Contemplating Writing

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]

Socioemotional Communication in Virtual Teams

In week 2 of our project we made a lot of progress on certain levels. We had a team agreement and an approved list of technology. We had team roles defined and an overall strategy. The focus for this week was for team members to engage on Slack and select a topic for our instruction document. A call was organised to choose the topic and plan for the next steps. Not everyone would make the call, however, most students had expressed their preferred topic online and Setting up Twitter for a New User was agreed on.

Although there was a good collaborative atmosphere on the call, discussions were largely task and procedure orientated. Since reading Flammia et. al.’s article on socioemotional communication strategies I have realised that this aspect of virtual teamwork can be improved on in the coming weeks. The research found that students who worked on socioemotional communication enjoyed the project more than others. I start to think about how we can develop better connections among the group.

I understand that we are somewhere between the forming and storming phases of establishment and we have had fabulous introductory emails, students sharing photos on their Slack profiles and lots of emojis and thumbs up. Feeling that we need to go a little deeper I look online for some ideas and found an interesting blog on the topic; https://blog.retrium.com/10-ways-to-improve-virtual-collaboration.

‘Create virtual water coolers’ was one of the suggestions. My teammate who setup Slack added a ‘random’ channel for this purpose, but we need to start using it. Managing time zones and schedules was another idea. This week we are gathering students available time, so we can best schedule conferences. Calls are currently recorded, and minutes are circulated which is great but being present is so much better.

We probably just need a little more time, chats about the weekend and some minions memes!

References

Flammia, Madelyn et al. (2010) Leadership Roles, Socioemotional Communication Strategies, and Technology Use of Irish and US Students in Virtual Teams. Professional Communication, IEEE Transactions on. [Online] 53 (2), 89–101.

Seven Reasons Why Students Should Blog

I am a blogger. This is my 3^rd blog. I have started following other bloggers and I know how to do a little more on WordPress. Wow, that’s a lot of progress in two weeks. I have been following Steve Wheeler on http://www.steve-wheeler.co.uk and looking back over his archive I found an interesting post on Seven reasons teachers should blog. He feels that he has learned more from blogging than any other activity and that it’s one of the most beneficial activities for personal development. I started to reflect on the reasons why students should blog.

Digital literacy is a great way for students to make themselves more employable. Through blogging, they will learn how to use different tools and improve their skills in many practical ways by enhancing and customising their blogs.
Students can express themselves. Be creative. Develop their own ideas and share visuals, videos and themes to get their message across.
Blogging helps develop critical thinking skills which are essential as students move through tertiary education and are required to research and evaluate information.
Students should write about what they know. Blogging helps expand knowledge by following other bloggers or doing some research for their own blog posts.
Written communication skills can be improved through blogging. Students must decide how to approach your topic. What is your message? How will you format it? Composing blogs is a great way to practice the other writing skills they have learned in an interesting way.
Students will learn to reflect on what they have learned. In class listening to a lecture or reading an article they start to ponder the topic. It’s interesting, they want to find out more and start to think about past experiences. Giving serious thought to a topic really does improve understanding.
It’s fun! Students will discover lots of interesting information and get to write about it their own way.

Setting up a Virtual Team

I have worked in virtual teams before in the corporate world. Usually what you get is a self-assured project manager who loves to delegate and take control and a team who all have a defined role and know what the project is all about. In EL6082 we have a diverse project team of students from Limerick, Florida and Paris, all studying different courses through conventional and distance learning, working on a project of our own choosing. There are so many variables, different assignment instructions, time zones, languages, skills, personalities and motivations, it looks like quite a challenge.

Week 1 has been a little frustrating. Evanna got us off to a great start with an introductory email and all UL students responded over the weekend. Then we waited and waited for the US and French students. There were issues accessing the Google Drive folder that had been setup and once these were sorted we felt much better.

By Thursday morning, I was a little anxious to get started and we had four students that hadn’t made contact and no plan! One of the team suggested using Slack to get started and agreed to set it up. This was great news as Slack is probably the most talked about collaboration tool right now and I have been hoping to try it.

One of the team suggested using Big Blue Button for calls as they have experience with it. As you know I love the internet, how would we get anywhere without google maps? On the downside though, internet conferencing can be a frustrating experience for all involved. This software was a little intermittent and the screen was rather cumbersome and some students couldn’t get their microphones to work. The call was long, and no-one really knew what the expectations were, however, we got going and the students on the call all chose roles and started to work on the team agreement. I took the role of project manager with the caveat that if anyone else wanted the role I was happy to hand over to them. Funnily enough, this hasn’t happened yet. I do like to step up and get organised, we don’t have much time to waste over the next few weeks. I thought it would be good for collaboration to get everyone on Slack and start to think about a topic. A project timeline was completed and by the weekend almost everyone had got in touch.

So, I need to be the self-assured delegator who takes control. A difficult task with such a short timeline and a large group of people completing a task that is unfamiliar to most of us. On the plus side, all the students seem like a wonderful group of people and have been really open about their strengths and weaknesses and forthright in sharing their experiences and preferences. Week 1 – People 1: Technology 0.

WordPress 101

I consider myself to be quite self-aware and I love so many aspects of the internet. You can check anything at any time. Is a shark a fish? Apparently, yes, it is. What exactly is the Brexit backstop? Well, that’s a story for another day.

What I discovered my new assignment was to set up a blog, I didn’t think I would enjoy it. New technology can be frustrating. I couldn’t find ‘WP Admin’ anywhere, I don’t believe it exists. The help section couldn’t help me. What should I customise? What should my blog look like? As I’m not a follower of blogs I don’t really know what’s expected. Blogs are just for marketing, fashionistas and influencers aren’t they?

Apparently not. They are for anyone passionate about a topic who would like to share. I can do that. While I have been writing this blog post I have already learned how to do lots of things in WordPress. Initially, it didn’t seem very intuitive. After an hour we started to get along. I understand it better now and it knows I’m approaching cautiously and is giving lots of prompts. I just got a congratulations email from WordPress for my first post. I feel appreciated.

I still don’t know where ‘WP Admin’ is or who to follow but I’m excited now to browse and read and like and share. I have my own little patch of the web to tend. Reflection is a positive thing, we should all be more mindful of what we are doing and what we have learned. This could be interesting after all!