Notes on Miller, "A humanistic rationale for tech writing".
The easy questions:
When was it written and published?
1979 in College English -- but is anthologized and cited all over the place.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Technical communication teachers as well as a wider audience of general people (especially comp. people) in college English departments.
What is the genre and what kind of research is the author doing?
The genre is prescriptive : Miller wants to trade a positivist perspective on tech writing for an overt consensualist one. It's also critical -- the tech comm view of science and technology doesn't match the science and technology view of science and technology.
The hard questions
What was taking place in the field when the author wrote it, and how does Miller's essay reflect the conversation that was taking place in the field?
Miller grounds her essay in a local event -- an English dept. debate about whether tech. writing satisfies a humanities requirement. But surely this debate was not isolated. By 1979, technical writing had moved from engineering departments to the English departments in which tech writing programs are now most often housed. English departments were struggling to figure out how tech writing fit in and to determine its value. Likewise, tech writing was aspiring to "disciplinary respectability" (Miller -- I would call it legitimacy) and aimed to move beyond its status as a skills course.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Miller focuses on aspects of technical communication that have humanistic value and aligns these aspects of tech comm with the New Rhetoric. This helps tech comm claim legitimacy w/in English departments and social centrality as a field -- tech writing is equivalent to, and participates in, the work of technology and science.
What is the epistemological background?
Spanning the ancient Greek philosophers to the extremely logical positivism of the early 20th century, scientists held a positivist view of science (Aristotle, Whitehead and Russell, Korzybski). Now scientists hold a consensualist view of science (Kuhn, etc -- Miller calls this the "new epistemology"). So it would be cool for tech. writing to adopt the consentualist perspective.
What is the argument?
Tech writing has humanistic value, and pedagogy can throw this value into sharp releif by trading the positivist perspective for a consensualist one.
What evidence does the author bring?
The positivist view has put some holes in tech. writing as a discipline, leaving only "self-deprecation" at the center:
Unsystematized definitions of tech writing, emphasis on form and style at the expense of invention, insistence on certain characteristics of tone and analysis of audience in terms of "level".
Each of these holes creates problems that can be redressed with the consensualist view. I'm too tired to explain.
What perspective does the author take?
A consensualist view of tech writing.
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
Miller notes that the positivist view of tech writing is still held by scientists and technology people in industry. If tech writing teachers adopt a consensualist perspective, what conflicts might arise as tech writers enter the workforce -- and what are some strategies for reconciling these 2 perspectives so that people can write their documents in peace?
Interesting notes:
According to Miller, scientific and technical writing are different because they're associated with different and differently-structured communities: overlapping disciplinary (science) and i/o beaurocratic (technology).
I seem to remember that some other guy takes issue with this idea-- but who? And why?
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
POW!
After a mining fataility, the MSHA circulates a FATALGRAM or safety memo w / graphic depiction of the accident.
The FATALGRAMS are not meant to be funny.
reading notes
This is a mere sample of what I must do 3-5 times per day in order to pass exam to verify that I'm qualified to ... keep doing what I've been doing for the past 4 years:
Notes on Sauer (2003), "The Rhetoric of Risk: Technical Documentation in Hazardous Environments".
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it?
Tech comm shifted from arguing that it should research non-traditional settings to actually researching nontraditional settings. Note: This never happens in "high theory", in which no actual research is done.
Note: Contemporaneous examples include -- hey! Why is Sauer the only book-length study of a nontraditional setting that I can think of?
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on, and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Sauer analyzes the "embodied" technical communication -- specifically gestures -- of miners working in hazardous environments. In addition to responding to the call for research on "marginalized forms of representation", Sauer is taking up a social issue: Government regulations focus on abstract, paper-based forms of documentation -- these kinds of regulations don't even make it into the mine.
Sauer focuses on the endpoints of the cycle of tech. documentation in hazardous environments: stage 1, when embodied experiences are put in writing via an accident report, and stage 6, when procedures are represented to workers through training. At these points, there's a crucial interface between agencies and the material sites they seek to regulate.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Tech comm researchers and risk specialists.
What is the epistemological background?
Sauer blends the Aristelian perspecive that rhet. is an inventional art with the postmodern / feminist awareness that industrial communication practices are shaped by politics and economics, and therefore might not register some necessary info. about assessing and managing risk.
