Final Blog

When I started the semester, I had an idea of what I thought technical writing was-large, wordy documents about things like engineering and science. But I quickly learned that technical writing is much more than just that. Technical writing seems to be more about writing clearly and concisely (no matter what the subject is) in such a way that your target audience will be able to understand your message. This actually leads me to the second biggest lesson of this semester. Prior to taking this class, I was always under the impression that it was the reader's job to understand the material. Every class that dealt with writing stressed the importance of writing clearly, but it was always implied that the ultimate responsibility lied with the readers. But now, I see that writers are just as responsible for how their writing is understood as readers are for understanding the material.

This class really opened my eyes to a lot of different aspects of technical writing. I never would have thought that by the end of the semester I would have created a website and created videos. I will definitely take some of the skills I learned in this class and use them in future courses and in my career.

Dombrowski pp. 152-226

Tobacco and death-when is a cause not a cause? if the avoidable sudden and violent death of seven astronauts can be called a tragedy, what word can describe the avoidable, slow, and misery-filled death of millions?

• the tragedy lies in the entirely preventable nature of these deaths and in the strained resistance of the tobacco industry to acknowledging its ethical responsibilities.

in reality, there was no debate. the industry knew full well, these authorities contend, that they were causing serious illness and death on a tremendous scale. there is no public drama here, just the very real personal tragedy that is unbearable for others to watch.

• it's clear that steady smokers will in general lose from ten to twenty years from their nonsmoking life expectancy, regardless of the specific disorder from which they die.

we will see how technical and scientific information about smoking and disease was deliberately controlled, manipulated, and misrepresented to various audiences by the tobacco industry. these audiences include the public, the government, the scientific community, and even the tobacco industry itself. We will see, too, how even the strict meaning of a single technical word can become the focal point of a complex web of misleading arguments spanning several decades.

cause:

the first reason concerns probabilities and populations rather than certainties and individual persons.

• with statistical causes, the connection between cause and effect is often not immediately seen and not intuitively obvious as is the case with smoking and cancer.
• in the case of Challenger, on the other hand, the connection between cause and effect was close in time.

the second reason also has to do with causation but from another angle and an unethical one. the tobacco industry has engaged in an aggressive program of misinformation, obfuscation, denial, and opposition that has clouded the connection between smoking and disease in the minds of the public.

the method of "concomitant variation" by which an increase in an independent variable leads to an increase in a dependent variable, and a decrease yields a decrease.

• for overy 50 years the statistical connection between smoking and cancer and other diseases has been known and generally accepted among scientists. each year this connection is reinforced as more and more studies show the same statistical connection. heavier smoking and over a longer period correlate with greater incidences of disease and shorter life expectancy.

how the term cause has been used in these communications clearly reflects the value system of the communicators and the goals they value and work toward.

the techniques of the sophists as traditionally represented do seem to closely resemble those of the tobacco industry, and our ethical judgment of them is similarly negative.

• it aggressively sought out ways in which the statistical connection could be characterized as anything but causal; it solicited scientists and doctors who were willing to oppose the representation of the connection as causal; and it developed clever distractions from the focus on cancer.
• "smoking causes lung cancer if by 'causation' we mean any chain of events which leads finally to lung cancer and which involves smoking as an indispensable link" p.159
• even in 1958, the tobacco industry in the US had already begun an aggressive campaign to discredit the scientific reports and to deceive the public.
• they vigorously sought out any scientist or doctor who would endorse their position-and found a few. (money?) a very few people were represented as credible and respected voices in opposition to all the others, which was a gross distortion of their standing in the field and of the feelings of the field as a whole.

single, recent landmark legal debate: the civil case of the State of Minnesota and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota versus the major American tobacco producers (and one British producers) and the tobacco research group they created.

in the case of the tobacco industry, the knowledge of harmful effects was known with practical certainty, regardless of the industry's denial of such knowledge.

• they knowingly and willfully brought certain disease and death to a portion of their consumers and did so over the course of several decades in direct defiance of the urgings of governmental and medical authorities. they were also conscious of their continuous deception as they schemed for language and arguments to avoid any public acknowledgement of what they well know.

documents: the tobacco industry in 1997 negotiated some of the terms of an out-of-court settlement of gigantic magnitude, on the order of 350 billion dollars over a period of years.

the tobacco industry had never, until very recently, lost a case in the courts over the damaging health effects of its products, their addictiveness, or their advertising methods. on the face of it, this fact might appear to suggest that they were in the right.

• the fuller, truer reality is that the context is complicated in many inapparent ways: the industry's ability to identify even a few legitimate scientists who would quibble on the issue of causation; tremendous profitability of the industry, which gives them enormous financial and legal resources to use on their behalf as well as an indefinite expanse of time; this profitability also yields enormous tax resources to the states involved, leading to support for the industry at high levels in their state legislatures; every time a case has approached a culmination that might yield a decision unfavorable to the industry, the industry has negotiated an out-of-court settlement.
• above all the industry had avoided not only a single judgment against them but had also avoided the crucial first judgment against them, which would act as a watershed yielding a cascade of further cases based on that precedent.

the charges are very serious, including fraud, conspiracy, negligence, false advertising, and product liability, and are of an unprecendented magnitude.

the legal system has repeatedly tried to build a case against the industry in the past few years. many of the documents they have to work with are worded in obtuse, contorted ways to disguise their direct substance.

• the documents also reflect an intense effort by the legal staffs of the tobacco industry to ensure that these documents couldn't serve the interests of potential claimants. lawyer-client privilege. it took active steps to keep itself ignorant of and insulated form what it did not want to know.
• from the mid 1970s, the industry has taken active steps to distance itself from the information it already had. files were purged and documents were shredded. the industry tried to conceal or destroy any potential "smoking guns".

on the face of them, the documents appear to be reasonable, cautious, and careful as long as one does not examine their claims critically and without consideration of their overall context.

1950s: several medical research reports were published linking smoking with lung cancer, and other cancers, and other diseases.

• in response to these reports and the concern they evoked among the public, chief executives of all but one of the major tobacco companies met to mount a defensive strategy. they concluded that they needed to launch a public relations campaign that would be "entirely 'pro-cigarette' in nature"
• the problem, we should note, is not one of concern for health but for public relations. their plan was to form a research group supposedly independent of the tobacco industry in order to get at the "real" facts of the matter.
• key memorandum states the need to reassure the public that "there is no proof that cigarette smoking is a cause of lung cancer" and that "there is no proof to the claims which link smoking and lung cancer"

"A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers" was the result: the terms "cause" and "proof" cannot accurately be used regarding smoking and disease; that the scientific and medical community is divided on the matter; and that the industry believes there is no health danger from smoking.

• the first section addresses recent reports about the dangers to health of cigarette smoking and attempts to discount them.
• the second section states that the tobacco industry feels a great responsibility for the health of the smoking public and presents a plan of action to discharge this responsibility by forming an industry group to research the health effects of smoking.
• it undermines the conventional wisdom about medical research reports, namely that they tell the truth. it refers to recent reports linking smoking to cancer as "experiments" associated with a "theory". their connotations for the lay public would cast these reports as speculative and not factual. the scientific reports seem watered down and indefinite.
• the document also portrays the industry as a victim of malicious publicity from other agents. notice also the tone supporting victimage even of the title, which suggests that it speaks the truth as it opposes the supposedly less frank and supposedly less true statements made by its opponents.

four points:

• the first point states that lung cancer has many possible causes.
• the second point states that there is "no agreement among the authorities" as to what the cause of lung cancer is.
• the third point states that there exists "no proof that cigarettes smoking is one of the causes."
• the fourth point contends that conclusions drawn from statistics can be misleading or confusing, and that, furthermore, the "validity" of the statistics "is questioned" by many scientists.

central to this misrepresentation was developing the appearance of the industry conscientiously insisting on technical accuracy, an appearance exactly the opposite to the reality.

from the start, the voices on the council were unrepresentative and became even more so as time went on, to the point of absurdity.

the industry can simultaneously recognize the growing concern about technical information in the form of medical research reports, while deflating this concern through mocking humor.

