cankaya university office of basic and elective courses -english unit-

CANKAYA UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF BASIC AND ELECTIVE COURSES

-ENGLISH UNIT-

CHAPTER III

CANKAYA UNIVERSITY - OFFICE OF BASIC AND ELECTIVE COURSES- ENGLISH UNIT

PROCESS OF TECHNICAL WRITING

OUTLINE

1.Phase 1. Conducting A Situational Analysis 2.Phase 2. Gathering Information



Phase 1. Conducting A Situational Analysis

Audience: readers of your document: you must understand their abilities, needs, characteristics, and expectations.

Role: perspective you take toward the information and the audience. Are you an instructor informing your readers or a student showing your mastery of a subject to your professor? Or you may be a design engineer explaining the rationale behind your plans to a budget committee that will fund additional work on the project.

Purpose: this includes both your purpose as a writer and that of your readers. Why are you presenting the information and why are they reading?

Subject matter: is analyzed in terms of scope and complexity. What are the most important parts of the topic?-both to you and your audience.

Constraints: include many elements, such as budget, schedule, resources, and format.




Who will be reading the document?Will they be business executives, nurses, your boss, co-workers, and a budget committee of laypersons, hobbyists, students, children, homemakers, or maintenance personnel?What is the audience’s level of expertise?Are your readers as experienced as you, or are they unskilled trainees? Perhaps, they are highly educated theorists or accomplished technicians.Why do they need the information in your document?Is your document simply providing information for their consideration, or will they be acting on the points you arise? They might be allocating funds, building a machine, rejecting a proposal, or implementing a program.Which points are most important to them?Are your readers most interested in the cost of implementing your recommendations? Are your methods of greatest concern to them? Do they need to learn how to operate the machinery you are describing, or will they be fixing it instead?




Other audience characteristics to consider include:

Age, hobbies, income, concerns, gender, education, occupation, location, interests, social status, responsibilities, political affiliation, opportunities, conflicts.

The information you derive from this analysis offers you an insight into choosing such elements as vocabulary, sentence structure, graphic aids, and format.




1.2. Role: Your role as a writer is a subset of your total self. As a writer of technical document, you may play the role of a scientist, analyst, researcher, critic, engineer, or advocate.

To be able to write effectively, you should select the appropriate role and apply it throughout the document.

Establishing an appropriate role is crucial because it affects the vocabulary, tone, level of detail, order of information, choice of visuals, and so forth.




1.3. Purpose:The overall purpose of technical writing is to communicate skills, information, and experience. However, it is accompanied by immediate purposes, such as allocation of budget, implementation of a nutrition program, or installation of a new software program.

You may write about the same topic with different purposes. For example, in one document you aim at explaining the installation process of a greenhouse whereas you provide the reader with evidence that is the best alternative to grow vegetables in another document. In the first one, the audience needs to learn about the materials, dimensions, order of steps, etc. On the other hand, in the second one, they need some scientific information and samples.




1.3. Purpose:In order to state your purpose clearly, and help your reader understand it, you should develop a complete statement of purpose that includes both sets of objectives as part of your situational analysis. In some cases, the reader shares your purpose. Look at the following statements:

Example: I will compare the price and performance features of the 2012 Volkswagen Polo 1.4 to that of the Opel Corsa Enjoy 1.4 so that my readers can choose the car that best suits their needs.

I will describe the methods and materials I used in my experiment so that my instructor can evaluate my performance in recent lab sessions.




1.3. Purpose:

If we analyze the sample excerpts, following statements of purpose can be developed:

I will list the reliability features to convince my reader of the DPS 88’s ability to support the needs of large and growing organizations. (top executives)

I will define the means by which processing speed is improved so that my reader will appreciate the engineering efficiency of the new systems.




1.4. Subject Matter

Knowing the basic elements of the situation- audience, purpose, role-, you can come up with effective output by defining the scope in accordance. Subject matter is delicately balanced on these interrelated factors:

The level of detailThe order of informationThe examples provided – all of these aspects of subject are shaped by the analysis of these factors.




