I think another good example of "Good" technical writing that is unethical is the communication of the tobacco industry. When tobacco executives misconstrue data about the harmful effects of smoking, it is similar to the idea of the Nazi's using misleading language in memos.
Also, health care is a HUGE issue right now in America. There are many studies (including this one: http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/efan04004/efan04004g.pdf) that prove the negative effects of obesity on our economy. I think this is a good example of technical writing, as well as a topic of a discussion on ethics.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Nazi Records
Wow. I was initially surprised that Dombrowski chose Nazi documents to use as examples in this chapter, but they certainly make a good case for being ethical in technical communication. I appreciated his early reasoning on why such arguments are made, and I read the chapter without offense. I like this quote especially: “ …Some of the values embedded in the scientific frame of mind can be carried to extremes—with terrible consequences” (Dombrowski 82). The scientific frame of mind he refers to is something I can relate to, as I’ve been struggling to adopt a different writing style in this class.
Origination, Dissemination, and Use of Information
Nazi Past
- Nuremburg trials—Nazi leaders put on trial for war crimes against civilians and soldiers
o Shocking revelations—institutionalized abuse of people in the name of scientific/medical research
o Emotional distance—victims of abuse not human
- Genocide—term created for the Nazi crimes against humanity and Jewish people
Controversy in the Present
Through their research, the Nazi’s actually did acquire useful scientific and medical information. Is it ethical to use their studies?
- Medical Specimens
o Skeletons and other medical specimens came from Nazi prison camps—quite obviously no consent
o Israelis vs. Germans—1989
- “Research” Information
o Nazi hypothermia experiments
o The New England Journal of Medicine (1990)—it doesn’t matter what they learned, they didn’t use scientific methods to obtain their results, the ethics issue can be ignored because the lack of science fails the experiment before it is to be called into question
Values in Nazi Medical “Science”
- Traditional View
o “The healer became the killer, and healing became killing”—what I take from this is that the Nazi’s lied their heads off and passed it off as truth, and that was okay
o Justified killing—It was legitimate because the establishment says it was? It seems to me that human life is not something governed by a regime, but absolute and concrete laws of humanity (Dombrowski does a smart thing here—he keeps saying “Lifton says” to reinforce that this is not his view)
o Euthanasia—“mercy killing”
o Inversion and evasion
- Nazi Antiscience
o Intrinsic inhumaneness and unethicalness of science—critics who perceive that Nazi’s took underlying issues in medical field to an extreme
§ Is science an enemy of basic human values? Uh-oh!
Research in the United States
- Nazi dilemma of ethics + law
- Inadmissibility principle—Nazi medical experiments, African-American patients in US in 1940s
Nazi Technical Memorandum
- Wow—chilling! Dombrowski asks some good questions on page 100—When do you first realize what the subject of the document is?
- I’d like to go over these in class and see what everyone thinks—talk about misleading!
Ethical Appraisal
Aristotle
Kant
Utilitarianism
Feminist and Ethics of Care
Nazi Records
Wow. I was initially surprised that Dombrowski chose Nazi documents to use as examples in this chapter, but they certainly make a good case for being ethical in technical communication. I appreciated his early reasoning on why such arguments are made, and I read the chapter without offense. I like this quote especially: “ …Some of the values embedded in the scientific frame of mind can be carried to extremes—with terrible consequences” (Dombrowski 82). The scientific frame of mind he refers to is something I can relate to, as I’ve been struggling to adopt a different writing style in this class.
Origination, Dissemination, and Use of Information
Nazi Past
- Nuremburg trials—Nazi leaders put on trial for war crimes against civilians and soldiers
o Shocking revelations—institutionalized abuse of people in the name of scientific/medical research
o Emotional distance—victims of abuse not human
- Genocide—term created for the Nazi crimes against humanity and Jewish people
Controversy in the Present
Through their research, the Nazi’s actually did acquire useful scientific and medical information. Is it ethical to use their studies?
- Medical Specimens
o Skeletons and other medical specimens came from Nazi prison camps—quite obviously no consent
o Israelis vs. Germans—1989
- “Research” Information
o Nazi hypothermia experiments
o The New England Journal of Medicine (1990)—it doesn’t matter what they learned, they didn’t use scientific methods to obtain their results, the ethics issue can be ignored because the lack of science fails the experiment before it is to be called into question
Values in Nazi Medical “Science”
- Traditional View
o “The healer became the killer, and healing became killing”—what I take from this is that the Nazi’s lied their heads off and passed it off as truth, and that was okay
o Justified killing—It was legitimate because the establishment says it was? It seems to me that human life is not something governed by a regime, but absolute and concrete laws of humanity (Dombrowski does a smart thing here—he keeps saying “Lifton says” to reinforce that this is not his view)
o Euthanasia—“mercy killing”
o Inversion and evasion
- Nazi Antiscience
o Intrinsic inhumaneness and unethicalness of science—critics who perceive that Nazi’s took underlying issues in medical field to an extreme
§ Is science an enemy of basic human values? Uh-oh!
