Brigitte Irene Demasi

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Brigitte Irene Demasi
Master of Technical and Professional
Communication Portfolio Presentation Auburn
University February 7, 2007
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Advisory Committee

• Dr. Isabelle Thompson, Chair
• Professor
• Dr. Joyce Rothschild
• Assistant Professor
• Dr. Tiffany Portewig
• Assistant Professor

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Lisa Ede Andrea Lunsford

• Writers conjure their vision a vision
• which they hope readers will actively come
• to share as they read the text by using
• all the resources of language available to
• them to establish a broad, and ideally
• coherent, range of cues for the reader.

Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked
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Overview

• Editing
• Substantive Edit of Atenolol Brochure
• Substantive Edit of A Report on the Assessment
  of the Facilities Division at Auburn University,
  Auburn, Alabama
• Writing and Research
• Review of Literature from 2000 to 2006
  Engineering Students Preparedness for
  Communication in the Workplace
• Public Administration Coursework
• Greater Peace Community Development Corporation
  Fundraising Plan

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Karen Schriver

• Document design is the field concerned
• with creating texts (broadly defined) that
• integrate words and pictures in ways that
• help people to achieve their specific goals
• for using texts at home, school, or work.

Dynamics in Document Design
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Karen Schriver

• To create effective communications ones
• that are sensitive to the needs of
• audiences document designers must
• understand how readers might think and
• feel as they interact with documents. They
• must anticipate what their audiences need
• and expect.

Dynamics in Document Design
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Editing

• Dr. Rothschilds English 6000 Technical
• and Professional Editing
• Original Atenolol Brochure.
• Substantive Edit of Atenolol Brochure.

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The Chicago Manual of Style

• Substantive editing deals with the
• organization and presentation of existing
• content. It involves rephrasing for
• smoothness or to eliminate ambiguity,
• reorganizing or tightening, reducing or
• simplifying documentation, recasting
• tables, and other remedial activities.

The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed.
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Editing

• Dr. Rothschilds English 6000 Technical and
  Professional Editing
• Substantive Edit of A Report on the
• Assessment of the Facilities Division at
  
• Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama.

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Stephen A. Bernhardt

• Technical communication, as a field of
• study and as a career, needs to go beyond
• anticipating and responding to change.
• Technical communication needs to discover
• the opportunities created by change and
• lend its expertise to creating a society that
• fosters full individual development within
• appropriate social structures.

Teaching for Change, Vision, and Responsibility
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Writing and Research

• Dr. Gibsons English 7010 Technical and
• Professional Communication Issues and
• Approaches
• Review of Literature from 2000 to 2006
• Engineering Students Preparedness for
• Communication in the Workplace

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Research Questions

• In what ways are engineering students
• unprepared for the workplace at graduation?
• Who recognizes the deficiency in their
• communication knowledge?
• Why are engineering students unprepared?
• What solutions are being proposed or
• implemented to fix the problem?
• What are some complications that exist in the
• solutions?

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Teresa M. Harrison

• An audience analysis that considers what
• it means to be an organization member
• produces information useful in writing
• directed at members because it can identify
• commonalities and divergences in thought
• and expression that can be integrated into
• the selection of arguments, language, and
• style of a document.

Frameworks for the Study of Writing in
Organizational Contexts
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Teresa M. Harrison

• However, such an analysis might also be
• useful in writing directed at nonmembers
• because it could expose for writers those
• beliefs, values, and symbolic systems that
• a nonmember audience may not share
• precisely because they are not
• organization members.

Frameworks for the Study of Writing in
Organizational Contexts
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Karen Schriver

• We can think of a document as a field of
• interacting rhetorical clusters. If the
• document is well designed, the clusters
• orchestrate a web of converging meanings,
• which enable readers to form a coherent
• and consistent idea of the content.

Dynamics in Document Design
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Public Administration

• Dr. Drakefords Political Science 7370
• Nonprofit Management
• Greater Peace Community Development Corporation
  Fundraising Plan.

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References

• Bernhardt, Stephen A. Teaching for Change,
  Vision, and Responsibility. Technical
  Communication. 42.1 (1995) 600-602.
• The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. Chicago U
  of Chicago P, 1993.
• Ede, Lisa, and Andrea Lunsford. Audience
  Addressed/Audience Invoked The Role of Audience
  in Composition Theory and Pedagogy. College
  Composition and Communication. 35.2 (1984)
  155-171.
• Harrison, Teresa M. Frameworks for the Study of
  Writing in Organizational Contexts. Written
  Communication. 4.1. (1987) 3-23.
• Schriver, Karen A. Dynamics in Document Design
  Creating Text for Readers. New York Wiley, 1997.

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Questions?

• Brigitte Demasi
• demasbl_at_auburn.edu