1.4. Subject Matter

Imagine that you must go to your parents to discuss the problem and to ask for help (even though you know it would be a burden). In this case your audience is your parents, you role is son or daughter, and your purpose is to gain financial help from them. Assuming that you would not be deceitful in any of these dealings, consider the differences that would probably exist if you were discussing the same subject with each of the other two combinations of audience, role, and purpose cited below: Audience Role Purpose Bank loan officer applicant borrow money Your best friend friend enlist sympathy




1.5. Recognizing Constraints

A constraint is a limitation or prescribed method that affects a writing situation. These elements include:

Format specificationsScheduleBudgetAvailability of informationHuman resources and abilitiesProduction and distribution capabilities





1.5.1. Format Specifications

Not all technical writing is produced in a prescribed format, but many companies, government agencies; universities establish their own guidelines for preparing documents. When you need to write in a certain format, consider

•all the headings you must provide, •the order of information within those categories, •the kind of graphics you can incorporate, and•the emphasis given to each section of document.




1.5. Recognizing Constraints 1.5.2. ScheduleSince the technical writing process unfolds in several stages, it is not necessary to do everything in one block of time. This is more important in complex writing situations.As part of your situational analysis, list the many activities that must be planned before you write. These may include:Situational analysisClarification of requirementsResearchCompilation of dataInitial writingReview cycleRevision cycleApproval processProduction Distribution




1.5. Recognizing Constraints 1.5.3. Budget

During the situational analysis you should consider several means of producing the final documents at various prices. Bid proposals are printed professionally and bound in a

cover that carries your firm’s logo; brochures for products often justify the use of expensive photography and glossy paper; manuals may be printed by an outside vendor.





1.5.4. Availability of Information Very often only a single person (a “guru”) knows the facts about a forthcoming design. Usually key reports are available only to those with certain security clearances. Some

information may be filed in a government document depository 50 miles away. All such factors affect your writing. You have to work in your schedule such activities as getting a copy of confidential document through acceptable means, interviewing the person with

the ideas locked in his head, or driving to the university library to examine the government document. In such cases you may need to wait for days or weeks.

Also, the lack of sufficient writing resources is key problem in business and industry. You need to design work, research, and write reports in your field.



Phase 2. Gathering Information

Research, the act of gathering information, is the second step if technical writing process.

Most writing projects require some degree of research; whether you are confirming information you already have or are learning new material.



2. Phase 2. Gathering Information

2.1.1. Conducting Primary Research

A good report is based on solid, accurate, verifiable facts. Primary research, the process of creating and discovering information, can take various forms, such as interviewing, surveying, experimenting, taking notes at meetings, and recording personal experiences. Typical sources of factual information for reports include:

interviewsobservation & experimentationsurveys, questionnaires, and inventories





Interviews:

Technical writing may require you to interview with experts in the field. Talking with individuals directly concerned with the problem produces excellent firsthand information. For example, if you are researching whether your company should install wireless technology, you could interview an expert in wireless technology about the pros and cons. Interviews are usually conducted in person, because much information is conveyed through nonverbal means such as facial expressions, hand gestures, and posture. Interviews also allow for one-on-one communication, thus giving you an opportunity to explain your questions and ideas to elicit the most accurate information. However, it is possible to conduct an interview over the phone or even by mail.





Observation and experimentationSome kinds of primary data can be obtained only through firsthand observation and experimentation. If you determine that the questions you have require observational data, then you need to plan the observations carefully. One of the most important questions to ask is what or whom you are observing and how often those observations are necessary to provide reliable data. For example, if you want to learn more about an organization’s customer-service phone service, you probably need to use observation techniques, along with interviews and perhaps even surveys.

You will want to answer questions such as, How long does a typical caller wait before a customer-service rep answers the call? and Is the service consistent?





Observation produces rich data, but that information is especially prone to charges of subjectivity. One can interpret an observation in many ways. Thus, to make observations more objective, try to quantify them. For example, record customer telephone wait-time for 60-minute periods at different times throughout a week. This will give you a better picture than just observing for an hour on a Friday before a holiday. If you were writing a report on the need for a comprehensive policy on the use of digital media, you might observe how employees are using e-mail and the Web for personal errands or whether they spread potentially damaging company information in their blogs.



2. Phase 2. Gathering Information 2.1.1. Conducting Primary Research

Experimentation produces data suggesting causes and effects. Informal experimentation might be as simple as a pretest and posttest in a college course. Did students expand their knowledge as a result of the course? More formal experimentation is undertaken by scientists and professional researchers who control variables to test their effects.

Assume, for example, that the Hershey Company wants to test the hypothesis (which is a tentative assumption) that chocolate lifts people out of the doldrums. An experiment testing the hypothesis would separate depressed individuals into two groups: those who ate chocolate (the experimental group) and those who did not (the control group). What effect did chocolate have? Such experiments aren’t done haphazardly, however. Valid experiments require sophisticated research designs and careful attention to matching the experimental and control groups.





