In order to increase the effectiveness of a technical document, it is often encouraged to use the process of storytelling to present the information. Storytelling is beneficial for its use of a chronological timeline, emotional appeal, and familiar structure. Many times, when you tell a story, you describe it in an organized timeline that makes it easiest for your audience to understand. This is very useful in technical communication, because information can be understood efficiently with a logical timeline supporting it. Another aspect in storytelling is its emotional appeal. Telling a story provides a personal experience to the information given and creates an understanding beyond the factual information. While the facts are important, creating emotion behind the facts, or vice versa, can help increase the overall affect the document has on the audience. Lastly, the process of storytelling is a familiar way of communicating. In almost all human conversations, we approach the information we want to deliver in the organization of storytelling. Presenting technical documents in this familiar structure will help increase how comfortable the audience is when analyzing the document. A more comfortable audience helps ease the interpretation of the subject.
As for the digitally manipulated image of concepts valuable to technical communication shown below, I think there are a few words that identify with my own course work. The first word is improvisation, and it relates to the process I use when initially writing or creating a document. I found that I initially develop my work "on the spot" without much thinking about specific guidelines. I usually like to make a general plan of what I would like to create, but once my plan is complete, I tend to type away freely and get all of my ideas onto the paper. After I do this, I then look back to clean up all the information I wrote by analyzing the work and organizing it appropriately. I think this can be a useful strategy, but I should be careful to remain focused on the task and review my work carefully.
Sources:
MARKEL, MIKE. PRACTICAL STRATEGIES FOR TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION. 2nd ed., BEDFORD SAINT MARTIN'S, 2018.
You've done a great job organizing this blog entry so it feels like a thought-out concept of an essay instead of a hasty blurb. You also avoided making this entry sound dull or didactic through interspersing this with your own thoughts and personal comments. The second paragraph could be condensed-- no need to be this explicit with details since readers are usually familiar with the logos/pathos of argumentation-- but overall, I enjoyed reading what you had to say.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback! I agree that I may have written waaaay too much. I took your advice and cut out some of my second paragraph.
DeleteSo much going on here, Henry. I was intrigued at the end when I read, " A more comfortable audience helps ease the interpretation of the subject." It made me think of a kind of docile, passive consumer of text. These can be great for an "easy sell," but I like to think we'd want our audiences to be really lit up as they encounter our texts, ... and not in a "button has been pushed" kind of way, but in a fully awake, fully aware way. I guess when I get comfy I can be a little lazy? :)
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