1960s: the US Surgeon General appointed an advisory committee to investigate the health effects of smoking. the industry had to respond to governmental concerns from such a high level.

• the industry had to call on the same few people over and over to claim that a causal connection was "not proven"
• every nuanced word was reviewed scrupulously, assuring the most cautious possible language consistent with the evidence. disagreement as to whether the evidence warranted using the "cause"
• also contained is a truly frank (and secret) statement about the real purpose of the Tobacco Institute Research Committee (TIRC). states that the true purpose was not disinterested science but public relations propaganda intended to oppose genuine scientific research.
• the principal interest of the writer and the industry is to protect the industry, not to protect the health of the public. in this way, values strongly guided what technical information was reported and how it was represented.
• no industry was going to accept that its product was toxic or even believe it to be so.

1970s: the industry had become highly interested in filtered cigarettes as a way to respond to increasing health concerns among the public and in government.

• the tactic they settled on was to try to justify the filtering of cigarettes on the basis of only a perception among the public that smoking is linked to health problems, without actually acknowledging the reality that smoking causes health problems.
• the use of euphemisms: "biological activity"=cancerous tumors. also acknowledging a health hazard while denying it in the next sentence.
• by the mid 70s, the industry's own research had become so clear and compelling about the health damages caused by smoking that they closed down several of their research operations in order to prevent discovering information they did not want to learn.
• it was decided that lawyers were to have decisive control over which research proposals would be approved, what research would be terminated, how reports were written, and which reports would be published.
• it was hoped that the findings could be kept from disclosure to the government and to the public under attorny-client privilege.

1980s: the control of information by lawyers in order to prevent disclosures that would be detriemental to the industry was tightened. lawyers struggled to find a way to make the industry's activities appear defensible.

• rather than receiving lengthy, fully explained documents, reports on research would now be limited to snippets in order to limit the revelation of potentially damaging information.
• the language and the argument of a report could also be reworked by lawyers and managers to water them down, make them seem more tentative, or otherwise obscure the full meaning and significance of the information.
• Dr. Gary Huber, a long-time smoking researcher, decided to become a whistleblower after learning of how the tobacco industry was controlling, distorting, and misrepresenting scientific findings.

1990s: public and private outcries, governmental inquiries, legislative actions, and judicial suits are finally beginning to take their toll. in 1997, facing the possibility of astronomical judgments against the industry from innumerable claimants, the major tobacco companies had negotiated the terms of a single enormous settlement that would quell some of the public clamor.

A single word: what are the ethical implications of a single word?

• upon learning of these documents from within the tobacco industry itself, especially those clearly showing that nictoine is addictive, the federal Department of Justice launched an investigation into possible perjury charges against those CEOs.
• the Department of Justice has decided not to pursue the charge of perjury because of that single word, believe.

graphical images: the meaning we might ascribe to an image can be strongly influenced by the context in which it appears.

Joe Camel: projects a socially desirable image, what RJR calls a "smooth" character, who is self-confident, attractive, independent, a trendsetter. it also the charming goofiness of a cartoon character, which perhaps reinforces our initial feeling that it is not meant to be taken seriously.

• we are less likely to read carefully the required fine-print notice warning us that all cigarettes, including Camels, cause terrible diseases and death.
• also suggests that if we were to have any attitude other than Joe's blithe happiness, then we are only being prudish party poopers, too like a "grown-up"
• counters those serious technical concerns by being the opposite: antiserious and antitechnical.
• RJR in the 1970s in its French operations had revived the Joe Camel image-was updated and made younger and cartoonlike to "youthen" the image of Camel cigarettes in order to appeal to a younger audience.
• conducted research on advertising to potential smokers in the 15-17 age range. Joe Camel image would appeal to an audience as young as 9 years old and entice them to start smoking.
• resonates with many of the attitudes that young people have.

Janet C. Mangini vs. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in California.

• the Joe Camel image was an integral part of a conscious and willful plan by RJR to entice children and adolescents to become addicted to smoking tobacco in violation of federal laws against tobacco advertising aimed at minors.
• C.A. Tucker, explained that the "young adult market represents tomorrow's cigarette business. As this 14-24 age group matures, they will account for a key share of the total cigarette volume for at least the next 25 years." p. 179
• "realistically, if our company is to survive and prosper, over the long term we must get our share of the youth market."
• the industry deliberately aimed its advertising to the age group least likely to resist their messages and least likely to be concerned with their health whether immediately or in later years.
• 90 percent of the 10 million dollar settlement is earmarked for anticigarette advertising directed to the same audience of youths.

advertising can be seen as a technical activity, a collection of techniques that can be honed to be as effective as possible a means to achieve particular goals while avoiding any ethical concern about the goodness of those goals.

ethical appraisal:

• aristotle: lack honesty, fail to reason according to legitimate prevailing standards of inference, avoid making difficult decisions and facing the painful truth, and irresponsibly sacrifice the health and lives of millions for the sake of personal and corporate profit. the "tobacco wars" appear to demonstrate the Aristotelian notion of adversarial rhetorical debate between opposing parties.
• kant: tobacco documents are clearly unethical. these careful researchers are treating the public as the researchers would want themselves to be treated. the tobacco industry has done the exact opposite. their motives and the ends they sought were only the continued existence and profitability of their industry.
• utilitarianism: as far as the public is concerned, the costs, whether monetary, social or emotional, vastly outweigh any benefits. the industry simply wants to maximize its benefits while limiting its costs (and liabilities).
• feminist perspective and ethics of care: they would argue that the stonewalling and deliberate deceits of the industry show capitalism and free enterprise at its worst. the tobacco industry's reliance on arguments supposedly founded in scientific scrupulousness reveals perhaps one of the worst sides of science as an enterprise. would emphasize the wilful irresponsibility of bringing years of debility and slow, misery-filled death to millions.

Star Wars-Hope vs. Reality:

Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI, it is commonly known as Star Wars. though the program itself has now been terminated, the research and development of various parts of the system still continue under many different, less ambitious programs.

much of the technical communications about the software planned for SDI have to do with the prospective future rather than the real, immediate present. In the case of Star Wars, the speculation seems to have gone too far. It might have been more ethically responsible and in keeping with standard governmental practice to have consulted more thoroughly with recognized technical and scientific experts on the feasibility of claims made for Star Wars.

claims made about the ability of the proposed software to operate the Star Wars system were exaggerated, selectively represented, or misrepresented. the mission assigned to SDI changed substantially over time.

in this Star Wars case, the documents and their drafters were not necessarily unethical because debates on important public policy issues commonly are two-sided, both sides having legitimate concerns driving their statements.

context: the statement that created SDI sketched a plan of enormous scope, but as a sketch of technical program it suffered an important difficulty: It was almost entirely a statement about goals. It was not clear exactly who or what would be covered by the plan, or when, or even how.

• seemingly definite, objective topics such as computer software programs and the performance we can expect of them often carry with them a heavy burden of judgment, both technical and ethical.
• question is only whether appeals to national security should be allowed to exaggerate, distort or misrepresent realistic technical matters.

overview of SDI: "technological optimism"-the assumption that any problem can be solved by technological means and that this technology can be devised if only sufficient will, money and talent are applied to the problem.

• the goal was clear: "to intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies" and to render these nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete"
• complete, "perfect" protection stopping 100% of all enemy missiles was later reduced to "near-perfect" protection, then "less than perfect" protection involving maybe 400 megatons "leaking" through SDI protection.
• program was linked to the values motivating it and defining its goal. the influence of values in shaping public discourse and technical claims about a highly technical topic is powerful.

a complex system: five areas-surveillance, acquisition, tracking, and kill assessment; directed energy weapons; kinetic energy weapons; survivability, lethality, and key technologies; and systems concepts and battle management.