Surveys, Questionnaires, and Inventories: Surveys collect data from groups of people. For example, if you were part of a committee investigating the success of an employee carpooling program, you might begin by using a questionnaire. When companies develop new products, for example, they often survey consumers to learn their needs. The advantages of surveys are that they gather data economically and efficiently. Surveys can be mailed to participants, or they can be administered online. Both mailed and online surveys reach big groups nearby or at great distances. Moreover, people responding to mailed and online surveys have time to consider their answers, thus improving the accuracy of the data.




2.1.2. Conducting Secondary Research

Secondary data are easier and cheaper to develop than primary data, which might involve interviewing large groups or sending out questionnaires. Moreover, secondary data is where nearly every research project should begin because, very often, something has already been written about your topic. Reviewing secondary sources can save time and effort and prevent you from “reinventing the wheel.” Most secondary material is available either in print or electronically.





Printed Materials: Although we have observed a steady movement away from print to electronic data, print sources are still the most visible part of most libraries. Much information is available only in print. Print sources include books, newspapers and periodicals, such as magazines and journals.

Books: Even though they quickly outdate, books provide excellent historical, in-depth data on a large variety of subjects. They can be located through print catalogs or online catalogs. Most automated systems today enable you to learn not only whether a book is in the library but also whether it is currently available. Therefore, it is much easier to search for a book now.





Periodicals. Magazines, pamphlets, and journals are called periodicals because of their recurrent, or periodic, publication. Journals are compilations of scholarly articles. Articles in journals and other periodicals will be extremely useful to you because they are concise, limited in scope, and current, and can supplement information in books.

Bibliographic indexes. The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature is a valuable index of general-interest magazine article titles. It includes such magazines as Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, and U.S. News & World Report. More useful to business writers, though, will be the titles of articles appearing in business and industrial magazines and newspapers (such as Forbes, Fortune, The Economist, BusinessWeek, Barron’s, and The Wall Street Journal). For an index of these publications, consult the Business Periodicals Index. Most indexes today are available in print, CD-ROM, and Web versions for easy searching.





Electronic Resources: An extensive source of current and historical information is available electronically by using a computer to connect to the Web, electronic databases, and other online resources. From a computer you can access storehouses of information provided by the government, newspapers, magazines, nonprofit organizations, and businesses. Business researchers are also using such electronic tools as mailing lists, discussion boards, and blogs to conduct research. Electronic (online) Databases A database is a collection of information stored electronically so that it is accessible by computer and digitally searchable. Databases provide both bibliographic (titles of documents and brief abstracts) as well as full-text documents. Most researchers prefer full-text documents. Various databases contain a rich array of magazine, newspaper, and journal articles, as well as newsletters, business reports, company profiles, government data, reviews, and directories.





Electronic (online) Databases

ISI- Emerging Markets -EMISScienceDirectASEE (American Society of Engineering Education)ASTM Standards and Engineering Digital LibraryBlackwell Journal ArchivesEconomist Historical ArchiveElsevier Electronic BooksGlobal Market Information Database/Passport GMIDLISTA

EBSCO Business Source PremierFactivaABI/InformLexisNexisDOAJ- Directory Of Open Access JournalsERICHumanities International Complete





The Web The best-known area of the Internet is the World Wide Web. It includes an enormous collection of Web sites around the world. With trillions of pages of information available on the Web, chances are that if you have a question, an answer exists online. The Web is unquestionably one of the greatest sources of information available to anyone who needs simple facts quickly and inexpensively. Web offerings include online databases, magazines, newspapers, library resources, sound and video files, and many other information resources. You can expect to find such items as product and service facts, public relations material, mission statements, staff directories, press releases, current company news, government information, selected article reprints, collaborative scientific project reports, stock research, financial information, and employment information. The Web is indeed a vast network of resources at your fingertips





The Web Even though, the Web is easy to use and cheap, it has some disadvantages, as well:

Finding relevant, credible information can be frustrating and time consuming. The constantly changing contents of the Web and its lack of organization irritate the researchers.

Content isn’t always reliable. Anyone posting a Web site is a publisher without any quality control or guarantee.

The problem of gathering information is complicated by the fact that the total number of Web sites recently surpassed 100 million, growing at a rate of about 4 million new addresses each month.





Company Records:

Many business reports begin with an analysis of company records and files. From these records you can observe past performance and methods used to solve previous problems. You can collect pertinent facts that will help determine a course of action.