Here's Sauer's twist on invention: make visible the full range of responses to the problem of risk, then focus on the non-conventionalzed stuff that pre-existing / conventional modes of analysis have made invisible.
Sources: Richard Young . He focuses on invention, and I know about him.
2. Some Guy Named J.V. Cunningham.
What is the argument?
Broadly, Sauer claims centrality and value for miners' gestures and other marginalized forms of representations (i.e., leaving them out has real consequences): "Ultimately, the rhetoric of risk arguest that rhetoricians must develop, study and adopt documentation practices that will have the same authority and force that we now assicate with the written word. The hretoirc I imagine will note see gesture as additive, but it will help us understand how speakers and writers integrate many different forms of knowledge -- analytic and experiential, scientific and embodied -- in many different modalitites at many different sites of rhetorical production".
Sauer offers 4 provocative questions:
What if individuals don't have enough rhetorical knowledge to document experience in writing?
What if an individual can't interpret a toner or gesture?
How do health and judgements get skewed in consequence?
How can other attain and evaluate knowledge that is not documented in written form.
Sauer's research is descriptive (qualitative: empirical and documentary), so the focus is on "mapping new territory for investigation" and methods for answering questions, not on making claims.
What is Sauer's perspective?
Sauer is especially interested in "how gender and power is inscribed in the official communication practices that have affected miners' lives". Her focus is on rhetorical practices, not mine safety.
What perspective is missed?
The steps in the middle, which are intra-organizational.
What is the genre?
Descriptive with a smidge of critical.
What kind of research is the author doing?
I think it's ethnographic -- you might say it's lots of case studies -- with contextual documentary research. Sauer thinks that quantitative researchers would be uncomfortable with building theory from "isolated cases", a scruple that can be avoided if we look at the individuals as creating new, momentary solutions to communication problems that extend our understanding of the avail. means of persuasion in hazardous worksites.
Notes on Sauer (2003), "The Rhetoric of Risk: Technical Documentation in Hazardous Environments".
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it?
Tech comm shifted from arguing that it should research non-traditional settings to actually researching nontraditional settings. Note: This never happens in "high theory", in which no actual research is done.
Note: Contemporaneous examples include -- hey! Why is Sauer the only book-length study of a nontraditional setting that I can think of?
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on, and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Sauer analyzes the "embodied" technical communication -- specifically gestures -- of miners working in hazardous environments. In addition to responding to the call for research on "marginalized forms of representation", Sauer is taking up a social issue: Government regulations focus on abstract, paper-based forms of documentation -- these kinds of regulations don't even make it into the mine.
Sauer focuses on the endpoints of the cycle of tech. documentation in hazardous environments: stage 1, when embodied experiences are put in writing via an accident report, and stage 6, when procedures are represented to workers through training. At these points, there's a crucial interface between agencies and the material sites they seek to regulate.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Tech comm researchers and risk specialists.
What is the epistemological background?
Sauer blends the Aristelian perspecive that rhet. is an inventional art with the postmodern / feminist awareness that industrial communication practices are shaped by politics and economics, and therefore might not register some necessary info. about assessing and managing risk.
Here's Sauer's twist on invention: make visible the full range of responses to the problem of risk, then focus on the non-conventionalzed stuff that pre-existing / conventional modes of analysis have made invisible.
Sources: Richard Young . He focuses on invention, and I know about him.
2. Some Guy Named J.V. Cunningham.
What is the argument?
Broadly, Sauer claims centrality and value for miners' gestures and other marginalized forms of representations (i.e., leaving them out has real consequences): "Ultimately, the rhetoric of risk arguest that rhetoricians must develop, study and adopt documentation practices that will have the same authority and force that we now assicate with the written word. The hretoirc I imagine will note see gesture as additive, but it will help us understand how speakers and writers integrate many different forms of knowledge -- analytic and experiential, scientific and embodied -- in many different modalitites at many different sites of rhetorical production".
Sauer offers 4 provocative questions:
What if individuals don't have enough rhetorical knowledge to document experience in writing?
What if an individual can't interpret a toner or gesture?
How do health and judgements get skewed in consequence?
