Reports and Electronic Copyright

Unfortunately, these two articles did not provide a whole lot of overlap, so we'll be working with two very different topics during class. The following are not meant as lecture notes or discussion questions (sorry), but prompts for class activities.

How many articles on ethnography used as a methodology to study corporate culture in technical communication and rhetoric are there in JSTOR from January 2005 to November 2010?

*Please take detailed notes during your group’s data retrieval and report discussion.
JSTOR: www.jstor.org

Questions for the group:
1. How did you retrieve the data? What knowledge about the database did you have to learn before/while you were running the report?
2. What process did you use to select data for use in your report?
3. What rhetorical decisions, specifically, did your group discuss when composing your report?

_____________________________________________________________________________________
Electronic Copyright:

Each group take a scenario. Read the original scenario and the author’s response and note the problems/complications or strengths of the interpretation. Then, skim the “Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998” (only section pertinent to your scenario):

http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf. Does the DMCA clarify copyright laws for the scenario? How so (or how not)?

I look forward to seeing you in class tonight.

Kate

11/10 Discussion (Class Overview)

1. Survey (15 minutes). This essay comes from:
   

   Dragga, Sam. “"Is This Ethical?": A Survey of Opinion on Principles and Practices of Document Design.” Technical Communication 43.3 (1996): 255-265. Print.
   



2. Small group discussion/ Discussion of survey and ethical implications (2 groups of four) – (15 minutes)


3. Go over survey results (10 minutes)


4. Contextual questions about readings– (30 minutes)
   
   
   
   • How are these two works in conversation with each other?
   
   
   • What are/where are the fundamental frictions?
   
   
   • Are these readings different from others that broach the subject of ethics? If so, how?
   
   
   • What is/are the envisioned role(s) of technical communicators in Katz and Dragga and Voss? (Transmitter, Translator, Articulator?)
   
   
5. Close reading questions – (15 minutes)
   
   
   
   • Katz – Erin:
     
     
     
     • As far as the Holocaust document being a “nearly perfect document” in terms of technical communication, do you agree that the style of the document promotes a shift in responsibility from the writer and reader to the ethos of the organization “whose voice they now speak with”? This is window-pane, transmission style of technical communication – upon reading the framework of ethics (in regard to the Holocaust) as provided by Katz in this article – is “Just” still to blame?
     
     
     • What, then, is an ethos of expediency in Katz’s terms? Where do we draw the line? Where is the line between humanism and getting things done in organizations? Do ethics only matter when they concern themselves with possible loss of life (i.e. Ford Pintos, Pan Am Flight 103, the Challenger explosion, the Holocaust)?
     
     
     
     
   
   
   • Voss and Dragga – Andrea:
     
     
     
     • How was TC ethics approached before this article? What did it involve?
     
     
     • Are these pies "cruel"? How? What might be a conflicting stance?
     
     
     • How effective (or expedient) do you think are the proposed approaches are? "There might not be an appropriate graphic or text/ graphic solution for every case of an inhumane illustration. It is therefore also important to keep in mind that, though technical communicators are typically encouraged to incorporate visuals, using no graphics would be clearly superior to displaying cruel graphics" (272). See Weather.com | iCasualties
     
     
     
     
   
   
6. Transitional question – “The question for us is: do we, as teachers and writers and scholars, contribute to this ethos by our writing theory, pedagogy, and practice when we consider techniques of document design, audience adaptation, argumentation, and style without also considering ethics?” “Do our methods, for the sake of expediency, themselves embody and impart the ethic of expediency?” (10 minutes)


7. STC Code of Ethics (30 minutes)


8. What does all this mean for us as future teachers of tech com? (5 minutes)
   
   

Cruel Pies and the Humanistic Approach in Technical Communication

Reading the news as I usually like to do when I get tired, I came across this article that explains how it is beneficial not to take a daily shower.
What intrigued me most is the point the author makes about cosmetic industry pushing us to believe that a daily shower is important but indeed they want us to buy their products.
There are a couple of charts that illustrate what Andrea is talking about this evening. I leave room for interpretation open for you all.
I apologize for the article is in French. Please do have a look and use good translate.

I mentioned three articles last night. Here they are if you are interested in further reading. I've also read quite a bit of articles, so if want other sources for other stuff, just let me know.

The ethics article:

Allen, L., & Voss, D. (1998). Ethics for editors: An analytical decision-making process. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 41(1), 58-65.

The rose diagrams (and it's recent!):
Brasseur, L. (2005). Florence Nightingale's Visual Rhetoric in the Rose Diagrams. Technical Communication Quarterly 14(2), 161-182.

And here's Ong:
Ong, W. (1982). Print, Space and Closure. In Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, (117-138). London: Routledge.

Let me know if any of these links don't work. And let me know if I can't post that Ong link, even thought it is for academic purposes. It's available through the library, so it should be fine. In any case, the citations are correct (enough) to get you to the right stuff if the links aren't functioning properly.

Roles and Power

We've talked a lot about TC roles in the classroom and in industry. As you think about Slack, Miller, and Doak and Barton and Barton, think back on the ideas we've gleaned from other readings and how they might apply. If you have the time, it might be helpful to pull a line or two that you underlined or noted before as we try to connect that to the new readings and expand upon them.
Some questions to consider:

• How do we create our roles and how do we normalize them?
• Who is empowered by our roles and our creation of them? Who has a say in that creation?

And one I'm sure you all want to see again...

• What is technical communication?

We won't necessarily discuss these questions, but it would be helpful to review them. Take a quick look at your notes/the course schedule and decide who answers these questions and how they give us a foundation for understanding roles, power, knowledge construction, identity, and definition as we see them in the two articles for tomorrow.

Here's hoping that somebody actually reads this.