Phase 3. Planning & Arranging

After collecting your facts, you need coherent plan for presenting them. Many organizational patterns are available in parallelism with the purpose of the

report and the materials collected: chronological, geographical, alphabetical, sequential,

topical,Problem-solution

and so forth




1. Chronological order. : Information sequenced along a time frame is arranged chronologically. This plan is effective for presenting historical data or for describing a procedure.

are usually organized by time.

A description of the development of a multinational company, for example, would be chronological.

Often topics are arranged in a past-to-present or present-to past sequence.

minutes of meetings,progress reports, and procedures




2. Geographical or spatial arrangement:

Information arranged geographically or spatially is organized by physical location.

For instance, a report analyzing a company’s national sales might be divided into sections representing geographical areas such as the East, South, Midwest, West, and Northwest.




3. Topical or functional arrangement:

Some subjects lend themselves to arrangement by topic or function.

A report analyzing changes in the management hierarchy of an organization might be arranged in this manner. First, the report would consider the duties of the CEO followed by the functions of the general manager, business manager, marketing manager, and so forth.



Phase 3 . Planning & Arranging

4. Order of increasing difficultyComputer manuals often start with the easiest material and move on to more complex operations or functions 5. Sequential orderThe installation of equipment must be done in a certain order, and the instructions must be presented in this certain order. 6. Alphabetical orderA booklet on vitamins (A, B, B1,) is usually arranged in this way, or this is logical to use for the directory of company employees




7. Problem-Solution

This format begins with the statement of the problem and ends with the solution applied. Case histories, proposals and user success stories are written in this format. 8. Inverted pyramidNewspaper style of news reporting: summary of the story is given in the leading paragraph, then, the events are presented in order of decreasing importance in the following paragraphs. Applicable for journal articles, letters, memos, reports.




9. Deductive orderStarting with a generalization, & supporting it with facts, research results, etc. later. Scientists use this format in research papers that begin with the findings and move on with the supports. 10. Inductive orderStarting with one or more examples or stories, then, lead the reader to the main conclusion or principle. Useful approach in trade-journal feature stories. 11. List Divide your discussion into a series of distinct points, & separate the points using subheads, bullets, or numbers. Present the points on order of priority.



Phase 4 . Writing & Revising

Writing begins with your thesis. Although the thesis is not always a proposition or argument in technical writing, a specific message usually takes precedence over all others in the document.




In the case of a status (progress) report, for instance, the focal point might be simply that all the projects are on schedule and are progressing according to the plan.

In the case of a proposal, your main point might be that the contract should be awarded to your firm because it is best equipped to handle the complex job.

A user’s manual might convey the primary message that “using IBM PC XT can help you increase productivity”, whereas the mechanism description may point out the many ways in which the Honeywell DPS 88 computer system is fault-tolerant.




Guideline 1.Develop Topic Sentences for Paragraphs

The outline you have developed is the ideal platform from which to launch your writing activity.

As you develop the outline, you consider your primary message (thesis / purpose statement) and arrange supporting information in ways that would meet the needs of your audience.

From that outline, you can develop skeletal paragraphs as you continue writing.




Guideline 2. Develop Support for Topic Sentences

A paragraph is a distinct portion of a document dealing with a particular, single idea.

An individual paragraph should not cover more than one topic. The supporting sentences you create should be linked to the topic sentence.




Guideline 2. Develop Support for Topic Sentences

Working from the outline and topic sentences you create, you can develop supporting sentences in several ways:

1.By answering the implied question “Why is this true?” and supplying your answers as a support2.By recognizing the whole-to-parts relationship between bits of information and making those connections clear to reader3.By moving from general statement in the topics sentence to successively more specific points in the body of the paragraph 4.By recognizing a chronological or sequential pattern ( working forward or backward from the topic sentence)




Guideline 3. Select appropriate sentence structure

Each of four basic sentence structures shows their strengths and effects. Once you are aware of the impact of each type of sentence, you can select the best structure for your message.

The sentence types are appropriate:1.Simple sentence: when your reader needs to concentrate on a single, unelaborated point.2.Compound sentence: used to demonstrate a dynamic equality between two or more ideas.3.Complex sentence: -the most common structure- to demonstrate a dependent relationship of one idea to another4.Compound-complex sentence: useful for balancing two complex ideas.





1.Simple sentence: when your reader needs to concentrate on a single, unelaborated point.

To determine if a simple sentence is best, ask these questions:

Does the reader need to concentrate on a single, unelaborated idea?Should the idea be the focal point of the paragraph?Is an arresting beginning required for the paragraph in order to catch the reader’s eye?Will rhythmic alternation of sentence patterns help drive home information?Is the subject sufficiently complex to be broken into smaller, more manageable units?





