Procedures, Instructions, and Specifications: A Challenge in Audience Analysis

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary M. Lay
Keyword(s):  
Audience Analysis ◽  
Communication Task ◽  
Technical Writers ◽  
Technical Writer

Procedures, instructions, and specifications demand precise and imaginative audience analysis. Although these three communications tasks ask an audience to participate in an operation, the specific purpose and audience of each is unique. Recognizing this uniqueness provides the technical communications teacher with challenging student assignments and the technical writer and editor with useful questions to ask in analyzing these audiences. This article describes the audiences that read procedures, instructions, and specifications, provides examples of each communication task, suggests assignments in each for technical communications teachers, and lists questions for technical writers and editors to ask about audiences of each task.

The Relativity of Communication: Albert Einstein as Technical Writer

1980 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Baresich
Keyword(s):  
Technical Communication ◽  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Special Theory ◽  
Theory Of Relativity ◽  
Special Theory Of Relativity ◽  
Audience Analysis ◽  
Technical Writers ◽  
Technical Writer ◽  
Efficient Information ◽  
Relative Differences

Efficient information flow in technical communication depends upon accurate audience analysis. The presentation of information must be adjusted relative to the knowledge and interests of the writer's audience. Problems arise when the relative differences in audiences are slight, but nonetheless important. Albert Einstein's writing can be used as an example of skillful adaptation of material for audiences with subtle differences. A prime example is his special theory of relativity, which he published in three versions for technical, semitechnical, and nontechnical audiences. Students, teachers, and technical writers can learn much from the way Einstein uses tone, personal address, varying levels of diction, definitions, and concrete examples of each of the three expositions of his special theory of relativity.

Interviewing for Information

1984 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-58
Author(s):  
Leslie Levine
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Annual Report ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Major Task ◽  
Technical Writers ◽  
Interviewing Skills ◽  
Technical Writer

Gathering information is a major task of the technical writer. All too often, however, writers take this important skill for granted. Successful interviewing often is, however, the technical writer's key to writing good technical prose. Whether the writer is seeking the theory behind an engineering design or preparing an annual report, the techniques that writer uses for successful interviewing will be the same. Further, by developing good interviewing skills, a writer will improve his or her organization and writing techniques. Yet the most important aspect of good interviewing is obtaining accurate information. If technical writers want to be considered professionals in their field, they must become expert interviewers as well as good technical translators.

Feedforward (ff) en Metaforische Transfer (mt) -Dimensies Van Technical Writers'

1984 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 116-124
Author(s):  
J.W. Broer
Keyword(s):  
Professional Identity ◽  
Technical Communication ◽  
Technical Writing ◽  
Visual Elements ◽  
Communication Problems ◽  
Writing Problems ◽  
Technical Writers ◽  
The World ◽  
Technical Writer ◽  
Use Of Knowledge

A map of the world of 'technical' communication shows the (a, ß)-universe, flat country filled with language experts and scientists, including engineers. In the centre Technical Writing is situated, a territory in turmoil, on the border of α-land and ß-land. In the U.S.A. the territory is developing fast as the professional core of a new skill. As emigrants, many people of an α-type or ß-type nature end up in the territory. Having a problem of professional identity they possess a hy-brid personality. The attention paid to this problem causes them to lose sight of the two 'natural' forces of an emigrating individual, that is to say feedforward — an anticipative composition principle — and metaphoric transfer — 'as-if use of knowledge from the individual's professional past, to solve the communication problems met at present. Feedforward (Ivor A. Richards, 1893-1979) is a principle of creative action, proceeding from more generic to less (a top-down hier-archy); a number of 'formators' (Charles W. Morris and Bess Sondel), the tools for making text according to the feedforward scheme, are discussed. Nowadays visual elements as formators receive more emphasis. Text is seen as a distribution of three types of elements ('knowing', 'feeling', 'acting') glued into a unit, the communicative 'whole', by the formators. The textual whole should match the type of readers as originally anticipated by the technical writer (27 types, a classification based upon estimating three levels of knowing, feeling, acting; examples are included). Some prescriptions for solving Technical Writing problems found by metaphoric transfer are discussed. To illustrate the traffic of ideas arising from metaphoric transfer, a detailed map of the border area science/ technical writing is shown.

Portrait of a Technical Writer: An Annotated Bibliography

1989 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-303
Author(s):  
Heather E. Keeler
Keyword(s):  
Technical Communication ◽  
Annotated Bibliography ◽  
Technical Writers ◽  
Technical Writer ◽  
The Subject

This annotated bibliography identifies and summarizes sixteen current articles portraying the technical writer. Despite the abundance of literature on the subject of technical communication, there is scant literature that describes and humanizes the technical writers—the skills they value, products they produce, roles they play, or industries they serve. The sixteen articles listed here, all published since 1980, paint a picture which may be of use to practitioners, students, educators, authors, and researchers.

