Reading Response #6

Being able to communicate well is essential in technical writing. Ornatowski argues that writers who can’t effectively communicate to others could perhaps end their careers—it’s that important! Writing is vital to pretty much every type of organization on the planet—it allows people to talk with one another, get ideas across, and everything in between. Even if only a handful of people in a particular organization do not know how to write and communicate with others, there are going to be problems.

Similarly, ethics play an extremely important role in communicating in technical writing. It can be hard finding a balance between giving information to people (clients, bosses, etc) that is practical, but is also ethical in that it carries the proper warnings, alerts, and whatever else might be needed to ensure that these people can carry out the practical aspect of the technical writing while at the same time staying safe and adhering to those safety rules.

This fits into project three because we’re producing A3 charts, white papers, and quad charts. All of these are means of communicating with people, each with its set of advantages and disadvantages, depending on the project. For an example to bring to class, I printed off a template for an A3 chart that’s divided into several different sections. These include things like “Theme”, “Problem Situation”, “Target/Goal”, “Cause Analysis”, “Countermeasures”, and “Implementation”. All of these categories are important, and at the same time allow the user to communicate effectively with the people who will be reading the A3 chart. Since an A3 chart is divided up into these different sections on one page, it’s easier to see warnings, potential problems, etc, than if the writer was using a white paper or a quad chart to convey the messages.