2. Compound sentence: used to demonstrate a dynamic equality between two or more ideas.

To determine if a compound sentence is best, you need to ask only one question:

Should a dynamic relationship of equality, sequence, or tension between two or more ideas be stressed?





3. Complex sentence: -the most common structure- to demonstrate a dependent relationship of one idea to another

To determine the effectiveness of a complex sentence in a situation, you should ask these questions

Will information be clarified if ideas are combined?Do natural or logical relationships exist between two or more ideas that are important to readers?Will the message be more concise if such relationships are pinpointed?





Compare the effectiveness of these two samples:

Zeolites make extra gasoline yield possible. Some countries depend on extra gasoline yield in order to survive oil shortages

Some countries survive oil shortages because of the extra gasoline yield that zeolites make possible.

While writing complex sentences, be sure to place the more important information in the independent portion of the sentence.




Guideline 4. Select appropriate language After revising the sentence structure, you can concentrate on words and phrases within the sentences. A common problem is wordiness. To avoid this, you may identify these by circling them:

Repetition: the use of same words or phrases several times in a single passagePrepositional phrases: used to indicate such relationships between a subject and an object, such as “after, at, before, by, from, in, of, to, with”. Relative clauses: complete ideas that modify another part of the sentence, beginning with “that, which, who, whom”Expletives: words acting as fillers that add no meaning to the sentence, such as “there is, there are”.




Guideline 4. Select appropriate words To improve word choice in your draft, you may identify the following elements by circling them:

Noun phrases: groups of words that function collectively as nouns ( all those participating = participants ; individuals being trained = trainees)Modifiers: words, phrases, or clauses that describe another part of the sentence (the temperature dropped extremely fast) Passive constructions




Guideline 4. Select appropriate words Jargon: technical terminology, generally understood only by those schooled in a specific discipline ( end-user computer, biomimetics, debug, embolism, vascularization)

Highly connotative words and phrases: emotionally charged, judgmental, or manipulative language rather than objective language (fluff = extraneous material , despicable methods = suspect methods)

Generalities: vague, nondescriptive language that can cause confusion (thing, seemed, something)




Guideline 5. Check the logic and completeness

Each paragraph of your draft should prepare the way for the next paragraph; it should create the context for understanding what follows. Likewise, sentences in each paragraph should unfold logically. And each point you bring up should be discussed thoroughly enough for your readers.





To achieve completeness, relationships between the ideas – sentences- should be clear. This relationship is provided mostly by transitional words or phrases that move the reader from point to point. Another method to use is integrating certain indicators of relationship into sentences. They help the reader follow the development of ideas.





You can employ following techniques:

Repeat a key word or ideaUse synonym of the keyword Use an antonym of the keywordUse words that are commonly pairedUse a pronoun ( with clear reference to the noun it replaces)




Guideline 6. Check the mechanics

You must be certain that your draft is correct in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. You can check the most common grammar mistakes:

Subjects and verbs do not agreeNouns and pronouns do not agree in number and genderVerb tense shifts. ( if you are using past tense, you must maintain it throughout the document)Voice shifts without reason form passive to active and back againModifiers ( adjectives, adverbs, and relative clauses) are nor places as close as possible to the part of sentence they describeSentence fragments occurA comma is used when a conjunction, semicolon, or period is appropriate




Guideline 6. Check the mechanicsYou must adhere to format specifications concerning length, order, use of headings, indentation, pagination, type requirements, content, style, dimensions, margins, captions, fonts, figures, and tables.




The Review Cycle

After writing the draft, you circulate it among your colleagues, technical experts, or supervisors to ensure its accuracy and completeness. Because reading your document is a legitimate part of their job, and because it is their responsibility to ensure your accuracy, these reviewers pay attention to every word. If you have gathered enough information, planned its exposition, and revised your draft into a clear document, you will take pleasure in this experience. Your document will come back to you with remarks like “Excellent job, see my notes on page 15” or “Okay as written” .

In the worst case, your reviewers tell you about the problem and suggest changes. Then, it is your responsibility to evaluate and implement them as soon as possible. If necessary, you send your document to a second technical review to ensure that the changes you have made are satisfactory. Then, you can submit it for approval to the proper authority.

cankaya university office of basic and elective courses -english unit-

Documents

situational analysis

writer of technical

situational analysis

audience characteristics

appropriate role

budget committee of

design engineer

subject matter