In a number of Posterous entries and Twitter updates this week, I noticed a certain amount of "settling in," evidence of students getting comfortable and confident with the communicative technologies required for this course. It appears that what I hoped for last week is indeed happening. That is, as students figure out the idiosyncrasies and intricacies of Posterous and Twitter*, the less they focus on them. We're getting more into the discussion of what technical writing is, what it does, how it works, etc.
However, this shift in discussion and focus presents a new problem: likening technical writing to other forms of writing that we're more familiar with. This can be problematic because such comparisons limit our perspective of what technical writing is, what it does, how it works, etc. It may be natural for us to make such comparisons when learning new things, but this constrains our ability to understand.
The kind of writing we do can be connected to almost any other kind of writing. It's all argument, it's all communication, it's all information. But the intent, the presentation, the topic, all these things are different and dependent on the kind of writing we do. Elements of journalism or poetry are similar to (or can influence) technical writing and the inverse is also arguable. However, technical writing is its own form of communication, replete with just as many idiosyncrasies and intricacies.
So, rather than drawing comparisons between technical writing and journalism or poetry or writing about videogames, I'm hopeful that we'll move more toward analysis of technical writing itself. The ZGT assignment due next week should provide a greater indication of this analysis.
*Twitter remains an interesting course experiment, but there have been a couple complaints about how some students are using the service. Some are tweeting ad infinitum about other courses, how bored they are at work, their relationship status. For some students, this is TMI. However, each student's Twitter account/profile is theirs; I can't lay claim to it or dictate too much of the content. So long as students post 5 course-related tweets every week, making sure to include the course hashtag, #345tw, I have to be okay with students using Twitter for other purposes. I just want those students to know that their classmates might not be okay with those other purposes.
M1:
Blogs should have a meaning behind them, whether it is to relay new information or to start a conversation, blogs need to be thought out.
I didn't realize that the more you have conversations with people about the product at hand, or directions, or documentation, or whatever level you are trying to operate on, that you learn more and more of the issues at hand by teaching it. I understand that the more you teach something, the better you are at explaining it, but I can really see it now when I look back on issues revolving around things such as customer service.
my challenge to the group is for us to add more color with links, attachments, formatting, and subheadings. Some of us are, but the more the better.
A technical writer must prepare and reflect on his or her priorities and goals before embarking upon introducing some new medium of joining conversation. Anne Gentle encourages personal reflection before immediately trying a new way of becoming accessible to the community. The technical writer must be wary of the amount of time they spend on a newly discovered social media site, as it's efficacy may be dismissed because of time one may spend on it during the workday
Right now in class with all the blogs and twitters we are doing, we are documenting and helping other people to document what they think is important. When we go through and read other blogs it helps to organize our own ideas.
M2:
Knowing why someone is reluctant to use social media could potentially make the difference in convincing them
It would not be worth anyone's time if an instruction manual was written and aimed towards someone with previous knowledge of the product but that was not the actual audience. If the audience does not understand the material, the writing piece seems pointless and did not accomplish its purpose.
I feel like I'm contradicting everything Gentle is writing about the relationship between technical writers and social networking, but customer service must be approached much differently than writing a document, and should probably be done by tech support, right?
social networking is a huge way to get out your product, name, intentions, etc and a great way to build clientele. The more they can read/write/connect with and about your company the more it will grow.