A New Technical Writer?

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 289-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter L. Balk
Keyword(s):  
Additional Training ◽  
Technical Writers ◽  
Technical Writer ◽  
The Cost

Pervasive changes are occurring in large organizations which will have an impact upon the role of technical writers. This should reward the writer with an increase in status; yet, the cost may entail higher anxiety on the job and a need for additional training.

The Technical Writer-Readability Formulas and the Nontechnical Reader

1977 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 303-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleanor M. Schenck
Keyword(s):  
Training Programs ◽  
Technical Writers ◽  
Technical Writer ◽  
Service Training ◽  
Source Materials ◽  
Readability Formula ◽  
Readability Formulas ◽  
Editorial Practices

This article examines currently popular technical editorial practices in the preparation of communications directed at nontechnical readers. In light of these practices it presents source materials for reviewing readability research on available formulas and procedures, explaining their development, and demonstrating some of the benefits and pitfalls for editors and writers directing technical materials to the nontechnical reader. Concluding, the writer suggests that theoretical readability formula research become part of the corpus of information presented at pre- and in-service training programs for technical writers.

Career Opportunities for Teachers of Technical Writing: A Survey of Programs in Technical Communication

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 175-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul V. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Technical Communication ◽  
Technical Writing ◽  
Mail Survey ◽  
Experienced Teachers ◽  
Promotion And Tenure ◽  
Formal Study ◽  
Career Opportunities ◽  
Technical Writers ◽  
Technical Writer

In response to a mail survey of the career opportunities they offer teachers of technical writing, twenty-four programs that prepare students for careers as technical writers and editors indicated that their technical writing faculty enjoy about the same teaching loads, salaries, and chances for promotion and tenure as do equally qualified and experienced teachers of literature at their schools. The programs also indicated that they have a growing number of openings on their faculties for teachers of technical writing. Finally, the programs ranked and rated seventeen qualifications that might be offered by applicants for those positions; the most significant conclusion drawn from the rankings and ratings is that the programs look more favorably upon experience — both in teaching and in working as a technical writer or editor — than they do upon formal study of technical writing or the teaching of it.

Irish Identification as Exigence

2012 ◽  
pp. 173-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Mara ◽  
Miriam Mara
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Technical Writing ◽  
Adventure Travel ◽  
Technical Writers ◽  
Technical Writer ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
User Motivation ◽  
Tour Operator

To address some of the technical writing pressures concomitant with globalization, this chapter investigates documentation solutions implemented by an Irish Do-It-Yourself tour operator. The same identity-dependent approaches that these DIY tourism companies use to fulfill tourist expectations can provide technical writers with additional tools for analyzing user motivation. This chapter first analyzes how an Irish DIY Adventure travel company harnesses user motivations, then applies Appadurai’s (1996) globalism theories (especially his use of ethnoscapes, technoscapes, and mediascapes) to a particular use of this travel company’s documents, and finally demonstrates how user motivation intrinsic to identity formation can help the technical writer create documentation that effectively assists users in overcoming breakdowns through identity affordances.

Concerns of the Technical Writer: A Panel Discussion

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Gould
Keyword(s):  
Panel Discussion ◽  
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ◽  
Polytechnic Institute ◽  
Technical Writers ◽  
Technical Writer

At the 1975 annual Technical Writers' Institute of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a panel was conducted dealing with the concerns of technical writers. We are reviewing some of the questions asked by those attending from government and industry and some of the discussion that followed.

Technical Writing's Roots in Computer Science: The Evolution from Technician to Technical Writer

1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 305-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrietta Nickels Shirk
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Technical Writing ◽  
Software Industry ◽  
Computer Software ◽  
Technical Writers ◽  
Computer Scientists ◽  
Technical Writer ◽  
History Of ◽  
Assimilation Process ◽  
The Impact

The history of Technical Writing closely parallels trends in the discipline of Computer Science. The early technical writers in the computer software industry were its own technicians (programmers and analysts), who used a variety of diagramming techniques to document computer systems. As a result of the widespread availability of computers and software which began in the 1970s, professional communicators joined the software industry and reinterpreted these diagramming techniques from technical source documents into user documentation. The impact of this assimilation process has influenced graphic representations in Technical Writing, as well as created the conceptual metaphors of the “user” and the “module” (which are emerging archetypes). In the past, Technical Writing's historical roots have been the result of reactions to Computer Science. However, the increasing presence of online documentation is now creating opportunities for technical writers to shape their own future by joining with computer scientists as influential equals.

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