Research in the United States
- Nazi dilemma of ethics + law
- Inadmissibility principle—Nazi medical experiments, African-American patients in US in 1940s
Nazi Technical Memorandum
- Wow—chilling! Dombrowski asks some good questions on page 100—When do you first realize what the subject of the document is?
- I’d like to go over these in class and see what everyone thinks—talk about misleading!
Ethical Appraisal
Aristotle
Kant
Utilitarianism
Feminist and Ethics of Care
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Ethics History
Aristotle
- Virtue and personal character
- Defines and explains goodness, truth, justice, and rightness as principles for guiding conduct
History
- Time honored, traditional approach
- Ethics of Christianity in medieval period was strongly influenced by Plato and Aristotle
o Saint Augustine—Plato, other-wordly, spiritual
o Saint Thomas Aquinas—Aristotle, achieving our best conduct here and now
- Ethics is the study of what is involved in good actions—no hard and fast answers, don’t try to make it more definite than it can be
- Ethics is about what is sought for its own sake and not for the sake of something else such as money or success—do something because it is the right thing to do
- Ethics derives from reason, and so ethical behavior must be reasoned behavior—it’s not automatic, we have to think about it
- Explanation of love and friendship
Kant
- Duty or obligation based on a fundamental universal principle
- Can be figured out rationally, no metaphysical theories
- Do something because it is the right thing to do, regardless of the personal consequences
- Strives for fairness and equality—if everyone understands ethics, then everyone can apply ethics
History
- Radically autonomous free will bound by duty, coupled by reason with a radically individuality that is nevertheless one with the universal
- Nature of the individual in relation to society
- Categorical imperative—One’s ethical decisions (even though you can make the decisions yourself), are never egocentric or arbitrary or even self-serving
- Implies that we are all capable of reflecting on our consciousness, reasoning toward binding universal conclusions, weighing judgments about practical actions, etc.
Utilitarianism
- Weighs the consequences of costs of an actions against benefits in order to calculate the most socially desirable course of action
- Strives for fairness by being impersonal
- Government organizations treat ethics this way, as people are like interchangeable parts of the social machinery
Ethic of Care
- New, nontraditional—gender-sensitive
- Not impartial justice, but weigh other standards like caring concern and quality of relationships
- Flexibility and sensitivity—no universal rules
Relevance to technical communication:
It is interesting that every theory that aims to approach ethical decisions can be applied to different types of technical communication. As mentioned in the utilitarianism segment, the government needs to make decisions that way because they must think about society as a whole rather than individuals. On the other hand, the ethic of care falls under the category of “feminist ethics” and seems to shrug tradition all together and centers much more on the individual. Of course, Aristotelian ethics are always applicable because they act as a frame of reference for many other theories and approaches. We should do what it right and strive for “the good” in our writing simply because it is the right thing to do rather than a means to an end.
- Virtue and personal character
- Defines and explains goodness, truth, justice, and rightness as principles for guiding conduct
History
- Time honored, traditional approach
- Ethics of Christianity in medieval period was strongly influenced by Plato and Aristotle
o Saint Augustine—Plato, other-wordly, spiritual
o Saint Thomas Aquinas—Aristotle, achieving our best conduct here and now
- Ethics is the study of what is involved in good actions—no hard and fast answers, don’t try to make it more definite than it can be
- Ethics is about what is sought for its own sake and not for the sake of something else such as money or success—do something because it is the right thing to do
- Ethics derives from reason, and so ethical behavior must be reasoned behavior—it’s not automatic, we have to think about it
- Explanation of love and friendship
Kant
- Duty or obligation based on a fundamental universal principle
- Can be figured out rationally, no metaphysical theories
- Do something because it is the right thing to do, regardless of the personal consequences
- Strives for fairness and equality—if everyone understands ethics, then everyone can apply ethics
History
- Radically autonomous free will bound by duty, coupled by reason with a radically individuality that is nevertheless one with the universal
- Nature of the individual in relation to society
- Categorical imperative—One’s ethical decisions (even though you can make the decisions yourself), are never egocentric or arbitrary or even self-serving
- Implies that we are all capable of reflecting on our consciousness, reasoning toward binding universal conclusions, weighing judgments about practical actions, etc.