• all these detection, tracking, guidance, and interception devices would have to be precisely coordinated by various computer systems, interconnected by reliable communication links also under computer control, and operated under a computerized battle management system for command, control, and communication (BMC3).
• complicating its tasks would be various tactics the enemy might use to confuse sensors, disrupt communications, and "fry" computer chips. this computer system would have to operate in an extremely difficult environment that has no realistic parallel.

congressional office of technology assessment:

four "misapprehensions" regarding the stated goals of the president's plan (all are related to software issue):

• individual, separate devices such as lasers are not the same as the total system in which they would be used together, which would be extremely complex.
• SDI is unlike any prior technical program such as the Manhattan project.
• hopes for entirely new technologies cannot be realistic. "such breakthroughs are not impossible, but their mere possibility does not help in judging the prospects for the perfect defense"
• accurate predictions cannot be made about the performance of this complex system. there is, and can be, no realistic test of the system beforehand; all possible outcomes cannot be anticipated.

ten million lines of code of its program would have to function reliably and perfectly the first time it was used. the SDI system would also be used for the very first time under the worst possible battlefield conditions with sabotage, power outages, decoys, shock, confusion, and electromagnetic disturbance. these conditions have never been experienced before.

from the earliest days of the program, serious concerns were voiced about the feasibility of SDI and its software-there is a significant probability that a catastrophic failure caused by a software error would occur in the system's first battle.

congressional hearing: the debate over SDI was particularly heated and was particularly concerned about the possibly unethical misrepresentation of technical feasibility.

• its purpose now was defense per se but leverage in negotiations for arms control and reduction agreements.
• hopes hinge not on computing power, but on the correspondence between software programs and the complex realities of a determined enemy trying to defeat the system at some unknown time in the future.
• seemingly definite technical information can be derived from speculation and wishes and from backward reasoning that might not hold up under scrutiny.

pro: proponents began their arguments with statements concerning moral, political, or ideological statements in order to justify the need for the radical change embodied in SDI.

• wouldn't directly emphasize technological feasibility. the celebration of past technological achievements generates a sort of patriotic fervor that distracts one from considering the realities of SDI.
• the truer reality is that there are many sides to the problem of preventing nuclear war, and many parties and countries involved.

a lengthy official statement articulating the plan only sketched two years earlier and addressing concerns raised by critics.

• even the top technical advisor to the president had reconceived the aim away from rendering missiles "impotent and obsolete" by building a protective shield across the US.
• the aim of SDI was changed in two ways-it would now provide an additional sort of deterrence against an enemy's use of nuclear missiles and it was to provide additional leverage in arms control negotiations, which it could do even if it worked imperfectly or only with limited capability. the technical needs that SDI would have to fulfill were now much reduced, even through its feasibility was still to be determined.

it does not say that SDI is feasible or even that it is expected to be found feasible, only that after a good deal of research we will have the means to make a determination as to feasibility.

con: though the hardware was thought to be at least remotely feasible, the vitally important software was seen as fundamentally infeasible.

parnas: not only does it deal with a very sophisticated technical topic in easy to understand language, but it also takes a clear, explicit ethical stand in support of a technical position. it melds technical information with ethical concerns in a way that each supports the other.

• his statement accomodates its audience very effectively. It communicates highly technical concepts in language that is accessible to any educated, nontechnical reader. focuses on the task of clear communication and effective persuasion of its audience. takes a definite ethical stance that is clearly articulated, firmly defined, and appropriate for the context. takes care to explain that his conclusions are expert professional judgments from someone with military software experience.
• chief point is that no software system could possibly be developed along the lines required by SDI that would be "trustworthy". many of the potential difficulties could not be completely anticipated and debugged simply because we can never be sure of what we do not know or understand.
• his selfless gesture of resigning reinforces his credibility, for he had nothing to gain by it and a good deal to lose.
• his clear, calm, cogent arguments brought an air of common sense to the SDI debate that cut through a cloud of wishful thinking and political brow beating that had led to the funding of research without clear goals or realistic expectations.
• sees no inconsistency between his professional responsibilities and his public, civic ones. neither does he see any inconsistency between his professional responsibilities and his personal ones.
• was criticized for not trying to protect the image of his profession-was making the defense research establishment appear selfish and ineffective.

Star Wars boycott pledge: no other technical and scientific issue in modern times-except for the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons themselves-has so stirred this community. the sense of ethical responsibility was coupled with a civic responsibility and burst forth dramatically in the form of the public boycott. signing the pledge was a selfless gesture that could do real damage to their reputations and livelihoods.

Patriot-Small Scale SDI: Star Wars is still with us in many ways. The Patriot system has been touted as a rudimentary form of Star Wars.

• "American soldiers' lives could be unnecessarily endangered if they are deployed in future conflicts based on inaccurate assessments of the Patriot's capabilities." pp. 219
• what the data precisely are, how they are arrived at, how they might be verified, and what they mean are all subject to the influence of various factors that shape the final representation in important ways.

technical claims about air operations: GAO examined in detail the validity of claims made by various sources about the air operations during Desert Storm, particularly about the effectiveness and suitability of new weapons systems .

• difference between claims made about the effectiveness and suitability of various weapons systems during the war versus the findings of the GAO about their actual performance during the war.
• example: "an 'all weather' attack aircraft" vs. "the ability of the F-15E using LANTIRN to detect and identify targets through clouds, haze, humidity, smoke, and dustwas very limited, the laser designator's ability to track targets was similarly limited. only less accurate unguided munitions could be employed in adverse weather using radar."

ethical appraisal:

• aristotle: it's unclear whether the statements of supporters could be characterized as representing a virtuous persona. at the surface level, they adopt an ethical stance toward strategic security and favor ethical rightness over sheer practical effectiveness. on the other hand, they mask or deny any suggestion that there is little realistic feasibility to claims they are making for the overall system they are proposing.
• kant: statements are problematic and questionable ethically.
• utilitarianism: the calculated weighing of national interests against individual interests would have been entirely acceptable ethically.
• feminist perspective and ethics of care: most feminists ethicists are firmly opposed to violence and militarianism in general. an ethic of care that of course would insist on a caring concern for the American people, and implicitly for all the world's people, would seem to be supported by these statements, too, taken at face value. seen in its larger social-political context, these statements seem to be aimed at cutting off dialog with knowledgeable technical experts, which would not be ethical. in the social context of continuing poverty; weak education, poor health care, and racial and gender inequities for so many people, one could readily suggest more socially constructive uses for that same vast amount of money.

Parnas statement set a benchmark for ethical responsibility in the field of software engineering:

• aristotle: wrote and acted in a way that sought the true, good, and right in this matter.
• kant: treating his audience as he would wish to be treated himself. he is acting out of a sense of duty rather than self interest.
• utilitarianism: statements accomplished the benefit of avoiding fruitless expenditures on a program that would fail. no suggestion that he ulterior motives.
• feminist: the frank openness toward the public would be applauded, as would his rhetorical stance to educate rather than just to win audience approval.
• ethic of care: showed a keen sense of caring concern for the public in ensuring they did not feel a false sense of security and that they get what they pay for.

our ethical responsibility as communicators is to make sure that our hopes and wants do not cloud our claims about our technical abilities.

Harty p. 347-379; Dombrowski p. 121-151

Harty:

Communication Failures Contributing to the Challenger Accident: An Example for Technical Communicators

• managers and engineers viewing the same facts from different perspectives-suggests that knowledge is not simply seeing facts but rather interpreting them, and that interpretation varies depending upon one's vantage point. Communication isn't just shared information; it is shared interpretation. If sender and receiver are from different corporate subcultures achieving shared interpretation is more difficult.


• the general difficulty of either sending or receiving bad news, particularly when it must be passed to superiors or outsiders- research has repeatedly shown that bad news is often not pased upward in organizations. Even when bad news is sent, people are less likely to believe it than good news.

the three organizations seemd to view one another as outsiders despite the fact that they were working jointly on the same project-the taboo against airing organizational dirty linen in publi was added to the general difficulties of bad news transmission.

