Writing and Database Technology: Extending the Definition of Writing - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Writing and Database Technology: Extending the Definition of Writing in the Workplace C H E L S E A M O A T S W R A 4 1 0

I know, it’s late and you want to take a nap…  http://www.jest.com/video/3233/declaration-of- war-against-justin-bieber-haters

Data Collection: Justin Bieber Haters  YouTube Username  Websites  Group Title  Groups  Video Title  Videos  Name  Hateful Comments  IP Address  Where you live  Photo  Phone Number

Why Databases?  Nontechnical employees can manage and compose their own data  Database retrieval  Reports  Retrieval of information  They’re only valuable if you can *do* something with them  Turn data into information and knowledge  Pull data of all Bieber haters by location, user, etc.  Supporting interpretive needs  Improved communication

Who Uses Them?  Supervisors  Marketing  Finance—budgeting  Production Reports  Scheduling  Sales  Technical Writers

Wait, databases are rhetorical?  “If data reports are to serve readers’ needs for recordkeeping and problem solving, then writers’ technological skills must serve their rhetorical aims and strategies.”

Where’s Rhetoric?  Rhetorical Activity: transformation of raw data into meaningful information  Rarely taught in technical and professional writing  Technological>Rhetorical skills  Too much time spent on data mining  Not knowing how to use a technology fully  Invention  Delivery  Arrangement

There’s the Rhetoric!

Zmud’s (1978) Four Qualities For Effective Data Reports  Quality of information  Selecting the right scope and detail  Sequencing, ordering, and chunking information effectively  How would you chunk information for da Bieber haters?  Quality of meaning

Detailed Charge Report (DCR)  Identify Purpose  Describe strategies for accessing and analyzing  Report has too much data  Overly narrow content  Random data  Unintelligible data (unclear meanings)  Unpresentable data (low legibility and layouts with little difference)  Content and Form  Needs and Purposes  How do they derive information that they want?  DCR’s full capabilities

Takeaways and Implications  How can database applications constrain and enhance rhetorical choices?  Usability  Rhetorical and technological skills are reciprocal  Mutually support and shape each other  Must learn the capabilities of databases that enable us to achieve rhetorical aims  Invention  Arrangement  Delivery  Organization  Legibility