Technical Writing – Contemplating Writing

Preparation for the Workplace

We are almost two-thirds of the way through our MA program in Technical Communication and E-learning, with some outstanding assignments and our summer project remaining. I have been reflecting on what I have learned during my time at University of Limerick (UL) so far. 91% of UL’s recent postgraduate diploma students are either in employment or further study and the university has recently won the Sunday Times “University of the Year” award for the 2^nd time in five years. Alistair McCall, Editor of the Sunday Times Good University Guide, said: “Its graduates are among the most employable in Ireland, prepared for work by practical courses and a work placement and internship programme second to none.”

I would certainly agree with his comments on practicality. The course is 100% graded through assignments, I would never have enrolled on this program if it was 100% exam based. All assignments are designed to assess multiple skills and become more complex as the year progresses. Fortunately, some of the first assignments were focused on written skills and I received constructive formative feedback to help improve my proficiency. Real world course work is supported by theory which connects the creativity with critical thinking. Creating podcasts, websites, presentations and eportfolio’s have been challenging but rewarding ways to apply theory studied across this multidisciplinary program.

There is a strong focus on best practice in the workplace and further study throughout the year. We enjoyed visits from various companies and presentations from PhD students on their research. We were asked to interview a professional working in the sector which is the assignment I enjoyed the most. I had a fantastic conversation with an educational technologist working in higher education about her passions, challenges and the exciting future ahead in the field. Another aspect of the course I have been impressed with is the course director Yvonne’s sharing of research she has completed with past alumni on current trends in the workplace. This validates choices around technology, assignments and learning objectives. Darina’s feedback on how she engages with other departments at UL and external projects has also been beneficial during lectures on E-learning theory and practice.

There is an emphasis on the use of technology during the program especially in semester two. This would be an area of weaknesses for me as I usually stick with applications that I know. I have felt out of my comfort zone at times and I am struggling with Dreamweaver the past few weeks. These are good challenges, we all need to be pushed at times to learn something new or explore a new talent. It was interesting to see the focus on technology in our class Twitter feed over the past few months, as students embrace new tools.

The concentration on key transferrable skills is also apparent. Darina mentioned in one lecture that program directors at UL must link key competencies with the program outline for each course and show how they will be assessed. I think this is a fantastic step for higher-education to remain current and relevant to the workplace. Fellow students have questioned the relevance of certain applications we are studying at times. From my experience you cannot learn all applications or all scenarios that you may have to deal with. You need to learn how to be resourceful, creative and develop problem-solving skills and apply them to the task or tool you are using in the workplace. We have got fantastic support from the lecturers and there is a real focus on students succeeding in assignments rather than ‘being tested.’

I recently visited the careers office to update my c.v. and was asked why I enrolled on the course as I have quite a few years’ experience working in learning and development. I explained how I ‘fell into’ the profession and felt that I did a lot of the right things along the way but now I feel properly qualified. I have never built an E-learning course before and I will be doing this for my summer project. I have written lots of training material, user guides, wiki’s and processes and feel a lot more competent with these tasks now. I feel like I have a career now and will use social media to keep updated with trends and research in the industry.

This time last year I made a big decision to leave my job, take the year out and complete this program. My friends thought I was crazy and my work colleagues first responded that it was a very brave (crazy) decision to make and later all admitted that they would love to do the same thing. One of the main reasons I left my job was because I was no longer learning anything new and never had time to implement new ideas due to constant repetitive tasks. I saved hard for six months, bought a new laptop and desk and must admit I’m delighted!

I have spent seven of the last 20 years as a stay at home parent and the rest of the time working full-time with four children, both very demanding roles with little time for learning or reflection. This sabbatical from that lifestyle has been difficult at times but very refreshing. I feel reinvigorated towards my career, have broadened my perspective on my subject and learned so many new skills. Thanks to this excellent program I feel a lot more employable than I did last year and it has also rekindled my love of learning which I will continue to foster. Hopefully in ten years’ time when my children graduate from UL and are starting out on their careers, I will take another ‘gap year’ and work as a volunteer in Asia or Africa. That will be crazy!