When O-ring anomalies first began appearing in early 1984, neither engineers nor management at MTI treated them as serious problems in their communications to Marshall.

• Internal MTI documents show that the contractor was examining the problems with little sense of urgency, again evidencing the tendency to see the problem in the best light possible.


• early signs of O-ring problems were generally not believed at MTI, were accepted at Marshall only when it was possible to see the problem as MTI's, and were not sent upward to NASA headquarters.

The optimistic view of the O-rings persisted at both MTI and Marshall over the 84-85 period despite mounting evidence that the rings were not functioning well.

• an optimistic interpretation of the data on cold was held by both engineers and managers at MTI. the split between managerial and engineering interpretation of the data did not develop for four or five more months.


• the very frequency of the problem could have added to its acceptability because the damage kept occurring with no serious consequences.


• in July 1985, a launch constraint was placed on the nozzle joints. this meant that no other flights would take place until O-ring erosion at the nozzle joint had been fixed or shown not to be a problem. but it was waived for every subsequent flight.

concern was evidenced by both the way Boisjoly faults his own company and by his use of emotional language unusual in engineering documents. although he was sufficienly alarmed to try to reach his superiors, he still attempted to keep bad news from the prying eyes of outsiders.

• the memo did not communicate its intent b/c the people who read it were uncertain of its meaning. "There were a whole lot of people who weren't smart enough to look behind the veil and say 'Gee, I wonder what this means'". pg. 357


• MTI engineers concluded that the O-ring problems were serious before their management did. However, in their written communication, they varied the extent to which they voiced that seriousness, depending on whether their audience was internal or external.

although the taks force members regarded their work as urgent, administrators required that all testing and design be done according to routines established for more leisurely long-term development.

• in general, Marshall challenged, not MTI's facts, but the conclusions drawn from them.


• MTI was split along role lines-the engineers continued to argue against launch.

a number of precautions engineers and their managers might take in the face of the same kind of pressure-induced miscommunication.

• from a manager's point of view, one of the most important precautions is to establish an atmosphere in which engineers feel free to communicate bad news as well as good.


• pressures for holding back bad news should be anticipated to be especially strong when contractors are involved. contracts can be designed to lessen this fear, but those issuing the contracts should be alert for any sign of problems, since full disclosure of bad news is unlikely in this situation.


• managers and engineers alike should anticipate that they are probably erring on the side of optimism in interpreting data bearing on already established designs and programs. failure to believe bad news is probably caused by a number of factors, including reluctance to admit that one was wrong, fear of practical consequences such as expensive redesign, and a kind of intellectual inertia that makes it easier to persist in an already established belief than to change it.

How to lie with statistics:

• the sample with built-in bias: to be dependable to any useful degree at all, a sampling study must use a representative sample (which can lead to trouble too) or a truly random one. The test is this: does every name in the group have an equal chance to be in the sample?


• the truncated, or gee-whiz, graph: if you don't mind misleading the hasty looker, or if you quite clearly want to deceive him, you can save some space by chopping the bottom off many kinds of graphs.


• the souped-up graph: simple change the proportion between the ordinate and the abscissa.


• the well-chosen average: it is not that one type of average is invariably better than the other; it depends upon what you are talking about. but neither gives you any real information-and either may be highly misleading-unless you know which of those two kinds of average it is.


• the insignificant difference of the elusive error: the rule is that you cannot make a valid comparison between two figures unless you know the deviations. and unless the difference between the figures is many times greater than the probable error of each, you have only a guess that the one appearing greater really is.


• the one-dimensional picture


• the ever-impressive decimal: for a spurious air of precision that will lend all kinds of weight to the most disreputable statistics, consider the decimal.


• the semiattached figure: if you can't prove what you want to prove, demonstrate something else and pretend that they are the same thing.


• the unwarranted assumption, or post hoc rides again: the interrelation of cause and effect, so often obscure anyway, can be most nearly hidden in statistical data.

Determining the Ethics of Style:

• indeed, most doublespeak is the product of clear thinking and is carefully designed and constructed to appear to communicate when in fact it doesn't.


• sometimes we want to be unclear. we don't know what we're talking about, and we don't want anyone else to know that. or we do know what we're talking about, and we don't want anyone else to know what we know.

The ten commandments of computer ethics p. 370-371

developing ethical guidelines for technical communicators parallels the challenges of doing so for computer professionals and engineers-obligations to society, to their employers, to their clients, and to coprofessionals and even professional organizations.

STC ethical guidelines for technical communicators: legality, honesty, confidentiality, quality, fairness, and profesionalism.

codes help to establish an atmosphere of professionalism, and they help to encourage members of a profession to act ethically even in the most difficult of circumstances.

Legal and ethical issues in editing: editors work with other members of product development teams and legal experts to verify adherence to these laws and the representation of them in the text through warnings and notices of copyright, trademarks or patents.

codes of ethics aim to protect individuals and groups from harm and to provide opportunities by creating a work environment in which individuals can achieve.

editors can be most effective as individuals if corporate policies establish commitment to legal and ethical behavior and if corporate procedures allow for review of products and documents by a variety of knowledgeable people, not just the editor or even just the legal department.

intellectual property includes original works of fiction or nonfiction, artwork and photographs, recordings, computer programs, and any other expression that is fixed in some form-printed, recorded or posted on the internet. includes work protected as trademarks, patents and trade secrets.

copyright: the US Copyright Act of 1976 protects authors of "original works of authorship," whether or not the works are published. the owner of a copyright has the right to reproduce and distribute the work and to prepare derivitative works based on the copyrighted work.

• copyright belongs to the author who created the work unless the author wrote the work to meet responsibilites of employment; material is then the propertyu of the employer. Works by the US government aren't eligible for copyright protection-public domain. Collections with contributions by multiple authors are generally protected by a single copyright, but the sections may be copyrighted individually.


• copyright extends 70 years beyond the owner's death. works written for hire are protected 95 years beyond publication.


• copyright is automatic in the US as soon as the work exists in fixed form and protection doesn't require a notice or registration. for the best protection, a published work should contain a notice of copyright.


• copyright in one country doesn't automatically extend to another; use depends on laws of country.

Usually the writer requests permission from the copyright holder, but editors verify that permissions have been acquired before the document goes to print. the permission ought to exist in writing-title, author, and edition of the materials to be reprinted; exact material to be used; how it will be used.

• fair use allows some copying for educational or other noncommercial purposes.


• copyright prohibits duplication of software for multiple users unless an organization has purchased a site license.

material on the web and even emails are protected by the same copyright laws that protect print, especially when the information has commercial value. cyberspace law is an area that is still developing.

trademarks are brand names, phrases, graphics, or logos that identify products. if the marks are registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office, no one else can use those particular marks to represent their own products.

it is illegal for a company to hire you to find out what a competitot is planning, and it is illegal for you to give trade secrets of a former employer to a new employer or of your current employer to anyone else.

According to US law, companies and individuals must assume responsibility for safety of the products as they are used or even misused by consumers. Manufacturers cannot avoid responsibility with disclaimers.

• the first strategy of documenting safe use of a product is to write clear and complete instructions; summary of hazards. taking the perspective of the reader, the editor may note some gaps that a writer missed. If there are hazards of using products, manufacturers and suppliers must warn of the risks unless the product is common and its hazards well known. Safety labels should be attached to products where users will see them before and as they use the product.
• Writers and editors have some responsibility in the eyes of the law for safe use of a product.

The possibility of being sued forlibel worries editors of fiction and periodicals more than it does technical editors b/c people are more likely to be discussed, referred to, or otherwise cited in works of fiction and in periodicals than in technical documents.

Dombrowski

Challenger investigations demonstrate the critical importance of clear communications in highly technical systems such as the shuttle, the powerful role of complex social forces in shaping communications, and the close interplay between values and language in communication. Show how ethical responsibility can be reflected in highly technical documents and how differences in organizational power can negate even the most ethically responsible of technical communications. Finally, ethical assessment of real organizational and technical issues often is very complicated, difficult, and innately problematic.