How can other attain and evaluate knowledge that is not documented in written form.
Sauer's research is descriptive (qualitative: empirical and documentary), so the focus is on "mapping new territory for investigation" and methods for answering questions, not on making claims.
What is Sauer's perspective?
Sauer is especially interested in "how gender and power is inscribed in the official communication practices that have affected miners' lives". Her focus is on rhetorical practices, not mine safety.
What perspective is missed?
The steps in the middle, which are intra-organizational.
What is the genre?
Descriptive with a smidge of critical.
What kind of research is the author doing?
I think it's ethnographic -- you might say it's lots of case studies -- with contextual documentary research. Sauer thinks that quantitative researchers would be uncomfortable with building theory from "isolated cases", a scruple that can be avoided if we look at the individuals as creating new, momentary solutions to communication problems that extend our understanding of the avail. means of persuasion in hazardous worksites.
the audacity to stick
In 2007, I'd like to see the word "tacky" restored to its positive, adhesive meaning ... because I am always in the market for a good adhesive.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Just to give these ideas maximum exposure for non - boingboing readers :
1. cooler than cool
2. ice cold
This stuff and more can be found on boingboing: a directory of wonderful things.
1. cooler than cool
2. ice cold
This stuff and more can be found on boingboing: a directory of wonderful things.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
haiku
Title: "Hardware Not Present"
Is my linksys pci card WPC54g v3
broken?
Because the LCD light is on.
Is my linksys pci card WPC54g v3
broken?
Because the LCD light is on.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
newtonian physics
Hilary weighs 113 lbs and carries a bookbag of approximately equal weight. A minute ago, Hilary and her bookbag were at rest.
If Hilary sprints straight to the 10th floor stairwell at a rate of 50 ft / sec, what is the force of Hilary's head-on collision with the stairwell door?
Notes: F = M/A
The stairwell is at rest
If Hilary sprints straight to the 10th floor stairwell at a rate of 50 ft / sec, what is the force of Hilary's head-on collision with the stairwell door?
Notes: F = M/A
The stairwell is at rest
Monday, January 08, 2007
Current stats: Win 2007
current location: Floor
why? : Six (6) hours left of Winter break
and ps: I couldn't sleep knowing that other people are teaching
watching: Jackass 2
fave expression: Har!
weight: 112. 9
that's right: I *lost* weight over Winter break.
so: Har!
why? : Six (6) hours left of Winter break
and ps: I couldn't sleep knowing that other people are teaching
watching: Jackass 2
fave expression: Har!
weight: 112. 9
that's right: I *lost* weight over Winter break.
so: Har!
math
Hilary has 5 friends. Each of these friends has 72 students.
How many students will annoy Hilary in WIN 2007?
How many students will annoy Hilary in WIN 2007?
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Friday, January 05, 2007
top ten signs that it's time for WIN 2007
#1 Sharon and I had an in-depth conversation about "the cute new guy on Ugly Betty" as though he is a real person.
#2 Having crossed a frozen tundra to register for ENG 9991, I'm thinking hmmm...there must be some way to work my candidate status into a pickup line.
#3 It's starting to seem like the movie Fargo "in a sense, becomes its own negation".
#4 While not a muslim myself, I think that I accidentally converted fjr to Islam.
[Sample proselytizing: "I think you should try to get into Muslim heaven "for the virgins". That's right! You could have your own basketball team of virginal muslims or sample the Muslims of the world"].
#5 Everyone around me has released their syllabus in beta.
#6 2 hrs: Time spent browsing anime manga for hairstyle ideas. Number of outstanding grade complaints: 6.
#2 Having crossed a frozen tundra to register for ENG 9991, I'm thinking hmmm...there must be some way to work my candidate status into a pickup line.
#3 It's starting to seem like the movie Fargo "in a sense, becomes its own negation".
#4 While not a muslim myself, I think that I accidentally converted fjr to Islam.
[Sample proselytizing: "I think you should try to get into Muslim heaven "for the virgins". That's right! You could have your own basketball team of virginal muslims or sample the Muslims of the world"].
#5 Everyone around me has released their syllabus in beta.
#6 2 hrs: Time spent browsing anime manga for hairstyle ideas. Number of outstanding grade complaints: 6.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
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