Finally Submitted!

Thankfully, our virtual team project was finally submitted on Monday. This project was a roller-coaster and I found the student experience very different from the workplace. The deliverable was very simple, but the journey had many elements and overall, I feel this comprehensive project is worth including in our MA program. Project management, collaboration with colleagues, communication skills, use of technology, writing, editing, translating, critical thinking and graphic design were among the skills needed on the team for a successful outcome.

The 4 C’s of Education, certainly needed on this project

What new skills skills have I developed?

I have a better understanding of how to write for translation from working on this project. It’s an important skill for technical communicators and something I have never thought about before.

I wrote part of the instructions and I know I did a good job, there was only one edit, however, I did learn from our editors on this project. They did a great job creating a style guide once they realised how disparate some of the writing was and worked hard to make the document feel like it came from one writer. They were meticulous with wording and taught me how to keep everything consistent throughout the document and eliminate unnecessary words. This is something I have been working on since September!

I have also learned how to approach project management and clearer guidelines should have been set out from the start. I found this great article on creating a style guide, design information and documenting the process which would have been a really useful guide for us.

Leadership on our project

We had a leader for each university on our team and in hindsight we should have had an overall project manager. As the team leader for the UL side I got the project started and created a project plan. As we had no overall manager, checking in with everyone took a lot of time and the editors were left with a lot of the decision making. One of the Paris students never engaged so their leader was our only contact point for translation. In Florida one of the students was very engaged and the others less so.

Project Management tools & collaboration with translators

Overall the tools worked well. We used Big Blue Button for calls and Slack to collaborate. I also developed a Gantt chart at the start of the project which clearly showed the due dates, holidays and task list which was very useful.

The lead translator was on the initial conference calls, but she had no experience ‘writing for translation’ and had no advice to offer. She was involved in choosing the topic and took a step back during the writing process. Engagement was poor during the translation phase until the very end of the project where she needed a couple of clarifications on sentences using Slack. Slack was our main collaboration took and generally worked well. It did get a little confusing at times and would have worked better with an updated action list. Slack was useful for feedback between the writers and editors and we set up private channels for this task.

We also used Google Drive for storing each version of the document and adding comments for editing which worked well in conjunction with Slack. No-one else on the team had access to the graphics tool chosen by the designer, until late in the project when one of the Florida students got access through her workplace so she could make necessary changes.

Creativity

Freedom to choose a topic, assign roles, select tools and develop our own plan is one of the strengths of this project. It forces collaboration and decision making from the beginning and teams must take responsibility for choosing their own path. It’s also a great opportunity to use new tools for a real project.

The graphic design element of the project should have been more creative. This never happened on our team unfortunately, one of the students had experience in graphics and put himself forward for that role. There was little engagement with the rest of the team on design and most of the feedback was never implemented.

The most valuable lesson I learned

I have managed my own team in the past, but never multidisciplinary teams. This project has taught me the importance of teams having clear guidelines on everyone’s roles within the team and exactly what is expected of each person, how they will communicate and collaborate with the rest of the team. Additionally, having a key decision maker in the group would have been useful for final sign-off of the document at various stages.

What to do differently

Hindsight is fantastic and having two graphic designers on the team should have made a big difference to the success of the project.

A master document to track all actions, no matter how small they were, would have worked well. There were times towards the end of the project when members were making the final updates which had been agreed on Slack, yet some of the tasks weren’t complete or there was confusion over exactly what needed to be done.

A style sheet was developed after the first writing phase. This would have been more useful before we started writing.

Motivation during the project

I was really motivated for most of this project, as we had good engagement, created solid relationships and developed well-written instructions. I like being part of a team and sharing achievements is great when everyone is working hard to realise the goal. At times it was difficult to keep motivated as we were so badly let down by the graphics designer towards the end of the project. It was really demotivating for the editors to have all their work ignored on the first design draft and I felt their pain. The designer going for two weeks holidays without giving notice to the rest of the team and saying they were only putting 20% effort into this project because that was all it’s worth was certainly unhelpful. I am disappointed with our final submission, which is demotivating for many on our team due to the amount of time spent on the project and we know this will affect our grade.