The report of the commission appointed by the president (the Rogers Commission) provides important insights into the way that ethics plays an important role in technical communication. It shows difficulties in its proportions, its focus and emphasis, and its languages. Also points out difficulties of clarity, purpose, and aims.

• relevance is often weak and only tenuously expressed.
• the proportions of the presidential commission's report are lopsided, leaving the misleading impression on the reader that the matters covered at substantial length are of substantial importance (escape system and landing options and the tire and braking system)
• three possibilites: the disproportion was entirely unconscious and unintended; the writers could have chosen to include all the information they collected regardless of the strength of its relevance in order to convince the readers that they had conducted a thorough investigation; the writers could have included a great amount of information in order to leave the impression that all these factors played significant roles, that none was markedly more significant that any others, and that no causative factor could fairly be singled out as more important than others.
• the great mass of information was presented partly in order to mislead or at least to complicate rather than clarify-divert attention from specific instances of poor judgment or negligence.

The presidential report differs from the congressional report in its focus, in its conclusions and recommendations, and especially in its unwillingness to assign ethical responsibility.

More than information:

• the differences center around ethical responsibility, which strongly suggests that this area is a very real crux in understanding the disaster.
• the congressional and presidential panels considered almost the same body of information yet came to different conclusions. the evidence and testimony were almost identical.

confusing language:

• the conclusions and recommendations sections of the presidential commission's report, the vital heart of the document, show problems of language and conceptualization.
• did someone fail to do something required by procedures, or did everyone do what was required by an inadequate system of procedures, or was the course of action chosen on the basis of available information actually incorrect and unwarrented. the reader has to sort out the correct meaning.

conclusions don't follow logically:

• the presidential report fails to address clearly and squarely the question of ethical responsibilities.
• the conclusions and recommendations don't point a finger of ethical blame toward anyone regarding any particular persons or decisions. the evidence and testimony suggest that some ethical responsibilities were not fulfilled.
• the recommendations section recommends that procedures be instituted in order to prevent similar disasters in the future, even though the evidence and testimony clearly indicate that the procedures in place were already adequate.
• the implicit suggestion left by this call for more, new procedures is that the procedures were at fault or to blame.
• the congressional report is explicit and clear-not "blaming" the procedures but in assigning responsibility to people. uses consistent terminology and precise language.

in two vitally important instances, a shift in meaning occurred having to do with the communication of technical information.

• over the course of several years, the cause for alarm became reconceptualized, incredibly, as a cause for reassurance of safety-every new instance of charring was taken as confirming that flights can proceed without incident regardless of charring.
• the raw data remained the same, whereas the representation of what this information meant, how it was to be interpreted, or what should be done in light of it changed totally.
• the powerful influence of the entire collection of social forces over a long period of time. it completely reshaped the attitudes and interpretations of a whole population of bright, earnest people without their even being fully aware of any change.

the engineer's communications, both prior to and during the meeting, show how technical communication can be done excellently yet still be nullified by extraneous but more powerful organizational considerations. there was no change of objective information whatsoever, only a change of perspectives and values.

• the engineers could not have effectively persuaded managers not to launch because the managers had alread decided what they were going to do.

when the writer has done responsibly all that can reasonably be done to write effectively and persuasively, then the burden of responsibility must shift to the readers.

Aristotle: clearly commend him as completely ethical in insisting on the good, true, and right. the ambiguous, confusing language of the presidential commission's report and its unwillingness to focus on personal responsibility would not warrant being called ethical.

Kant: Boisjoly obviously accepted and enacted his ethical responsibilities even though he was communicating a message that his audience did not want to read or hear; suffered for doing his duty. the congressional committee clearly accepted their responsibility for doing what they though ethically best. the presidential commission, on the other hand, seems to have deliberately avoided focusing on personal ethical responsibility.

Utilitarianism: the near-certainty that some astronauts will die at some time is outweighed by the greater good to the greater society of advancing the technology, exploring the unknown, adding to scientific knowledge, and maintaining national security. the ethical rub is that some astronauts were being exposed to greater risk than they were aware of and to risks that could have been minimized. the presidential commission was avoiding addressing ethical personal responsibility out of a concern for the greater good. the congressional committee disagreed.

feminist and ethics of care: caring concern for others would require that those involved in communicating and making decisions about the Challenger mission do so with the safety of the crew paramount in mind.

Harty p. 306-246

The Basics of the Cover Letter: Like effective advertisements, effective cover letters attract an employer's attention by highlighting the most attractive features of the product.
Format: Before reading a word of your cover letter, a potential employer has already made an assessment of your organizational skills and attention to detail simply by observing its appearance.
The parts of a letter: either of two styles may be used for cover letters: business style (sometimes called block style) or personal style. The only difference between them is that in business style, all the elements of the letter-the return address, salutation, body, and complimentary close-begin at the left margin. In personal style, the return address and complimentary close begin at the centerline of the page, and paragraphs are indented.

• Return address: should appear at the top margin, without your name. Avoid abbreviations in the addresses of your cover letter, although abbreviating the state is acceptable. Include your phone number.
• Date: appears two lines below your return address. Write out the date, don't abbreviate it.
• Inside address: four lines beneath the date, give the addressee's full name. On subsequent lines give the person's title, the company's name, and the company's address. The text of the letter below the date should be centered approximately vertically on the page, so if your letter is short, you can begin the inside address six or even eight lines down. If the letter is long, two lines is acceptable.
• Salutation: should be typed two lines beneath the company's address. never use a first name in the salutation.
• Length: three or four shot paragraphs on one page is ideal.
• Enclosure: it's not wrong to include it in a cover letter but it's unnecessary.

Paper Size: use standard 8 1/2 by 11-inch paper

Paper Color and Quality: use quality paper that is standard size and has weight and texture, in a conservative color like white or ivory. Use matching paper and envelopes for both your resume and cover letter. Never use the stationary of your current employer.

Typing and Printing: You will generally want to use the same typeface and size that you used on your resume. Remember that serif typefaces are generally easier to read.

Envelope: unless your handwriting is extremely neat and easy to read, type your envelopes. Address your envelope, by full name and title, specifically to the contact person you identified in your cover letter.

Mapping it out: the idea is to give an overview of your capabilities and show why you're a good candidate for the job. The best way to distinguish yourself is to highlight one or two of your accomplishments or abilities. Stressing only one or two increases your chances of being remembered. Be sure it's clear from your letter why you have an interest in the company-as many candidates apply for jobs with no apparent knowledge of what the company does.

• first paragraph: state the position for which you're applying.
• second paragraph: indicate what you could contribute to this company and show how your qualifications will benefit them. don't talk about what you can't do. remember keep it brief.
• third paragraph: if possible, show how you not only meet but exceed their requirements-why you're not just an average candidate but a superior one.
• fourth paragraph: close by saying you look forward to hearing from them if you wish, you can also thank them for their consideration. don't ask for an interview.
• complimentary close: should be the two lines beneath the body of the letter, aligned with your return address and the date. "Sincerely" followed by a comma, suffices. Three lines under this, type your full name as it appears on your resume. Sign above your typed name in black ink.

What writing style is appropriate?: adopt a polite, formal style that balances your confidence in yourself with respect for the employer. Keep the style clear, objective, and persuasive rather than narrative. Don't waste space boasting instead of presenting relevant qualifications.

Tone-Reserved confidence is always in style: the trick is to sound enthusiastic without becoming melodramatic.

Emphasize concrete examples: cover letter should highlight your most significant accomplishments; use concrete examples. List tangible, relevant skills rather than personal attributes. Avoid using "etc."-don't expect a potential employer to imagine what else you mean. Either describe it or leave it out.

Use powerful language: your language should be hard-hitting and easy to understand. your message should be expressed using the fewest words possible. use action verbs; simple, common language and avoid abbrevations and slang. Also steer clear of language that's too technical or jargon heavy.

