Chapter 3, Readers and Context of Use, dealt primarily with the importance of understating your target audience, and tailoring your writing style and presentation to best coincide with their needs and norms. The reading suggested ways to create a concise profile about your readers (primary, secondary, tertiary, and gatekeepers) by examining their needs as it pertains to the information you will be presenting, their overall company values, and their attitudes towards you and the information you will be presenting. In addition, a contextual profile should be made to determine your reader’s physical, economic, political, and ethical contexts, as these factors will affect how the reader will read and use the information given. With this profile, a technical writer can take all of these parameters into consideration to determine the most important topics to address, develop a more persuasive style, and create a presentation style that will be appropriate for the environment it will be used in.
This reading also addressed the importance of understanding cultural differences. The development of the Internet and modern communication equipment has removed many barriers between countries and cultures. Today, it is entirely common to conduct business with people from all across the world. Values and norms differ from culture to culture; what’s considered common in one country can be construed as bizarre or highly offensive someplace else. The way business is conducted is also different around the world. American business is quick and to the point, but much of the world values the building of trust and relationships in their business ventures. Doing thing the “American way” will most likely come off as rude and inconsiderate to members of other cultures. A way to curtail this is to conduct a bit of research beforehand concerning your target audience’s culture and taking their ways into consideration.
Response
After reading your response the one thing that I liked and agreed with the most was how much you mentioned the importance of the values and norms of the different types of people that could read your document. The thing that popped out to me the most was what you said about how business is done in America and around the world. American business is so fast paced and cutthroat, while in some other countries it is something that is appreciated and a bond is formed between people. When American’s interact with people from different cultures or nations they need to realize the impact that our way of life and our norms can have on the other people.
“The American Way” I like
“The American Way”
I like that you pointed this out and I would like to comment a couple of things I was thinking when reading your response. When you say that doing things the “American way” may come off rude, I can agree with you. However, what I ask myself is has this become expected of Americans? If we change the way we work and write our documents for that work. Will we do more harm than good or will it have a positive effect on our cross culture work relationships? I’m not sure what the best course of action might be, but a change in “The American Way” could do more harm than good.
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American Way discussion continued
This is a good discussion of "The American Way". We need to remember to not only consider other cultures and their respective norms so that we can effectively interact with them, but also to think critically of how our cultural work ethic comes across to others. However, I think it is equally important to respect our work ethic and American culture. Rather than hiding behind it, or ignoring it, it would be beneficial to come up with a way for both cultures to effectively work together.
Response
"The American way" and any other different culture is simply a gap of understanding between two groups. This example is a little more extreme considering the language barrier and common culture habits. But I would like to point out that this idea can also be exemplified as one audience member familiar with technology and one without the same background. Accommodations should be met for both readers accordingly. My point is that these gaps are very common and dealt with on a regular basis in a technical field. It is important to realize that there are "cultural" difference between Americans such as experience levels.
Research on Cultures
I strongly agree with your comments about the "American way" and doing research beforehand. I believe cross-culture communication should include researching the other culture and finding out what is offensive and discouraged. Also, another helpful tool to have would be actual living and working experience in these other cultures. While living and working there, people would be more apt to know the cultural differences. They would be able to tell that slang, gestures, phrases, and habits here at home are not exactly "cool" or "acceptable" in other cultures. This, for obvious reasons, would help with interacting with the different culture from home.
Comment
I thought your response to the cross cultural communication section was a valid and accurate statement. I agree the “American way” would potential appeal differently to another culture in a negative way. It’s critical to do research on your audience before sending a technical document in order to prevent any miscommunication or offensive remarks.
The chapter discusses the different design, content, organization and style aspect of writing a technical for another culture. In addition to all those different topics listed, I felt the book left out how cultural different color theory maybe consider. As a CGT major, I would have take inconsideration the meaning of color. In Japanese culture white is symbolic for mourning death while in America culture we use black.
American Way comment
Yeah it is interesting that the "American Way" cannot always be the right way in writing a technical document. I wonder since English is such a dominant language in the world why the "American Way" is not always the proper style of presenting things. When traveling to foreign countries the use of English as a second language is astonishing. I have even heard of English called the "language of money". Because the United States is the most powerful country in the world, I think that the "American Way" should be made the standard of the business world. Not that I am being bias to other countries, but if writing a document in one country is insulting in another country than there should be an ultimate standard to technical documents.
Reply
Adam, I like how you have written about the "American way". I've had personal experiences with this scenario when working at an internship this past summer. I worked in a global team, and regularly communicated with teams from all over the world like Budapest, Singapore, Brazil and many more. From this experience I found that certain business processes that were executed one way here in the states was conducted very differently overseas. Doing your research about these different cultures beforehand is absolutely indispensable. Taking both another cultures beliefs attitudes and values into consideration makes your writing more adherent to your audience and thus more persuasive and useful.
Response
These are all good comments of the “American Way” and doing business internationally, but I have yet to see anything on the globalization just in America. It seems you not only need to be culturally and politically aware when dealing with foreign countries, but also when dealing with your own. I know here at Purdue in engineering there is a considerable amount of students from other countries and I find myself putting my foot in my mouth due to cultural ignorance. I also think as much as cultural awareness is stressed so should cultural acceptance be stressed. So often people beliefs and values are judged out of cultural context, I believe the correct term is ethnocentrism. It would help if people realized that they are different and simply moved forward.