Utilitarianism
- Weighs the consequences of costs of an actions against benefits in order to calculate the most socially desirable course of action
- Strives for fairness by being impersonal
- Government organizations treat ethics this way, as people are like interchangeable parts of the social machinery
Ethic of Care
- New, nontraditional—gender-sensitive
- Not impartial justice, but weigh other standards like caring concern and quality of relationships
- Flexibility and sensitivity—no universal rules
Relevance to technical communication:
It is interesting that every theory that aims to approach ethical decisions can be applied to different types of technical communication. As mentioned in the utilitarianism segment, the government needs to make decisions that way because they must think about society as a whole rather than individuals. On the other hand, the ethic of care falls under the category of “feminist ethics” and seems to shrug tradition all together and centers much more on the individual. Of course, Aristotelian ethics are always applicable because they act as a frame of reference for many other theories and approaches. We should do what it right and strive for “the good” in our writing simply because it is the right thing to do rather than a means to an end.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Reports and Other Long Documents--Part 2
Creating Visuals—Walter E. Oliu, Charles T. Brusaw, and Gerald J. Alred
Some things to consider when incorporating visuals into documents:
- Plan visuals as you consider the scope of your final work—make sure everything fits and looks good in the rough draft
- Explain why you include each visual—the description will vary based on importance, use your knowledge of the audience to determine how much detail you need
- Make sure the information in your visual is accurate
- Keep it focused—only use necessary elements, eliminate the “riff-raff”
- Symbols, acronyms, and terminology should be consistent throughout the visual
- Specify measurements and distances using useful scales
- Make sure lettering is readable and captions are clear
- **Assign figure and/or table numbers for documents containing over 5—then refer to the figure using its number** (I think this is one of the most important things to remember. It will help with consistency and clarity throughout the document.)
TABLES
- Elements will include: table number, table title, boxhead, stub, body, rules (lines), source line, and footnotes.
GRAPHS
- Can be: Line graphs, bar graphs, pie graphs, picture graphs, dimensional-column graphs
OTHER VISUALS
- Drawings, flow charts, organizational charts, maps, photographs
I thought that this essay was very informative for certain types of business documents. I cannot foresee Natalie’s and my project including too many visuals aside from pictures, but all of these considerations are important. I’m currently taking a Computer Science course that is helping me to get even more familiar with MS PowerPoint and Excel, two programs that I can see being useful. I did not include too much information from this essay however, because the scope of visuals in my particular project is rather small, unlike a technical manual or set of instructions.
Strategies of Persuasion—David W. Ewing
- Knowing how to approach a technical document depends on relationships among the communicator, the reader, the message, and the time-space environment. Any writer should be familiar with such relationships so that they can effectively plan and execute their persuasion. Good writers vary their approaches based on individual situations.
- Ewing proposes some guidelines for persuasive writing:
1. Consider whether your views will make problems for your readers.
o Saying “You are wrong”= new enemy
o Present bad news or conflicting opinions with empathy and tact—be careful!
2. Don’t offer new ideas, directives, or recommendations for change until your readers are prepared for them.
o Consider your audience’s resistance to change
3. Your credibility with readers affects your strategy.
o Given credibility—boss to subordinate, any title you have or accomplishments you’ve achieved.
o Acquired credibility—how you present the message
4. If your audience disagrees with your ideas or is uncertain about them, present both sides of the argument.
o Shows that you’re objective
o Reader is treated as a mature and informed individual
5. Win respect by making your opinion or recommendation clear.
o Don’t leave any question as to what your stance is (if you’re presenting both sides of the argument)
6. Put your strongest points last if the audience is very interested in the argument, first if it is not so interested.
o Primacy-recency issue
7. Don’t count on changing attitudes by offering information alone.
o Did not completely understand the explanation
8. “Testimonials” are most likely to be persuasive if drawn from people with whom readers associate.
9. Be wary of using extreme or “sensational” claims and facts.
o Don’t be flashy—this is business writing, after all
10. Tailor your presentation to the reasons for readers’ attitudes, if you know them.
o Meet the main feelings, prejudices, or reasons or your audience’s beliefs
11. Never mention other people without considering their possible effect on the reader.
I enjoyed this article as well and found it informative. It is yet another take on the “know your audience” rule, but done in an original way re: persuasion.
Proposals—Philip C. Kolin
Guidelines for Writing a Successful Proposal
1. Approach writing a proposal as a problem-solving activity. (Exigence, Context)
2. Regard your audience as skeptical readers. (Audience—it’s not about you, it’s about your client)
3. Research your proposal carefully. (Current Citations, Literature Review)
4. Prove that your proposal is workable. (Project Plan)
5. Be sure that your proposal is financially realistic. (Cost-Benefit Analyisis)
6. Package your proposal attractively.
Since we’ve already written our proposals for our client, I included my class notes based on Dr. Holmevek’s lesson within the given guidelines. Although it’s a different book, most of the same elements exist.
INTERNAL PROPOSALS
- “The primary purpose of an internal proposal…is to offer a realistic and constructive plan to help your company run its business more efficiently and economically” (244).
- Informal—can be a brief memo
- Consider: Your AUDIENCE and office politics
SALES PROPOSALS
- In effect, these are the proposals that most of us are writing in class. The categories are very similar as most proposals follow a typical format.
Writing Proposals with Style—Richard Johnson-Sheehan
Style is very important because it sets the tone for your document. It makes content easier to read and more persuasive, as well as shows the clear head of the writer, his/her emphasis on quality, and projects a willingness to communicate with the writer’s work and readers. In my writing, I take style very seriously. It takes extra work and attention to detail, but it pays off in the end. This essay approaches style with more grammar notes, which I find a little redundant.
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