Avoid catchphrases: it's tempting to use catchphrases you've picked up. Improve on these descriptions by listing actual projects and goals. Concrete experiences are more valuable than vague phrases or obscure promises.

Mention personal preferences?: refrain from offering salary information unless the advertisement you are responding to requires it. give a salary range rather than a number.

Blunders to avoid:

• unrelated career goals: tailor your cover letter to the position you're applying for. convey a genuine interest in the position and a long term pledge to fulfilling its duties.
• comparisons and cliches: avoid cliches and obvious comparisons. these expressions detract from your letter's purpose-to highlight your most impressive skills and accomplishments.
• wasted space: every word of every sentence should be directly related to your purpose for writing.
• form letters: this approach doesn't allow you to personalize each application. may indicate to a hiring manager that you're not truly interested in joining that organization.
• inappropriate stationery: don't rely on graphics to "improve" your cover letter.
• "amusing" anecdotes: when writing, remain polite and professional.
• erroneous company information: verify the accuracy of any company information you mention in your cover letter. on the other hand, if you haven't researched the company, don't bluff.
• desperation: sound determined, not desperate-a fine line often separates the two.
• confessed shortcomings: some job seekers mistakenly call attention to their weaknesses in their cover letters, hoping to ward off an employer's objections. this is a mistake, because the letter emphasizes your flaws rather than your strengths.
• misrepresentation: erroneous information contained in a cover letter or resume will be grounds for dismissal if the inaccuracy is discovered.
• demanding statements: your cover letter should demonstrate what you can do for an employer, not what he or she can do for you. Also, since you're requesting an employer's consideration, your letter shouldn't include personal preferences or demands.
• personal information: do not include your age, health, physical characteristics, marital status, race, religion, political/moral beliefs, or any other personal information. List your personal interests and hobbies only if they're directly relevant to the type of job.
• choice of pronouns: in general, using the first person is preferable.
• tone troubles: a cover letter should steer a middle course between extremely formal, which can come across as pretentious, and extremely informal, which can come across as presumptuous. Try to sound genuine, not stilted. When in doubt, err on the side of formality.
• gimmicks: no matter how creative these ideas may sound, the majority of employers will be more impressed with a simple, well crafted letter.
• typographical errors: a few common technical mistakes-misspelling the hiring contact's name or title in the address or salutation or on the envelope; forgetting to change the name of the organization you're applying to each time it appears in your application, especialy in the body of the letter; indicating applications for one position and mentioning a difference position in the body of the letter.
• messy corrections: if, for any reason, you forget to communicate something to your addressee, retype the letter. avoid using correction fluid or penning in any corrections.

cover letters for special situations: the key to improving your cover letter in these special situations is to emphasize your strengths. focus on your marketable skills, and highlight impressive achievements, relevant education and training, and/or related interests.

• response to a "blind" advertisement: since you're not provided with a company name in a blind ad, your cover letter should sharply define your knowledge of the industry, position and how your qualifications specifically match up to the stated requirements. in other words, tailor your letter to any information given.
• cold letters: with a "cold" cover letter, you can directly contact potential employers without a referral or previous correspondence. advertise their availability to hiring managers or personnel departments.
• broadcast letters: well-qualified candidates can advertise their availability to top level professionals in a particular field. Since this type of letter is used primarily by seasoned executives, its tone should reflect the candidate's experience, knowledge, and confidence in his or her capabilities. not recommended for those candidates conducting widespread job searches, where cover letters may end up in the human resources department rather than in the hands of a fellow industry executive.
• letter to an employment agency: letters addressed to employment agencies should focus on who you are, what type of position you are looking for and in what specific industry, and some of your strongest skills related to that field. mention personal preferences, including geographic and salary requirements.
• letter to an executive search firm: actively recruit candidates for client companies.
• networking letters: refer to a third-party industry contact to garner the reader's attention and induce him or her to assist you in your job search. it is essential to achieve the right tone in your networking letters. if you have been in contact with this person recently, it could be useful to remind them. many networking letters are written to an addressee whom the candidates has not met but has been referred to by a mutual acquaintance. in this case, immediately state the name of the person who referred you. effective to ask for assistance and names of people to contact.
• thank you letters: it's acceptable to handwrite your thank you letter on a generic blank note card. if you met with several people, it's fine to send each an individual thank you letter.

Your Resume on the Internet: writing your resume, actually creating the one that employers and others will review, is one of the most important tasks in a job search, one place where you must take the time to do it right, really thinking about what you want to do before you can start pounding the pavement.

You do not need to limit yourself to just one resume. You can have several that are presented in different ways-a designed or hard-copy version; a scannable version; a plain-text version; an e-mail version. You may also want to consider an HTML version of your resume. The main problem with HTML resumes is the too much information factor. Post it in a location separate from your personal website, and do not create a link between the two.

• format your resume correctly for e-mail; send your resume in the body of the e-mail message; always include a cover letter, whether or not you are responding to an advertisement opening; use the advertised job title or job code in the subject line of your e-mail message; read the application instructions included in the job announcement and follow them exactly.

Don't use the websites that allow you to build your resume right on the site because-it's very easy to have typos if you type directly into the site's form; the form may force you to use a resume format that you don't like; you cannot easily save your resume for other uses because the resume bank is on a website.

never use you current office address, email address or phone number on your resume.

The further your resume spreads, the less control you can exert over it. If you don't get any responses to your resume within 45 days, remove it from its current locations and place it elsewhere.

• post it only on one or two of the large online databases, preferably ones attached to popular job sites.
• post it on one or two targeted resume databases specific to your industry, occupational group, or geographic location.

Protect yourself online: carefully evaluate the job sites you use. below criteria can help you do so:

• does the site have a comprehensive privacy policy?
• do you have to register a profile or resume before you can search through the jobs?
• are most of the jobs posted by employers or by agencies acting on behalf of employers?
• can you set up one or more "email agents" that will send matching jobs to you when you are not at the site?
• who has access to the database of resumes?
• can you limit access to your personal contact information?
• can you store more than one version of your resume so that you can customize it for different types of opportunities?
• will you be able to edit your resume once you have posted it?
• will you be able to delete your resume after you have found a job?

Before you post your resume think about whether you want your resume to be public and if you are prepared for the consequences should an electronic resume come back to haunt you.

resume distribution services, sometimes called resume broadcasters, are proliferating online. Such wide distribution may offer little, if any, control on where a copy of your resume could end up. Your name, address, and phone number, in addition to your education and work experience, could become completely public for a very long time. Not all those who are on the lists of services actually requested they be placed on the list-broadcasting resumes to employers who have expressed no interest in receiving them is almost guaranteed to eliminate even the slimmest possibility those resumes will be given any consideration.

Follow-Up Letters: provide you with an invaluable opportunity to impress your readers with your skills, your background, your professionalism, and your personality.

• Networking Interview Follow-Up Letters: serves the purpose of reminding the reader who you are and the fact that you're looking for a job. In addition, because executives in any given industry tend to know each other, the person you follow up with may contact you if he or she hears of a position in another company for which you would be qualified. Should be sent ASAP after the meeting-preferably the next day, but certainly within the next few days.
• the opening: be brief, straightforward, one or two sentence paragraph in which you thank your reader for taking the time to meet with you.
• comment on the meeting: the second paragraph is the place to comment on the discussion you had. if either you or the person you met with promised to do something in the course of the meeting, this is the appropriate place to do what you promised or (tactfully) remind the other person of his or her promise.
• the closing: include both a promise and a request.
• Job Interview Folluw-Up Letter: even more important! Since many job candidates don't send them, interviewers tend to more clearly remember those who do. Also gives you an opportunity to remind the interviewer of your skills and experience, as well as of their applicability to the position for which you've been interviewed. Write within 24 hours of the interview.
• the opening: the place to thank the reader for meeting with you.
• the pitch: "why me?": the purpose is to make a final argument for your candidacy. You should reiterate the best points that you already made in the interview itself as well as add others that you may have neglected to mention.
• the pitch: "why you?": where you discuss why you're interested in working for this particular company. your comments should be based on both whatever you learned abou the company during the interview and any information you may have gathered from other sources.
• the closing: following up with a phone call to an interviewer a week or so after a meeting is acceptable, but calling day after day is not.
• Job Acceptance Follow-Up Letters: very different from the other types of follow-up letters. enthusiastic, warm and to-the-point.
• Job Turndown Follow-Up Letters: it's likely that you will turn down the offer over the phone. it is still a good idea to send a letter because the chances that you may find yourself being interviewed again by, or working with, a person whose offer rejected are good.
• Job Rejection Follow-Up Letters: a good idea even if you haven't received a job offer. If they have another opening in the near future, a gracious, professional letter thanking them for their consideration may put in the position to be the first one they call. You may also run into the same interviewer again. Should be short, to the point, professional, and infused with as much warmth as is possible.
• Follow-Up Letters to Networking Contacts: it's courteous and makes good business sense. personal networking is a lifetime career tool because keeping those connections strong and positive will pay dividends for years to come.

