http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Collaboration/Rhetoric A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Collaboration and Rhetoric in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Collaboration/Rhetoric http://tc.eserver.org/35458.html http://tc.eserver.org/35458.html Whether you are getting a client to sign off on a website’s design or persuade a user to complete a call to action, we all need to know how to be convincing. Like many in the Web design industry, I have a strange job. I am part salesperson, part consultant and part user experience designer. One day I could be pitching a new idea to a board of directors, the next I might be designing an e-commerce purchasing process. There is, however, a common theme: I spend most of my time persuading people. http://tc.eserver.org/35145.html http://tc.eserver.org/35145.html We communicate via many forms every day. When what we say or write is misunderstood, the fault may lie with either party. One source of miscommunication is the different meaning people place on commonly used words and phrases. In this article, the authors report preliminary results from a study on such miscommunication and lay out an agenda for research on improving business communication based on the Integrative Model of Levels of Analysis of 'Miscommunication,' developed by Coupland, Wiemann, and Giles. http://tc.eserver.org/32616.html http://tc.eserver.org/32616.html Pedagogical and scholarly representations of collaborative writing and knowledge construction in technical communication have traditionally recognized consensus as the logical outcome of collaborative work, even as scholars and teachers have acknowledged the value of conflict and "dissensus" in the process of collaborative knowledge building. However, the conflict-laden work product of a Denver task force charged with recommending changes to the city police department's use-of-force policy and proposing a process for police oversight retains the collaborative group's dissensus and in doing so, illustrates an alternative method of collaborative reporting that challenges convention. Such an approach demonstrates a dissensus-based method of reporting that has the potential to open new rhetorical spaces for collaborative stakeholders by gainfully extending collaborative conversations and creating new opportunities for ethos development, thus offering scholars, teachers, and practitioners a way of reimagining the trajectory and outcome of collaborative work. http://tc.eserver.org/31567.html http://tc.eserver.org/31567.html Virtually every employee in an organization performs a discrete set of tasks. Only the leader sees the big picture -- unless the leader does a good job of conveying that big picture to his workforce. Of course, there's more to leadership than getting people to buy into your vision. http://tc.eserver.org/30845.html http://tc.eserver.org/30845.html Teaching students to write persuasive messages is a critical feature of any undergraduate business communications course. For the persuasive writing module in my course, students write a persuasive message on the basis of the four-part indirect pattern often used for sales or fund-raising messages. The course text I use identifies these four components by their rhetorical functions: gain attention, build interest, reduce resistance, and motivate action. http://tc.eserver.org/30728.html http://tc.eserver.org/30728.html The inferences individuals make about others' goals is an integral, but neglected, aspect of empirical and theoretical work on social interaction. An original theoretical framework is proposed to account for interindividual agreement and certainty of goal inferences. Two experiments applied the framework to explain how contextual ambiguity and tactical functionality affected agreement and certainty. Results generally support hypotheses regarding agreement, such that goal inferences converged (i.e., interobserver agreement increased) as the context and tactic became more compatible, yet results largely do not support hypotheses for inference certainty, as the only significant effect that emerged was that certainty was higher in unambiguous than ambiguous contexts. A reconsideration of the theoretical framework on goal detection is discussed and implications are advanced. http://tc.eserver.org/30210.html http://tc.eserver.org/30210.html This article uses qualitative material gathered at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to construct a model of the rhetorical activity that occurs at the boundaries between diverse communities of practice working on complex sociotechnical systems. The authors reinterpret the notion of the boundary object current in science studies as a rhetorical construct that can foster cooperation and communication among the diverse members of heterogeneous working groups. The knowledge maps constructed by team members at LANL in their work on technical systems are boundary objects that can replace the demarcation exigence that so often leads to agonistic rhetorical boundary work with an integrative exigence. The integrative exigence realized by the boundary object of the knowledge map can help create a temporary trading zone characterized by rhetorical relations of symmetry and mutual understanding. In such cases, boundary work can become an effort involving integration and understanding rather than contest, controversy, and demarcation. http://tc.eserver.org/24855.html http://tc.eserver.org/24855.html This panel segment focuses on facilitating interactivity and teaching a visual subject matter in a distance (satellite) learning environment. http://tc.eserver.org/21637.html http://tc.eserver.org/21637.html La interacción social nos proporciona patrones visuales que nos ayudan a situarnos en nuestro entorno. En Internet, sin embargo, esto no es tan inmediato. Están empezando a aparecer visualizaciones que intentan paliar el problema. http://tc.eserver.org/21584.html http://tc.eserver.org/21584.html If words follow pictures, as when a poet creates a poem in response to a work of art, then words become a way of seeing. Collaborations between verbal and visual artists produce such insights, regardless of whether the poet responds to the painter or the painter to the poet, since each is speaking in turn in the artistic dialogue which collaboration produces. Yet "Artistic practice and art history have not always looked favorably upon collaborations. http://tc.eserver.org/19358.html http://tc.eserver.org/19358.html As a basis for our exploration, we have analyzed our own experiences to date in four ongoing collaborative research groups. In using self-reflective critique as our method of analysis, we are keenly aware that the evolving nature of these collaborative groups has influenced the construction of our arguments here. And, conversely, we realize that our critique may in turn influence the evolution of these groups. Moreover, we recognize as a formative constraint our interest in preserving and continuing to work with colleagues in these groups. Plainly stated, we continually asked ourselves, 'Will the colleagues in our collaborative groups ever speak to us again after reading this article?' Because of this concern, we shared drafts with all of these colleagues, asked for their comments, and provided an opportunity for them to offer alternative interpretations. http://tc.eserver.org/10361.html http://tc.eserver.org/10361.html This article describes visualization methods used by many international organizations in the design of development projects. In this context, development projects means projects that are designed to improve the quality of life for people living in a developing country. During the project design workshop essential elements of a discussion and subsequent analysis are visualized as the discussion takes place and displayed to the participants. This visual record is kept in view through the whole period of the discussion. The visual methods of identifying, analyzing and structuring a problem dramatically improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the problem solving process and the quality of the final solution. The techniques enable a large amount of knowledge available within the group of participants to be collected quickly and allows complex problems to be taken through several steps of analysis.