Technical Writing Topics: Ethics, the memo, collaboration, electronic editing

Goals:

·         To practice effective editing strategies for group writing situations using the methods described in Chapter 3 of our textbook.

·         To think a little more deeply about how ethics apply to specific writing situations, Chapter 2.

·         To become familiar with the memo format and rewriting based on edits

·         Word Count: For the rough draft try to have at least 175 words, and make sure to answer all the questions in “Editing Specifics” (see at the end of this document) when editing your assigned draft.

 

PROJECT OVERVIEW

In Project 1 we will be focusing on the editing phase of collaborative writing, with each of you practicing good editing techniques (“good”=useful, diplomatic, honest) on someone else’s draft. In order to have something to edit, we first need to produce rough drafts, and this is what you will be doing in Phase 1 of the project: writing up a ROUGH draft for someone else to practice editing on. To make the project more realistic, the drafts will all be in the same form (the memo), and you’ll all be dealing with similar content on a subject you are studying in common: How the legal and ethical issues discussed in Chapter 2 might be applied in a real-world situation.

 

Project has three Phases to it.

PHASE 1: Create a rough draft  concerning ethical concerns for a new technical writer in your firm for someone else to edit. Week 3

PHASE 2: Post your draft on the discussion board and then edit the draft assigned to you. Week 4 – edit due Friday

PHASE 3: Upload your memo assessing your process/experience to the Assignment Box as well as the final draft of your own ethics memo. Week 5 Sunday

 

PHASE 1: Creating the rough draft to be edited by someone else (and applying some of what you now know about ethical considerations in technical writing):

For phase 1, you will imagine you have been asked to write a memo to a new technical writer trying to let him or her know what kind of legal and ethical tangles he or she could run into as a technical writer working at a particular place.

Audiences: Primary Audience: The tech writer. Imagine the tech writer has a B.A. with a major in English and a minor in a technical area, so he or she is a good writer and is comfortable around technical information; the tech writer has not had a lot of technical writing experience, and this is why your boss wants you to explain how the various laws discussed in Chapter 2 apply in documents written for your workplace.

who asked you to write up this memo.)

Tertiary Audience: The document Secondary Audience: Your boss and coworkers will be the secondary audience.

 

Rough Draft for Phase 1 Specifics:

►How would you describe the legal and ethical issues the new tech writer needs to be aware of—clearly describing relevant laws and ethical issues so he or she can avoid problems while making sure what you say won’t get you in trouble with your boss, coworkers, or, possibly, the generally public?

To help you come up with appropriately concrete examples and details, pick one of these workplaces to imagine this new tech writer starting out in:

• a civil engineering firm

• a pharmaceutical company

• an auto parts company

• a software or computer company

• a large accounting or law firm

• a nursing home (or multi-tier retirement facility)

(or  another one you have in mind – let me know)

 

Start Phase 1 after you have completed this week’s discussion postings about ethics and collaboration

Post your draft on the discussion board  with at least the following two important aspects of this writing process:

1.    How are you going to describe the legal and ethical issues involved, including examples you would give to the writer to help him or her really understand what you are saying? Make sure to say something about all four relevant laws given in the chapter and at least one other sticky ethical issue the writer might come across.

2.    Remember to keep your focus on issues a writer would need to be concerned with–not so much issues that might concern any worker at that workplace.)

3.    How will you work with the fact that this memo will be read by multiple audiences? Look back at Chapter 3 for ideas as well as the sections on Analyzing Audience and Purpose in Chapter 4.

 

This is just the initial draft (the “what am I going to say?” part of the writing process). Do try to write in complete sentences and to have an accessible and logical organization coming into shape—and remember to focus on ethical and legal issues related to technical writing in the workplace..

 

PHASE 2 : Collaborative writing online: Editing.

For this exercise, you will practicing giving comments to another writer, using the methods discussed in Chapter 3 (paying particular attention to the part on “writing diplomatically” in the “Writer’s Checklist for Writing Collaboratively”  (TC 52) and the electronic editing techniques you practiced in discussion topic 1 for this week. You will practice these techniques on another student’s rough-draft ethics memo written last week. Before you begin, review the Writer’s Checklist for Writing Collaboratively (TC 52). Pay special attention to the section on communicating diplomatically.

 

► Tuesday, I will assign who will work with whom, probably related to the order in which you posted your draft memos.

 

1. Once you know with whom you are working, check computer compatibility issues:

Check with each other about computer issues: Use rtf. if someone knows he or she can’t always read older Word or Works files. If uncertain about your computer’s capabilities, check with the OIT office for advice.