Harty p. 275-305

Resumes and Other Written Materials for a Job Search:
The written materials that are part of an application for a job face one of the most difficult audiences imaginable: experienced recruiting managers.

• Talking point: how can you write your resume with the audience in mind if you are unsure of who makes up your audience specifically?

There is no one wary to write a resume or cover letter. Let common sense be be your guide when you write what are essentially advertisements for yourself.

Managers look at resumes and cover letters to determine as quickly as possible what preparation and experience candidates had in the following skills and areas:

• written and oral communication skills
• computer skills
• interpersonal skills
• self-reliance and initiative
• a sense of what the world of work demands in terms of professionalism and deadlines
• specific skills in at least one business or technical area supplemented by secondary skills in a variety of related areas.
• a sense of business and personal ethics
• the ability to manage time, set priorities, and work under stress.

Writing Resumes and Letters in the Language of Employers:

The purpose of a resume is to convey a messsage. Don't confuse customers (employers) by flaunting things that don't speak to their needs.

While the language of employment for you is "I want" and for employers it is "I need," you can create resumes and letters in your language that will be read by employers in theirs.

It is important to determine the best way to get a message across. There are times when there is no substitute for a resume.

• Talking point: what jobs really require a resume rather than a letter of application?

Good letters have these things in common:

• they look like business letters. Their paragraphing. their neatness, and their crisp white 8 1/2" X 11" stationery attracted attention like good-looking clothing and good grooming.
• Talking point: when you think about it, your letter is your first impression. Is this fair?
• they were succinct.
• there were no misspellings or grammatical errors.

The first paragraph states who the writer is and what he/she wants.

The following paragraphs indicate why the writer wrote to the emplyer and mention areas of mutual interest, special talents that might be of interest to employers, or other factors relating to qualifications that could be better described in a letter than in a resume.

The final paragraph suggests a course of action.

Hard work and attention to detail make for a good letter: you don't have to create a literary masterpiece; just don't knock off a letter hastily with thoughts that wander all over the page.

Don't delegate the job of letter writing: more important than style, however, is the thought process used in preparing letters and resumes. Don't shortchange yourself by delegating your thinking to someone else. Make sure it is your letter. To organize your ideas, create an outline. In other words, prepare a resume even if you decide not to use it. The value of a resume is frequently more in its preparation than in its use.

Resume Preparation: when you do give an employer your resume, make it a testimony to your ability to organize your thoughts.

• the first bait to throw out is credentials; they testify to your ability to do the work. After that, what may sink the hook is how the employer sees you as a person.
• Double spacing should be cut down so as to not overemphasize the less important items, yet a string of other things not terribly important in themselves can be inserted to support the impression of an active, interesting person. Some times you want to leave an impression, at other times you want to emphasize a qualification.

The Proper Use of Headlines:

• Prose can destroy the effect of an outline. The solution lies in imitating newspaper editors, who use headlines and subheadlines to attract readers. Like a newspaper, a resume should lend itself to skimming so the reader can quickly pick up a good overview of what is important.
• Beware of misleading headlines-use words that fit the job in question, and play down those that can lead an employer to think of you in terms that don't relate to the job.

The Functional Resume: you can get your message across by creating a resume based on functions.

• allows you to develop a different message for each job or type of job you wish to apply for. Different functions can be highlighted, depending on what the job requires, and your specific experiences rearranged under different headings. It gives you the flexibility you need if your experience has been diverse.

Preparing a resume for a specific job: each specification suggests a headline for a resume.

The Curriculum Vitae: literally, "course of life" in Latin. Sometimes called a C.V. or vita, it is a resume for academic positions and as such does not need a statement of goals or interest.

• a faculty tends to select colleagues not just to teach but for the prestige they will bring to the department, especially in the long run.

The Job Objective: with rare exceptions, a resume should open with an objective-it's the way that it is stated that can be changed.

• author prefers the headline CAREER INTEREST, because it leads to a simple and direct way of stating the purpose of the resume.
• people don't want to state a goal because they don't know what they want to do.

One page or two?: if a resume can be kept to one page, so much the better. A resume is an outline. It needs a white space and headings that stand out. Don't sacrifice them for some arbitrary notion about a one-page maximum.

Additional advice:

• no matter how you develop your message, test it before you send it to employers.
• one way to get a resume criticized is to hold it up a few feet from the reader and ask for comments on its appearance. Does it look neat? Is the layout pleasing? Does it look easy to read? Is the print good-looking?
• Next, give the critics the resume to read. You may pick up valuable ideas for improving its style and layout, but be careful you don't get caught up in the inconsequentials.
• Have your critics look at the resume as if they didn't know you. Ask your critics the most important question about your resume: What message do you get about me?

Multimedia Options

For our multimedia project, we could create a video going over the topics in our general information section. The video will show us doing a variety of skits to act out the information. For example, we could show a student asking their teacher for a letter of recommendation. We could also show the dos and don'ts of asking. The videos will give the audience a better understanding of what we are talking about, while also keeping them entertained. Animations may also be used to further illustrate our points. The animation idea could be taken one step further in that we will use them exclusively. A character could be created through PowerPoint that goes through the college application process in his/her "world". This way the information will be timeless (no dates or locations will be given for example). Overall, our multimedia aspect will entertain and inform.

Dombrowski p. 81-121

Should it make any difference to us as communicators how a particular body of information that we might communicate was obtained? How are ethics and values reflected in our language and in the format of our technical documents? Should the uses to which our information will likely be put influence our ethical judgment about the communication of that information?

• similar issues surround recent revelations about US research on the effects of radiation on humans in the decades just after WWII. The US EPA dealt with similar issues just recently.
• Talking point: how could anyone really determine what is ethical for others to do? is the US really justified in being the moral compass for other nations when we too have committed moral atrocities?
• The lesson of these examples is that an excessive emphasis on the values of technical objectivity (as well as scientific), technical excellence, or technical expediency can sometimes mask vital ethical issues. Some of the values embedded in the scientific frame of mind can be carried to extremes-with terrible consequences.
• Of particular concern are the emotional disengagement of the researcher from the human research subject, the great power and control differential between them, and the implicit superiority of the researcher by which the subject is deliberately kept in the dark about what is really going on.
• Technical communicators and the technical documents we produce are not as ethically neutral as we might think.
• All too easily the narrow, instrumental values of technical expediency or technical excellence can rise to the forefront and be taken as the only relevant values in a given situation.
• There is a need to examine how information originated in order to fully understand all its ethical dimensions.

Origination, Dissemination, and Use of Information: ethical considerations apply not only to the document itself or its content but also to how the informational content was obtained and how it likely will be used.

• objectivizatoin (the excessive and inappropriate treatment of people as objects), impersonalness, and emotional disengagement are key values in Nazi medical science. These values are commonly attribution to modern technology too.

Nazi Past: scientific study in Europe and America has been closely scrutinized to prevent anything remotely like the Nazi pseudo-research from ever happening again. For that reason, in our universities today all scientific research involving people as research subjects has to be reviewed by "human subjects" panels.

