There's More Than One Way To Wire That: When Assembly Workers Are Technically Writers    

While technical writing is becoming a more obvious part of undergraduate education, it is not uncommon for an engineer to face the task of writing documentation without much training in the craft of communication. Other members of production teams may have received even less training, and yet have an equal or greater need to have a say in how documentation is produced and what it contains. In this paper, we will examine a situation in which an assembly worker, or system integrator, demanded the opportunity to document the appropriate ways to assemble complex Test and Measurement systems (for evaluating the electronic components of products such as PC’s, cars, and cellular phones), and the effects her change in roles has had on the production processes for both systems and their documentation.

Hall, Susan P. and Lili Fox Vélez. ACM SIGDOC (1999). Presentations>Documentation>Workplace

Tiger Taming

Have you done something halfway, hoping the effort would be enough to get you by? When it comes to getting organized, I’m guilty of the half-hearted effort. Let me be the first to tell you that halfway doesn’t cut it.

Book, Ruth. STC Central Iowa (2001). Careers>Workplace>Quality

Tina the Tech Writer

She's the technical writer in Dilbert's engineering department. Tina believes any conversation within hearing distance is intended as an insult to her profession and her gender. She strives to maintain her dignity while surrounded by engineers who don't have a proper respect for her work.

Adams, Scott. United Feature Syndicate. Humor>Workplace

Toward a More Productive Discussion about Instrumental Discourse

This article traces the ongoing debate surrounding instrumental discourse in technical communication scholarship and identifies steps that scholars should take to increase the efficacy of this debate.

Warnick, Quinn. Orange Journal, The (2005). Articles>Workplace>Writing

Training 101: Learn How to Train  

Practical techniques for organizing, delivering, and surviving your first-ever face-to-face training course. While the focus is on computer software training, the information can be readily adapted for other training situations. BEFORE THE BIG DAY It is useful to know what goes into a training session even if you're not responsible for all the preparations. If

Bracey, Rhonda. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Workplace

Transforming Your Company to a Usability Culture  

Documentation is a finger in the eroding dam of an unusable product.

Ames, Andrea L. STC Region 7 Proceedings (2002). Articles>Documentation>Usability>Workplace

The Tricky Backhand

An hypothetical example of interpersonal communication issues which may arise in the workplace.

Hard at Work. Careers>Workplace>Collaboration

Uncovering Organizational Culture: Making Sense of the Corporate World  

Understanding an organization's corporate culture can help explain how to get things done in an organization: communicate, advanced up the corporate ladder, and get project ideas accepted and completed. We can understand culture by identifying values, norms, and assumptions underlying the corporate 'world..' Cultures can he better understood by looking at such things as how an organization responds to crisis, how the intentions of group leaders come to be shared, and how an organization perceives itself. For example, a study of culture at one organization revealed such differing values between two groups, scientists and engineers, that cross-cultural mediation was necessary.

Kahn, Russell L. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Workplace>Rhetoric>Organizational Communication

Understanding Workplace Dynamics

Building a team used to be simple. You assembled a number of people with the same tools, education, skills and experience, you told them what to do – and they went and did it. With the information revolution came new ways of working and managerial insights, and a complex minefield of individual competencies required to 'do the job.' Emma Hamer demonstrates how assessing and assigning team roles—determining how people will use their tools, and in particular how they will interact and work together towards a common end-goal—can improve the dynamic of a team.

Evans, Conni E., Emma C. Hamer, Rahel Anne Bailie and Elizabeth Babcock. Hamer Associates (2003). Careers>Management>Workplace

Underutilized: What You Can Do  

Describes how technical writers who feel their jobs aren't challenging enough can obtain more responsibilities.

Block, Barbara M. Intercom (2001). Careers>Workplace>TC

Usability as Therapy

Underneath the carnival excitement of the information revolution I hear a quiet but persistent murmur warning of an emerging technology crisis. Not everything is right in the information economy.

Kreitzberg, Charles B. Usability Professionals Association (1999). Careers>Usability>Workplace>Technology

Use Body Language to Deliver Your Message  

One of your most effective means to communicate with team members may not involve words. See why senior editor Matthew Osborn believes body language can say it all.

Osborn, Matthew. TechRepublic (2003). Articles>Collaboration>Communication>Workplace

Use Heads, Subheads, and Summaries

Use standard typographic techniques and writing features that help the reader find their way through each page of your document. Titles, subtitles, bold subheads between paragraphs, and summaries help the reader find out what they would learn if they read a page or section in greater detail. Let the reader know the bottom line up front. Offer a brief introduction that lets the reader know what information is being presented.

Bricklin, Dan. Good Documents (1998). Articles>Writing>Workplace

Use Lists

Lists are short lines, and easy to skim. Since they break up nicely into chunks (one chunk per list item) they work well for organizing a related group of links. For many situations, they will work better than links scattered in a paragraph that must be read in context.