Completing projects with remote workers will be part of everyone’s future and I’m glad we had this opportunity. I feel more competent about anticipating issues that may come up in the future in a similar project. Those who disengaged from this process certainly lost out on valuable learning.

References

Hollis Weber, J. (2011)Developing a Departmental Style Guide TechWhirl.com, available at https://techwhirl.com/developing-a-departmental-style-guide/ [last accessed 1 April 2019]

Wrapping up the Virtual Team Project

This is the penultimate week of our virtual team project and it’s been testing for most of our group. Perfecting teamwork is a challenge. We have had various levels of engagement over the past few weeks. Some team members have worked really hard on the project, I think the editors probably contributed the most. Some teams members are great at keeping in touch on Slack, others don’t. We have had sporadic updates from one of the French team. The other student hasn’t engaged.

Our graphic designer changed all the text and left us with a document that we couldn’t edit and went on holidays. That was the low point until he commented that he was only giving 20% to the project as that’s all its worth. We’ve sunk even lower.

One of the US students, who has been great throughout the project got access to the editing software and had a list of issues to fix. Great news, until she sent back the document with graphics are all over the place, no numbering for each step and section 3 was still incorrect. It’s now 48 hours before the deadline and we have no cover page, no alignment on the graphics, no numbering and most of us are losing the will!

I understand why we are doing this project and ultimately it’s very beneficial. It’s also very frustrating. Cleary and Slattery’s (2009) article on virtual teamwork has “uncooperative and non-participating team members” recorded first on their list of challenges for students on this project. My experience defiantly concurs. Work experience has also been a challenge for us. Apart from one or two part-time students there is very little experience on our team with the different stages of this project. In hindsight we should have designated a project manager rather than a project lead from each site.

What has been good to see over the past few days is most people are pulling together and some of the student who rarely engaged much are now asking how they can help. Hopefully our document will be in better shape by Monday evening. After all the planning, writing, editing and time spent it would be a shame if it’s not at least 80% good enough.

References

Cleary, Y. and Slattery, D. (2009) ‘Virtual teams in higher education: challenges and rewards for teachers and students’, in 2009 The All Ireland Society for Higher Education, available: https://ulir.ul.ie/bitstream/handle/10344/7268/Slattery_2009_Virtual.pdf?sequence=1 [last accessed 23rd March 2019]

Is gender relevant in Technical Communication in 2019?

I was so proud this morning to receive a ‘happy women’s day’ message from my son who is current teaching English in Hanoi. Wow, he thought of me this morning not just as a mother, but as a women worth celebrating! I have to admit I felt great. I started to think about women in technical communication. I have developed my own perspective of the field over the past six months and I haven’t thought about gender being a concern for the female technical communicator. Have I been gender biased? We have three fantastic lecturers here at University of Limerick (UL), a class with a high proportion of female students and have studied the works of Karen Schriver, Carolyn Rude and Laura Gurak.

I looked for research on the topic and found that gender has been an issue in the field. I found that there was little recognition of women’s role in technical communication historically. Technical writing has traditionally existed in the fields of science, engineering and the military which are still male dominated. In 1973 in Louisiana, two university writing professors, Nell Ann Pickett and Ann Laster entered a conference of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing much to the surprise of the male attendees. They were so astonished to see women in the room that one man asked if they were lost.

Towards the end of the 20th century articles in technical communication journals written and published by female editors were focused around three themes. Eliminating sexist language and providing equal opportunity in the workplace, valuing gender differences and recovering women’s historical contributions to the field. Surely in the 21st century there isn’t a problem?

A recent study by White et al. (2016) were surprised to find a decrease in the number of articles published about gender and the textbooks they analysed were gender neutral. However, they felt that this painted a false picture of the current workplace. Their own classes were very male dominated and gender didn’t feature in their curriculum. The researchers acknowledged that there is a large female presence in the field and decided to focus on teaching their students to adapt to a variety of situations, contexts and audiences and how to navigate diverse environments in their courses rather than focus specifically on gender.

