Blog Posting #6. Social Nature of Technical Communication

The paper discusses the difficulty that  Barry Marshall faced to convince his colleagues the validity of his work. The paper analyzes the role of persuasion in scientific communication. It clearly states that the reason why his theory was not readily accepted is the lack of persuasion in communication. The paper also discusses the wrong ways that Dr. Marshall tried to persuade his colleagues-by drinking a mixture of the bacteria. In science, there is a presence of prevailing assumptions. Effective persuasion can be used to change this. Persuasion is generated by the presentation and style of the communication. Computer science is just another field that focuses on collaboration and communication. For example, most project ideas require some amount of persuasion to be first recognized. In the context of this class, we were asked to send a persuasive email to get the project that most of the team members were comfortable with. Now, the project is being implemented through collaboration. Every project, every task is a product of collaboration in the computer science field. By describing the readers' initial attitude and what it should be after reading our communication can determine the level of persuasiveness in the communication. It is important to find out the rationales the readers' will find persuasive.

Blog Posting #5. Drafting Prose

Part 1: Chapter 8 discusses drafting reader-centered paragraphs, sections, and chapters. The main takeaways from the chapter is to start each segment in a clear and persuasive manner, arrange other parts of the document to create coherence and persuasiveness, make sure we recognize how the readers understand the organization. There are several guidelines in this chapter that I follow. One of the main one is presenting information so that the most important information is identified first and then it moves on to the least important. It becomes more crucial to follow the guideline if the reader is in a hurry and just skim through the document. I follow this guideline as a writer and I find it useful when I am the reader scanning to locate key points. The rest of the guidelines provided in the chapter can be very beneficial when creating reader centered documents that are both useful and persuasive. One of the guidelines I need to work on for my documents is providing signposts that create a map for the communication. Using forecasting statements, transitions, headings, or visual arrangement of the text can help the reader see the organization of the communication. This can aid with smoothing the flow of thought from sentence to sentence. 

Part 2: Chapter 10 focuses on creating an effective and professional style in communication that is easy to understand, clear, precise, and builds reader’s confidence in us. One of the guidelines that I believe I follow always is avoiding stereotypes in the communication. It is really crucial to generalize the audience in our communication so that it brings out a trusting voice for the readers and it is ethical. Sometimes we might employ stereotypes inadvertently. This should be avoided by being very careful in our communication. Other important guideline to follow is finding out what is to be expected. To have an effective voice in our communication, we should recognize the level of formality required in the writing, consider the reader’s personality, discipline, and profession, and overall the style that the reader expects. Another guideline that is helpful in writing any document is simplifying our sentences. Elimination of unnecessary words or phrases can help condense our writing. Sometimes it is possible to write a more effective communication when there is no requirement to have complex sentence structures. This can also be done by combining short sentences. The guideline of using specialized terms only when readers will understand them ties into this. To establish credibility, it might be useful to use key terms from our field showing our knowledge of the subject. But, ensure that the reader understands the terms.