Bricklin, Dan. Good Documents (1998). Articles>Writing>Workplace

Using Corporate Lore to Create Boundaries in the Workplace    

In the workplace setting professionals use language to create boundaries of exclusion and inclusion, using the discourses of their professions and of specific workplace domain. Some boundaries are marked by formal tests--directed memos, posted notices, stamps that read "For Your Eyes Only." Less overt forms, and arguably more effective, are specific rhetorical devices relying on knowledge of the corporate and professional culture. People are included or excluded from such cultures by their knowledge and ability to manipulate professional fables and folklore, historical data, workplace experience narratives, and practical knowledge. These discourse practices can be used to promote solidarity and positively strengthen professional cultures, but they can also be used to obstruct communication and to create social fragmentation in the workplace. This article examines some examples of discourse practices among managers and employees in the customer service department of a large manufacturing firm, and shows how knowledge of the ways that language can both include and exclude people from cultural groups in the worksite can help professional communicators facilitate more effective and responsible communication practices in workplace settings.

Racine, Sam J. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (1999). Articles>Language>Workplace

Using Measurement to Enhance Employee Communication

The role of an employee communication professional is, at its core, fundamentally simple: We're in the business of designing and executing messaging to achieve a desired effect with a specific audience. How successful we are is driven by a number of factors, including appropriate use of media, timing and messages. By understanding these factors, we can target communication much more effectively. The key to understanding these factors effectively is simple: Ask.

Cooper, Marc. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Workplace

The Value Added by Technical Communicators  

Edelman lists several arguments technical communicators can use to specify the value they add to an organization.

Edelman, Mark. Intercom (2001). Careers>Workplace>Assessment

We Can Learn From Newspapers

Newspapers are a good model from which to learn techniques for creating skimmable documents. A newspaper provides an immense amount of information that is highly skimmable. You can pick up almost any daily newspaper and in just a few minutes find the information you want: What's new? How did your home sports team do (no matter where you are in the country)? What are this paper's biases?

Bricklin, Dan. Good Documents (1998). Articles>Writing>Workplace

Web Design Standards: 10 Organizational Secrets

The practices and processes that facilitate the organizational development needed to create a successful Web design standard.

Schaffer, Eric M. Human Factors International (2006). Presentations>Web Design>Style Guides>Workplace

What is Fair Maternity Leave?

Your division’s new manager, a woman, believes that your company’s policy regarding maternity leave is inadequate, even though the previous manager claimed it met federal minimum requirements. She designates you and 3-4 others to investigate the issue. Discover what minimum federal requirements (if any) are in place and what standards are common among other companies in your chosen industry. Designate responsibility evenly among group members and discuss your findings. Your instructor may have you compile the results as a report.

Lannon, John M. Pearson Education (2003). Academic>Course Materials>Management>Workplace

What Must Be Done to Ensure That College Students Communicate Well in Their Fields?      

With the turn of a new century, it seems as though everyone has gone into the forecasting business--especially stockbrokers and academics. Our own field has marked the emerging era with a wonderful essay collection, WAC for the New Millennium (ed. McLeod, et al., NCTE 2001). In the same spirit, this panel looked to the future by reflecting on best current theory/practice (guided by the stockbrokers' caution that past performance is no guarantee of future results.) To set the stage for the discussion, the moderator briefly considered the title assigned by the conference organizers: 'What Must Be Done to Ensure That College Students Communicate Well in Their Fields?'

Youra, Steven. LLAD (2002). Articles>Education>Writing>Workplace

What School Can't Teach You About Technical Communication: An Ethnographic Inquiry  

Because the workplace is a different kind of discourse community than the classroom, young professionals are unprepared for such workplace realities as the required use of a bureaucratic style, fragmented and reiterative research and review, and a lack of clear direction. Organizations should explicitly address these training needs through providing effective writing examples, writing-focused orientation, and mentoring in communications.

Malone, Elizabeth L. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Education>Mentoring>Workplace

What Workplace Stress Research is Telling Technical Communicators    

Technical communicators encounter many stresses in their professional lives. Deadlines, overly ambitious projects, and uncooperative subject matter experts can make their work exceptionally stressful. To the communicators, such stress may be so common as to seem benign, but it actually has serious consequences that range from a loss of career fulfillment to severe health problems. This article explains what stress is and how it is generated in the workplace. It also explains the health consequences of stress, and why companies often see stress as the employees’ problem, even as it eats into profits and productivity. Much research has been done on workplace stress in the last two decades, leading to many suggestions on how to reduce it. This article reviews these suggestions, which include everything from exercise programs to cognitive/behavioral training. It also considers the implications of workplace stress research for technical communicators and the communicators’ efforts to get more influence within the workplace.

Primm, Dave. Technical Communication Online (2005). Articles>Workplace

What you Can't Hear Can Hurt You: Overcoming Physical and Emotional Barriers of Hearing Impairment in the Practice of Technical Communication  

Children who fail hearing tests but who function in educational settings are assumed to have only unimportant handicaps. These children learn to live with their problems, but a significant hearing impairment diminishes the information such children receive. Help is available for children, but also for adults who have not fully recognized their handicaps. This paper describes the problems of people with moderate hearing loss, and provides information on what can be done to ameliorate their problems.

Gillen, Lori. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Workplace>Accessibility>Audio