Response to Robert Clemans' Ch 6/7 reading

Robert is comparing his way of doing research and research methods with the way the book teaches. I admit that my lack of proper knowledge and methodology on research conduct results in less qualitative outcome. When I was doing research for my other classes generally I wasn't taught on how to do research in proper manner. What Robert notices is that generally his research takes more time because it's done in unorganized manner and he misses some important resources. Unfortunately, this is not only his problem. Sometimes I find myself stuck with my research because my resources are not so credible. I spent much time digging the wrong ditch. So it is very important to find the right information and organize it with reader-centered approach. Hopefully, after this class I'll be able to produce better papers with less time consumption.

Chapter 6 & 7 reading

Chaper 6 is exectly what I need to create my research project. This chapter teaches us how to get research done in most efficient and productive manner. In any research the first step is to determine objective. Also I have to know who will be the end-users to read my writing, what category of readers. So I have to build my research around my future readers. Also it is very important to find research sources my readers can rely on. The sources have to be carefully evaluated. Also as research progresses it is important to observe copyright.

Chapter 7. New challenge: how to draft paragraphs, sections, and chapters. And again, focus on usability and reader-centered approach. This chapter also talks about how to organize writing: from most important info to least important. There is an important statement in guideline 8 about human consequences of what we write. I think this is extremly important because what we write could be interpreted in different ways and result could be dramatic. So, it is all about readers. If we want to succeed we have to always think of them.

My Rhetoric

To write a topic about rhetoric may take hours because thousands of smart minds starting with Aristotle, who simply defined rhetoric as persuasion, talked a lot about rhetoric. We use rhetoric everywhere: from writing email to verbal conversations with friends and relatives and even our bosses whom we try to persuade that that’s not our fault. There are 3 categories of rhetoric that define all communication ether:
¨ Ethos, or ego, I
¨ Pathos, or path (pathetic), emotion
¨ Logos, or logic
However, these three categories of rhetoric are not firm. Boundaries between them are blurred. Any of them could be equally applied to the same set of information depending on what we try to emphasize. As we discussed an example of web advertisement of house cleaning company earlier in our class students saw all categories in the same text. So, it might be controversial but, again, boundaries between ethos, pathos and logos are overlapping. For me it is sometimes confusing to create a writing in specific rhetoric category, because others can see a different rhetoric in the same writing. For me it seems to be never-ending question.

Ch. 4, 5, 16, and 23 response

Ch.4

Chapter 4 continues on making our writing usable and persuasive. it mainly talks about how to effectively organize our writing and make it usable. Some of its guidelines I used before to write my house repair estimates. But I never realized that there is a science behind my writings. If I picked up this book earlier, I'd be more successful because it goes step by step on the structure of documents, how they should be organized. Also I was always wondering why instructions in the US are so detailed and elaborate. Now I have an answer to my question: we live in low-context country (thanks to this book).



Ch.5

Now we're talking about persuasion. This chapter gives us a few guidelines on persuasion. It also talks about two types of persuasion: cooperative and competitive. Cooperative persuasion comes first because in order to produce competitive document, those who work on it must get together (cooperate) to achieve some positive result. For me this part of a project is the hardest. Because to persuade someone for specific actions is much harder than just to produce a usable document.



Ch.16

A group project is what came to my mind when I read the title. This chapter will be really handy when we'll come up to our group project. Basically it teaches how to manage the group discussion more efficiently. It also helps to avoid common problems that adherent to group projects. It tells how to organize a team. I find this chapter useful.

Ch.23
This chapter is talking about reader-centered instructions. This is very importand topic, because in some cases misunderstood instructions if they are written unclearly may result in injury in production environment. I work in multinational team in production facility. I come across various instructions. Some of them are written properly, others create more confusion than help. If I stumble upon such an instruction, sometime trial and error comes instead if time is an issue. Writers of instructions sometimes are disconnected from working environment. They assume the same level of language for everyone. But sometimes, like in my company, overwhelming number of employees is from other countries. So for them it’s hard to understand complicated instructions. So, it is very important to understand cultural factor.

Response to Traci Johnoson's writing

I have similar feelings on writing. Of three English classes I had before I remember almost nothing, except the title of one of them was "Shakespeare". I was struggling through that class since for non-native English speaker reading Shakespeare is the same as if you look at Chinese hieroglyphics: no idea what's going on. Other English classes were just producing papers on abstract topics to get a credit. The more you write the better credit. I'm practical person. If I don't see benefit for myself, doing it becomes waste of time and money. And this could be anything: from classes I take to shopping. So, unlike those classes I took before, this one seems to be very promissing in terms of usability and usefulness. In fact, like Traci, I' m looking forward to come to this class.
Go Kat! Teach us how to win the army of readers.

Ch.3

Chapter 3 gives us a deeper look at who are our readers. It talks more about how to make our communication more successful. It touches not only our local environment, e.g. company where we work, clients, but also intercultural aspect. It tells us about how to deal with readers from different cultures and countries. I remember this topic from my International Management course where we studied international trade a bit deeper. I find this extremely useful, because we live in the country, which, according to reading, reached 2.5 trillion dollars in international trade. The country itself is a "melting pot" of various cultures. So, potentially we will deal with bosses, clients, partners etc. from other cultures. And now we can learn how to communicate with them in most effective manner.

This chapter also talks about complex audience and gives an example of a letter addressed to such category of readers. I had no idea that there is a special kind of readers that book calls phantom readers. These are people "behind the scene". Interestingly, that what you write can be used in a future by other people to save their time writing or by lawyers in courts years from now. I find this information to be very valuable. Overall, chapter 3 is another stack of useful information that we can use to win our readers.

Feedback on the book "Technical Communication"

After reading just three chapters from the book "Technical Communication" I found this book to be a very handy aid on writing documents. It easily could be a reference book for those who wants to improve their writing skills. From the very beginning reader immerses in straight forward process of creating reader-focused documents such as letters, memos, emails, instruction, etc. I like this book because it is written with a language that is easy to understand without confusions. It also gives examples of various documents including tips on how to structure and make them usable and persuasive.

In chapter 1 I have found an interesting statement: one survey shows that good writing skills is a major consideration for promotion. Before, I did not pay much attention on sharpening my writing skills until I discovered this statement. I hope my writing skills will greatly improve after taking this course which I find to be a very practical, or I would say, live course, that I will take with me through career journey.