Controversy in the Present: In recent years, a new outcry has arisen in several different forms about Nazi "scientific" information and other information collected unethically. This controversy has to do with medical specimens of human organs and with the dissemination and use of information obtained from unethical "research".

Medical Specimens: In the first form of recent ethical concerns that we will consider, scandals have arisen over human anatomical samples used in medical education.

• no informed consent, no possibilty of choosing otherwise, no legitimate reason for the execution, no possibility of protest-none of the familiar criteria that we consider basic human rights applied in these cases.
• for these critics, the means by which the samples were obtained taints them completely and should prevent them from being used for any purposes, regardless of any informative value they might hold.
• Talking point: would using the samples (and information) give the people's suffering some sort of purpose?

"Research" Information: publishing information from Nazi hypothermia experiments could be used in our own times to improve survival equipment.

• information should be used precisely in order to give some purpose to the victims' suffering as well as to relieve the suffering of those who might benefit from the information.
• however, the hypothermia research is entirely unscientific.
• one good result of the debate has been to force an open discussion in the medical journals about the relation of knowledge to the means by which it was obtained and the ends for which it might be used.
• New England Journal of Medicine won't publish reports of unethcial research, regardless of their scientific merit. Even consenting subjects must not be exposed to appreciable risks without the possibility of commensurate benefits.
• Jeremiah Barondess critiques the collusion of medical doctors and the entire German medical institution of the time in this "research". Assigning responsibility not just to individual "researchers" but to the whole medical establishment.
• Making them seem medically necessary and scientifically justified seemed to make them acceptable.

Values in Nazi Medical "Science":

Traditional View: many of these historical treatments take a sociological perspective.

• the glut of medical school graduates and their unemployment in society, the depressed economy, and the need for the Nazi regime to legitimate its racial policies were all important factors at work to medicalize the mistreatment of prisoners and patients.
• put simply, the healer became the killer, and healing became killing.
• Such a stark and absurd reversal of meaning, driven by contextual circumstances, has appeared in other situations revelant to technical communication. Rather than accept technical facts and factual statements as absolutely true, unalterable and incontrovertible, we should be aware of how readily they can be transformed by social circumstances.
• masked langauge also played an important role in communications about the medical killings in many ways, both externally to the public and internally to bureaucrats, military officers and doctors. allowed a broad range of interpretations that could conveniently serve one's own interests to try to demonstrate that one did not know what was really going on. examples-euthanasia and special treatment.
• In the Nazi regime, euthanasia was reinterpreted as putting someone to death in a way that was perceived as humane and on the basis of his or her unworthiness to live, according to the perceptions of the regime.
• Special treatment referred to medical killing, special in the sense of lying outside the mainstream of medicine as traditionally understood.

Nazi Antiscience: for some critics, these horrible activities done in the name of medical science are explained on the basis of the intrinsic inhumaneness and unethicalness of science itself.

• these actions thus show science to be essentially unethical and an enemy of basic human values. apparent indifference of science and technology to traditional values and social goals.
• because it is funadmentally dehumanizing, objectivization is potentially dangerous and should be restrained by traditional humanistic interests, which insist on open criticism and ethical appraisal.
• "objectivity run amok"-perverse fidelity to an obscene objectivity that ultimately found it possible to see all activities through the lens of expediency, scientific interest and efficiency.
• Talking point: how can this be rectified and prevented in today's world?
• many medical researchers, and a good deal of the general populace in Nazi Germany, were disenchanted with traditional empirical science, so disenchanted as to deliberately, specifically oppose traditional science.
• the regime could assert the primacy of racial purity and "Aryan" superiority over the disinterestedness of traditional science. the sick should die, and the strong and healthy should prevail and flourish, according to this perspective, and it was the duty of the new "science" to make the strong, healthy, and dominant even more so.
• attributing Nazi crimes to the nature of science itself is a serious mistake.

Research in the United States: though generally in this book ethics has been kept distinct from the law, the Nazi "scientific" information is one ethical dilemma in which legal principles have direct bearing.

• the inadmissability principle of criminal proceedings should be analogous to the Nazi "medical research" dilemma. It would be deemed inadmissable were it to be used in a criminal proceeding and therefore it should be deemd inadmissable in the scientific community as well.
• some critics disagree-scientific knowledge is valuable in its own right for its own sake, they say, with a worthiness that transcends squabbles over what is right or wrong, good or bad.
• scientific knowledge can be tainted by the means by which it was obtained even when human suffering is not involved-animal suffering.
• some of us will likely be involved in situations in which the means and ends could ethically taint technical information we are dealing with. this taint can be so strong as to warrant considering how, and even whether, the information should be communicated.
• Kant is relevant in a surprising way-the categorical imperative of ethics applies not only to all humans but also to any and all "sentient" beings, that is, all those capable of reasoned thought.

Nazi Technical Memorandum: technological values such as expediency and efficiency have come to completely dominate our society and reshape its entire value system. As a result technology becomes a goal or end in itself. it takes on an importance that is desirable in its own rights.

• the glaring absence of key words (the technical term for this is "ellipsis," words and thoughts evoked but not expressed).
• the document is "technically" excellent.
• Are we ethically obligated also to consider the context from which this technical information sprang and the uses to which this will be put? If we answer yes, we must consider the uses to which this will be put, then should we not also feel obligated to raise the same question for any and all other technical documentation we encounter?
• we need to consider the social, political, and cultural context in which this document appeared. cultural context was a very strong desire for technical excellence, for doing anything as well as it could possibly be done.
• in Nazi Germany, the distinction between means and ends became so blurred that what was technically possible came to be sought almost for its own sake.

Graphical Images: another way that underlying values found expression in technical and scientific information and documents was through Nazi race laws.

• part of the supposed rationale behind these anti-Semitic laws that institutionalized hatred of Jews was a science of heredity that asserted the superiority of one race over all others.
• science was made to serve politics.
• education and research in biological and medical areas came to be controlled by political leaders who would allow only politically correct theories to be taught and practiced and who would not tolerate opposition.
• religion, faith, and culture were made to appear to be biologically determined.
• the technician can think, "I am only following the chart," without thinking about the findings will be used, what purposes they are serving, or what will happen to the person being examined.

Ethical Appraisal:

• Aristotle: ethical condemnation of the Nazi regime. Some critics have expressed serious concern about the pragmatic thrust of Aristotle's ethics and politics, which emphasize expediency, technial excellence, and practical utility. On the question of whether technical information already on hand should be communicated and used, an Aristotelian perspective would likley urge that it be used.
• Kant: we should treat all other people as we would wish they would treat us under the same universal ethical rules therefore the persecution and execution of any other people, such as the Nazi regime is noted for, would be entirely unethical.
• Utilitarianism: no utilitarian theorist supposed such a radical difference in worth among people. though no one can say for certain whether the great theorists of the utilitarian perspective would ever have approved of the Nazi institutionalization of mass murder, it is highly unlikely. A utilitarian would be in favor of communicating and using the information from this time.
• Feminist and Ethics of Care: authoritarianism in pratically any form is criticized throughout the feminist literature. the Nazi regime, of course, is the prime example of authoritarianism. The feminist perspective therefore would find the Nazi regime and its activities to be completely unethical. The Nazis showed an absolutely uncaring attitude toward their victims and absolutely refused to maintain any relationship with them. This is shown in their treating people not as persons but as objects. Their actions were therefore utterly unethical. A caring concern for those now living would require us to communicate and use this information.

Conclusion:

• The ethical burden does not lie solely with us, of course, instead of with subject matter experts and end users. It only means that the ethical involvement of these others does not entirely relieve us of an ethical burden, too.
• The manner in which information is communicated has significant ethical implications too. This includes not only the language but also the absence of language, the voice, the organization, the purpose and the values at work behind the scene in a communication.
• The objectivity, impersonalness, and emotional distance that we often find in technical and scientific investigations can at times be carried to extremes with devastating consequences.