I would agree with this outlook. I have recently worked in a very male dominated team, being the only female in a group of six managers with all male clients. Did I ‘man up’? Absolutely not! I was myself. Sometimes ambitious and competitive, sometimes empathetic and supportive, depending on the situation and the task at hand. Everyone needs to adapt when dealing with different scenarios.

Working with a diverse range of clients and multidisciplinary learning were the main themes of the Louisiana Tech University students presentation yesterday at the Technical Communications Research Day in UL. I was amazed by the display of their work through the Visual Illustrations of Science through Art (VISTA) program setup by Professor Bustamante to develop digital fine art skills to communicate complex scientific concepts. I was blown away by these students presentation on how they approached their designs creatively and through researching complex medical information. They had learned so much about the world by connecting with volunteer medical programs in working class Louisiana. I loved their feedback on collaborating with clients and finding a common language between art, colour and perspective and complex emerging biomedical research on stem cells and DNA.

We also heard from the current PhD students in Technical Communication at UL. Each one of them, along with the keynote speaks and alumni of UL demonstrated a deep understanding of the field and how it contributes to society. It made me realise what a huge contribution technical communication can make to the world of medical care, education and public administration. I’m not going to worry about gender. I will focus on making my contribution in my own way, by adapting to and collaborating with the audience, clients and colleagues to find a common language.

References

Hodges, G. (2015) Women as Technical Professional Communicators, Technical Communication Body of Knowledge, available: https://www.tcbok.org/wiki/about-tc/history/women-as-technical-professional-communicators/?action=history [last accessed 8 Mar 2019)

White, K. et al. (2016) Are We “There” Yet? The Treatment of Gender and Feminism in Technical, Business, and Workplace Writing Studies. Journal of Technical Writing & Communication, 46-1, p27-58

VISTA program at LA Tech, information available: https://latechvista.weebly.com/

Where is all the text gone?

“Graphic Design uses visual media such as pictures, decorative words or animations to convey a message” according to the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). In our virtual team project, one member took on the role of graphic designer of the instructions we developed. I have previously written about the challenges of this project and for me, the biggest challenge remains the same. What is everyone’s role and how do we work together to achieve the best end product?

The role of the technical writer has changed since in the last 20 years due to the internet and globalisation. We are now technical communicators and information design is a key function of the job. The function of the text has been reduced. Think of the signs and symbols you see every day for no parking or exits, or the textless IKEA instructions for your new Billy bookcase. Videos and podcasts are becoming more and more popular for customer help and support. That’s all great for the future but this deliverable is mainly about the text.

Our team project is focused on creating a set of written instructions of at least 900 words to be translated into French. That was the brief. We have a team of writers who wrote different sections of the text. Our two editors worked really hard to fix the mistakes, reduce the word count and give the text a consistent feel. We agreed on a style and were excited to see the finished product complete with graphics. First impressions were great. Great colours, lots of white space, clear layout, text boxes and screenshots are all aligned. Wait a minute, where is all the text gone? 1000 carefully chosen words that had been rewritten and tweaked for a week were unrecognisable. Now we had pieces of incomplete text with incorrect grammar, no structure or flow. The graphic designer thought this was a ‘quick reference guide’. It’s not! Read the assignment brief!

It all comes back to communication and assumptions. We assume that everyone knows their role. The graphic designer should take the content and make it graphically more presentable, not fit parts of the text into a template. I never envisioned this could be a problem. Another great lesson this project has taught me is how to approach working with a graphic designer.

My top five guidelines for working with a graphic designer

Establish timeframes.

Set deadlines for the first draft and each subsequent stage.

Provide background information.

The more information you provide about the audience and use of the item to the designer will help them create a useable product.

Review the first draft.

It may not be perfect. Give the designer specific feedback on the components so they have a clearer vision for subsequent drafts.

Collaborate.

Ask questions, e.g. why did you choose that image or colour? Maybe you are missing something.

Be realistic.

Know when to say ‘we’re done’. It may not be perfect, but it may be good enough.

