including the 'internalist' and 'externalist' views of historians; the same terminology is used here.

3. Durack discusses how women have been historically underrepresented as technical writers as well as inventors etc. and might agree with the ideologic pedagogy, which resists norms (and dominant way of knowing) and thus offers more power to women.

402 Course Objectives

1. Create and recreate technical research documents with an emphasis on format, audience, and style
2. Analyze how rhetorical theories are used in existing technical and professional documents, including what you find 'effective' and 'ineffective'
3. Understand how to successfully construct professional documents associated with the hiring process (e.g. resumes, cover letters, and interview prep.)
4. Research and respond to ethical concerns in professional and technical writing

"But language is also power. It can persuade, control, and manipulate" (Johnson 18).

In User-centered Technology, Johnson argues that we need to move from a system-centered view of technology to a user-centered view of technology. The main problems he identifies are as follows:

1. The categorization of technology as mundane has made it almost invisible (he later applies this claim to users and technical communicators as well); thus, little research has been has been performed, especially from a user-centered perspective. This makes "the knowledge of everyday practice" (5) controlled by technology and 'experts' who design it.

2. Furthermore, technology's invisibility creates a devaluing of practice (and thus an emphasis on formal learning). Johnson asks readers to consider who can better judge the usefulness (or 'good') of a home, for example, the designer or the people (users) that actually live in it.

3. When users are not 'invisible' they are often categorized as idiots, downplaying user knowledge. Therefore, technical documents need to be "dumbed down" and either separate features from use (system-centered documentation) or simply address 'the generalized user', which fails to consider the complex nature of the actual situation (user-friendly/task documentation)

4. Technical writing courses have been accused of requiring students to simply fill in forms or neglecting the history of the discipline. They also have the danger of becoming too text-based.

 "Technology is, like rhetoric and fire, a paradox of power and powerfulness" (111).

Throughout the book, action and 'doing' are emphasized as a solutions to many of the problems cited. My impression is that, to Johnson, being passive is just as negative as being considered passive (e.g. the user). Users need to be a part of the decision-making process, which involves an appreciation and elevation of practice and 'metis', the ability to act quickly and prudently while remaining flexible in a set of ever-changing conditions, i.e. cunning intelligence (53). Thus, Johnson not only wants to rework Kinneavy's Rhetorical Triangle (35) so that it becomes the User-Centered Rhetorical Triangle (36), he also wants to insert it into the ever-expanding circles that form 'The User-Centered Rhetorical Complex of Technology" in Figure 2.7 (39).

The figure indicates that environment, culture, and history are important as well as communities/disciplines and the distinctions that come along with learning, doing, and producing. While the definitions of these categories are sometimes vague (i.e. community), I start to understand his implications more when he offers examples (a real strength of the book as a whole). For instance, Johnson uses bicycles to talk about users and non-users a.k.a cyclists and anti-cyclists (95), groups that give different meanings to technology. These meanings lead to "interpretative flexibility" (95), a way of making diverse conclusions from the same set of data. Later, in his discussion of computer instructions, he advocates for writing that is specific to users' work and the tasks they are performing (based on environment and culture). This may also involve a shift based on media (online vs. print) and one that allows for 'reading' in the context of doing.

Side note: The section on using instructions as a last resort really resonated with me, as I come from a long line of folks who hate technical documentation. Though my father (pictured above) is very mechanically-inclined, I think I have seen him pick up an instruction manual once. However, this make me wonder about gender bias and the idea that the need for technical documentation is 'unmanly', similar to asking for directions.   

Johnson also stresses the importance of addressing technological determinism, the idea that technology is the driver of change, that there is an inevitable and linear mode of progression. Johnson refers to the mechanical tomato harvester, which put many small growers out of business, as one example (105). When the workers attempted to fight back, the university (a co-developer) replied that if they stopped that they would be forced to stop all practical research. "After all, the university argues, how can you stand in the way of progress?" (106). Though his use of examples, readers understand that he is concerned with history and ethics in technical communication as well, and these are indeed brought up as important in his chapter on educational pedagogy.

Questions:

1. What do you think of Ellul's claim that "ancients could choose which techniques they wanted to use and which they wanted to ignore" (103) but now "technology...is a living thing that can (does) control every aspect of human existence? Is how Ellul defines technique different than the 'way of making' that Johnson uses earlier (18)?

2. I wonder what Johnson would say about a user's (my) propensity to Google a problem that I might be having with my computer or a certain program and the different forums that exist. It seems like a more user centered approach in that one can (sometimes) get answers that are task-specific and that users are (in part) producers. However, there is also a lot of "dumbing down", unrelated or useless responses, etc. I find that it often takes me a very long time to find a solution; however, is this still better?

I typed in a random excel error message to offer an example of what one of the response threads might look like.
Link: http://www.computing.net/answers/dbase/runtime-error-1004-in-excel/764.html

(He does mention that forums are increasing on page 120, but could not find his opinion about this or if this was really a different strategy)

3. Along with this, can we be 'too specific' in terms of task/discipline? Does Johnson seem to think so?
  
4. Do you agree with Johnson when he talks about nostalgia? "The hand-wringing associated with nostalgic sentimentality solves next to nothing, as we have seen in recent calls for a return to basics in education, which merely advocate a return to a time that exists only in the minds of those who have benefited from the educational status quo" (59).

Confusion/Clarification/Questions:

1. I am a bit confused about the moves that Johnson makes when making his user-centered figures. For example, if language is a form of technology, would Johnson also move reader to the center of the Kinneavy's Rhetorical Triangle (35)? If not, what does he see as the distinction?

2. I would like to understand more about 'techne', the interplay between its definitions, and its relationship to 'metis'.

3. Is there a difference between human activity designers and participatory designers (84)?

4. What work has been done on computer documentation since 1998?

"Thus instructional materials have, innocently or not, played a significant role in the continuation of the modern technology myth that the role of experts is to invent, while the role of novices is to await, with baited breath, the perfectly designed artifact" (119).

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