 

►Note: If one of you is using an Apple computer using Microsoft Word, you should be able to do this exercise just fine. However, some Apple word-processing programs don’t seem to be able to read “track changes” and “insert[ed] comments.” If one student is using an Apple and is NOT using Word, check to see if “track changes” will work (to see if the Apple user can see inserted comments). If not, try something I’ve done in the past: Put your comments in [a different font color] than is used in the original and put the square brackets around it to further identify that it’s your comment. I’ve also sometimes put the text I’m commenting on in bold to make it easier for the writer to identify what phrase or word in particular I’m commenting on.

In general, consider not using Word 2007/2010 (.docx) files in case someone in the class can’t open them. It is very easy to save files as .doc or .rtf files.

2. Make comments on the other student’s memo that I’ve assigned you. Do your best, but don’t stress too much. Focus on the goal, which is to gain experience offering useful comments to another writer with an eye toward helping him or her produce the most effective text possible. The important thing here is to gain experience in working together (collaboratively) online as well as experience in offering constructive criticism that will help someone else improve a piece of writing.

►See “Editing Specifics” for things I’d like you to try to include in your edit.

3. Ask the writer whose work you commented on what was the most useful comment. (Writers: Respond, offering a real sense of which comment seemed most useful to you and why.)

4. Toward the end of the week (Friday perhaps), take a look at what another pair/group of writers have done and leave a comment.

PHASE 3: Upload your assessment memo assessing your experience and the final revision of your memo (in one file) to the Assignment Box.

 

Phase 3: self-assessment memo and revision of original memo

Content of Assessment Memo: Write three to four paragraphs assessing your process/experience of doing this exercise.

Include in your assessment memo:

1. An overview of your process of writing and editing the memo
2. A list of edits you made (use the “Editing Specifics” checklist to help you with this)
3. A discussion of editing strategies/techniques you are comfortable with along with those you would like to improve
4. A description of the edits you received on your memo, and which of them were most useful to you (and why/how they were useful)
5. A brief discussion of how you might make use of what you learned in the future
6. ****Paste in your revised memo in the same file.  Do NOT send me two separate files.

 

►“Editing Specifics” Here are some comments/corrections I would like you to practice making on the draft assigned to you. They represent kinds of comments that contribute to a successful edit, including comments about both form and content. As a way to help you think of specifics to include, take a look at the “General Grading Rubric” in the “Assignments, Rubrics, and Other Helpful Documents” folder on the course home page.

In the course of editing your classmate’s draft, make sure to include the following:

Ø  A concrete description of one thing that works really well

Ø  A descriptive suggestion of one thing you think the writer could do to really improve the memo overall

 

Also try to introduce at least two each of the following kinds of edits.

Ø  a suggestion for how to revise a complete sentence as a “comment.” It might be to “fix” grammar, but it could also be to make the meaning or logic (the “sense”) clearer.

Ø  a suggestion for a different word choice a corrected detail (for example, punctuation, spelling, usage, verb tense)

 

Finally, work with the content some by thinking about the following questions and then suggesting possibly improvements related to them:

Ø  Is the focus on technical writing versus more general ethical issues in the particular workplace?

Ø  EXAMPLE: For a tech writer who will be working in a nursing home, advice to follow medical procedures exactly as written when dealing with patients would not be appropriate. This is better advice for a new CNA (perhaps). Advice to write up procedures accurately, double-checking with experts to make sure the facts are right, might be more appropriate. Another might be making sure signage is accessible to all.

Ø  Has the writer covered all four laws and perhaps another relevant ethical issue? If one law is covered less than others, is it clear why that is so? (Emphasizing one or more law is perfectly legitimate. For example, in a certain workplace Trademark Law might not be as important as Liability Law.)

Ø  Has the writer offered concrete examples to help the reader really “see” what he or she is talking about? (If not, you might suggest examples.)

Ø  EXAMPLES: – At a software firm a former tech writer transposed two numbers in product documentation, causing many customers’ systems to crash. This is a good example of why accuracy is so important and maybe also a reason why there’s a requirement that a draft be proofed by co-workers. – At a multi-level retirement facility (including a nursing wing), a former tech writer placed a picture of a generic (public-domain) assisted-living kitchen that included (in the background) appliances and finish work that the facility never includes. – At an engineering firm, a tech writer found a perfect description of product performance in a document that didn’t identify the author of the original or where the text otherwise came from. The tech writer decided to use the text anyway.

Ø  Has the writer taken audience into account well?

 

 

WRITERS: You may use this to help you with your draft, but as I said before, it is to be a ROUGH DRAFT, so do not worry about refining it too much