The editor in Technical Communication

Last week, after learning the basics of how to write a document for translation, I started to think about the next step. We have two editors on our virtual team, both of whom are working in the industry and sound like they know what they are doing, but what actually is the role of an editor in technical communications and what makes a good one?

Rude and Eaton (2010) believe that the editor is a specialist role and they are experts in communication, language and the needs of the audience. They also state that a good editor can evaluate the big picture as well as the finer details. These experts are just what we need on our team as we had five writers from different continents working on the same document. Our finished product needs to have one voice, correct grammar and be useful to our target audience.

The Audience

The editor needs to consider the documents purpose and how the readers are going to use it. The document needs to be structured so that readers can find information quickly. Does the document need a hierarchy to make it easier on the reader to find simple information first? The document also needs to function correctly. Are the steps in the right order? I know when the editors were reviewing our written instructions the functional edit took longer than expected.

Safety notices must always be included and the editor should also be graphically aware, not experts but have an understanding of how the design elements will work with the rest of the document.

Working with the writers

In our project, the editors were involved from the start and collaborated on key decisions to be made regarding the written instructions. They also gave advice and feedback during the writing process which was very beneficial and they drafted style tips for us to follow. They then set up a private channel on Slack for each writer to receive edit feedback on their first draft. This process has worked well even though there were delays with some of the writers. It’s important to be tactful when giving feedback to a writer. I like the praise sandwich. This ensures that plenty of positive feedback is given surrounding the negative information. New writers will make lots of mistakes at the start, the editor needs to recognise this and give them praise where its deserved.

Getting feedback from the editors

I’m sure it’s frustrating for writers who have spent lots of time working on a document to get it back from the editor with loads of notes. Take the time to go through the notes carefully. The notes are not personal, the editor has a duty to make the end product as good as it can be. If you’re unsure about some of the comments, ask for clarification. Work through the changes. You will end up with a better document and you may learn something along the way.

References:

Rude, C. and Eaton, A. (2010) Technical Editing, 5th Ed, Longman

Consequentialism and the ethics of Technical Communication

We had a really interesting discussion this morning in TW5212 around ethics in theory and practice relating to technical communication. We know that there has been a discourse around ethics since Socrate’s philosophy of good and justice almost 2,500 years ago. He believed a sense of community, friendship and being loyal to the truth was important for humankind.

Around that time Mohist consequentialism also emerged. This philosophy evaluates the moral worth of an action, based on how much it contributes to the welfare of a state. This was very advanced for the time. In the 21st century countries around the world are struggling with these ethical decisions.

While watching ‘Africa’ with Ade Adepitan last night on BBC, I was considering the ethics of the decisions these emerging African nations are making. In Ethiopia, he visited an area of magnificent natural beauty with large rivers and millions of trees that the government is planning to tear down to build a dam. Trees, animals and villages will be destroyed and displaced. The benefits will be power and irrigation. The population of Africa is due to grow by one billion by 2050 and 50% of Ethiopians don’t have access to electricity. We know the dam will have positive consequences but will they surpass the negative ones and make the state a better place?

Closer to home, the western world is trying to deal with cyberethics and the ethics around big data. Can we quantify how technology contributes to the state and the globe? Herschel and Miori in their 2017 article on Ethics and Big Data write that we cannot determine what the positive and negative consequences of big data are. How can we measure these consequences if they cannot be defined? Their study concluded that big data had little to recommend itself from an ethical perspective.

Thankfully ethical considerations in technical communication are more black and white. Our ethical standards are based on rules of confidentiality, legality, honest, quality, fairness and professionalism. What strikes me about these principles is that they apply to all aspects of our lives. They are the backbone of society and how we are taught to behave from our parents, our educators and the whole community.

As Socrates declared, we need to be loyal to the truth. In technical communications, this means serving our employers and clients as long as they are consistent with the public good. We also need to ensure that we are serving the public with the information they need e.g. safety documentation to keep them safe when using a product. I’m hoping that my future career will be easy to navigate from an ethical perspective. I’m just going to treat others as I would like to be treated.

References

Africa (2019) BBC2, 17 Feb, 21:00
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002p4d

Ethical principles: Society for Technical Communication (1998) stc.org, available: www.stc.org/about-stc/ethical-principles [accessed 18 Feb 2019].

Herschel, R. and Miori, V. (2017) ‘Ethics & Big Data’. Technology in Society. 49. [online]. Available from: http://search.proquest.com/docview/1952473313/.

Technical Writing for Translation

Our virtual team project has been moving along nicely. Some students are keeping to fringes, however, they are getting the tasks completed on time. We’re getting to know each other a little better also. This week we focused on writing the instructions for how to use Twitter. Nobody had worked on this type of project before, so we were unsure how to approach it. We had 4 writers, so the topics were divided up. We agreed to write in US English and for the desktop version of Twitter.

All the first drafts were so different in words, voice, style and format, how would we even start putting the final document together. Of course, what we should have considered was a style guide or at least some basic tips on writing instructions for translation. Towards the end of the week, our editing team devised a list of tips we should follow when revising our first draft. They make so much sense. Hindsight is a great thing. There is nothing like learning from your mistakes.

My tips for writing instructions for translation:

Write short simple sentences in the active voice. Fewer words also keep your translation costs down.
Use plain English e.g. ‘enter’ instead of ‘input’.
Use terminology consistently.
Use visuals as much as possible.
Leave plenty of white space to allow space for longer translations.
Decide what will stay in English e.g. Twitter, Follow.
Avoid idioms and acronyms.

What will the future hold for Technical Writers?

I recently watched Daniel Susskinds Ted Talk on The Future of Work https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_susskind_3_myths_about_the_future_of_work_and_why_they_re_not_true and found it strangely reassuring. His big idea is based on three myths about automation anxiety and how us humans are fearful for our jobs due to the advances in artificial intelligence and robotics.

There is the terminator myth, that robots will substitute humans. Daniel suggests that the relationship will be complementary rather than replacements. We will all work on one big team. I’m sure we can all think of times when technology has helped us out and complemented our skills. In the UL library, the Automated System that picks your requested book from the archive and dispatches it to the information desk is a great example of how technology complements the library team. Staff don’t need to worry about off-campus archives or spend time dealing with lesser used items. They can focus on supporting the students with their learning and research and teaching them how to use the library resources.

The second myth is the intelligence myth. It is believed by many that machines must copy how humans do a task. He argues that how humans think and reason is not the summit of thinking and reasoning. IBM’s Watson, probably one of the most well know AI systems, this week was narrowly beaten in a debate with one of the world most expert debaters. In the 1950’s Alan Turning predicted that someday machines will think for themselves. Is Watsons ability to scan millions of documents and construct an argument enough? Even though the Watson failed at counterarguing and connecting with the audience to convince them, the performance was impressive.

Finally, he speaks about the superiority myth, that machines are taking away jobs from humans. We must admit that the world of work is changing all the time. In medicine, machines can scan thousands of files and diagnose diseases better than any human. Does that mean we won’t need doctors in the future? Of course not, their roles will change as they have done for hundreds of years.

So, what does this all mean for technical writers? Our roles will change also as the machine takes over the more mundane tasks. Content writing will move towards content curation. API documentation and UX writing will become more important in the industry as we learn to complement the machines.

My nine-year-old daughter has just asked me what I am writing about. ‘Oh, that’s just like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, she says, when I explain what I am doing. ‘Charlie’s dad lost his job at the toothpaste factory when they got a machine to screw the cap onto the toothpaste’. She’s right of course, change happens all the time and humans move on to new territory.

We have all adapted to new technology, a new boss, new career, new relationships, parenthood. Humans are highly adaptable. I think we’ll be ok.

References

Carville, O. and Khan, J. (2019) IBM artificial intelligence system debates a human and loses — but barely Los Angeles Times, https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ibm-debate-20190212-story.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fbusiness+%28L.A.+Times+Business%29&utm_content=Yahoo+Search+Results [last accessed 15 February 2019]

Faggella, D. (2019) 7 Applications of Machine Learning in Pharma and Medicine, EMERJ, https://emerj.com/ai-sector-overviews/machine-learning-in-pharma-medicine/ [last accessed 15 February 2019]