Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Addressing Audience Needs

Right now you all are at work on your "Document in Field" assignment, which requires that you "translate" the technical language of an article from your field into language accessible to a reader who does not possess the field's specialized vocabulary. I want you to answer in your comments here one of the following questions: a) Why do we think that it is such a special skill to be able to do such "translation"? Shouldn't all technical specialists be able to make their work relevant to a member of the lay public? b) Your book covers some of the pieces of information you need to know about your audience before you can effectively present technical information to them. In this project (this is a trick question), what relevant information do you know about your audience? c) I want you to think about the topic covered in the article you chose. Is it, in fact, important for the "average person" to understand the subject-matter? How is it relevant? d) In what sort of work-place situation is it vital that you be able to perform just the kinds of "translations" of technical information that you're working on right now? Can you think of some sample instances?

11 comments:

  1. a) Why do we think that it is such a special skill to be able to do such "translation"? Shouldn't all technical specialists be able to make their work relevant to a member of the lay public?


    The "translation" of such works are difficult due to the fact that the translator has to speak two separate "languages." Technical terms that scientists and engineers understand might not be equally understood by the public. A great deal of scientific journals are spruced up to cater to it's audience. The audience of a scientific journal are not the public masses; the intended audience is the scientific community from which the journal entry came. It takes a lot of work to translate "scientific" to "communal."

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  2. "c) I want you to think about the topic covered in the article you chose. Is it, in fact, important for the "average person" to understand the subject-matter? How is it relevant?"

    The subject of modeling a potential zombie-infestation is always relevant to the general public, who will be substantially more at risk than the zombie-conscious academic community. An uneducated public is an unprepared one. They may as well wear signs that say, "Free Brains! Inquire Within!"

    Understanding the spread of zombification, or any disease for that matter, helps the public understand the risk presented by any major epidemic, and take appropriate precautions against it. For instance, having a mathematical model of the H1N1 flu, which turns people into pigs, rather than zombies, is useful to determine an appropriate response: doing nothing may cause a pandemic; but putting a school into lockdown will disrupt classes, frighten students and faculty, and probably do more harm than good.

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  3. In response to question "a"

    It is a special skill because it means that the person translating has an intimate knowledge of the subject matter. Noble Laureate Richard Feinman said that if a subject cannot be explaind to an incoming freshman it is not fully understood.

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  4. d) In what sort of work-place situation is it vital that you be able to perform just the kinds of "translations" of technical information that you're working on right now?

    Here's an example of when the skill of translation of tech. info. comes in handy: submitting a recommendation to a boss that has no technical background. Allow me to elaborate. Depending on the field in which you are working, your supervisor might not ever interact directly with your department, except in granting parts of the budget to your department's project. Why should he or she give money to something that is obviously awesome and worthwhile TO YOU, but that he or she knows nothing about? There has to be some translating involved. There has to be an understanding of why your project will help further the company's mission/goals.

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  5. In response to part d:

    The ability to perform “translations” of technical information into general terminology would be important in the work-place if you were collaborating with experts from other areas. For instance, if you are designing an experiment and are working with a statistician, you need to be able to communicate the technical aspects of what you are doing in your experiment in language that the statistician can understand. Similarly, when the statistician gives you suggestions for improving your experimental design or gives you an analysis of the data you obtain during the experiment, he or she will have to explain the statistical concepts and results in language that you, as a non-expert in statistics, can understand.

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  6. Question (c)

    For the article I chose, on Eolian Sand Dunes, it probably isn't that important for the general public to be able to understand it mainly becuase how many people actually care what an ancient sand dune looks like, or how to distinguish it from one that was made by water rather than sand. I suppose if the article was written about active sand dunes and how to identify them, then it would be relivent for people to know about, but honestly, how hard is it to identify a sand dune, it is a pile of sand, and the wind is blowing it towards you, you probably should move.

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  7. In response to question a, We probably think that translating technical speech to that of which everyone uses is a special skill because people often take for granted that others know the same things we do. Through most of our lives at school, work, and even at home we are usually speaking with people that knows at least something about the subjects of which we speak to them with. Thus when we have to talk to someone about a topic they know nothing about it can be difficult because we think that they should know something about it. So when someone can explain these complex things simply and quickly it can be of grate value.

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  8. a) We think it is a special skill to be able to do a “translation” because it is taking obscure jargon and making it understandable to the average person, which is almost the same as being bilingual. All technical specialists should be able to make their work relevant to the lay public, but I think for some fields that is not a realistic goal.

    b) The only relevant information I know about the audience is that the majority of them are engineering students, and as such probably do not have much knowledge about the subject that my rewritten passage was about.

    c) It is important for the average person to understand the subject matter that I “translated” because it relates to human social interaction, which every person must deal with at some point. People should be aware that they can be influenced by things that they don’t perceive and that it can affect how they interrelate with others.

    d) You should be able to perform such “translation” whenever you are working with lay persons or with people who are professionals in a field other than your own. For example, if a statistician is collaborating with a physicist, they may have different words for the same thing or may specialize in entirely different subjects in their fields, and may need to translate for each other.

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  9. a) The right answer to this question depends on what is meant by " special skill" .I n my humble opinion, i will define a special skill the ability to do something that most people can't.For example, being able to speak three or more languages is a special skill as well as being able to translate a technical article into a more readable one.

    b) While rewriting my passage, i assumed that my audience are people that have no knowledges of the scientific terms that were being used in the original article; my article was about oil and gas production and the author used terms like crude oil which an average person knowing nothing about oil production would feel a little loss and might miss the main idea being developped in the passage.

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  10. Question d

    Sometimes in the workplace an engineer might have to explain the work that he is doing to his supervisor. In this case, the engineer would need to give his supervisor a general idea of what he is doing using language that his supervisor can understand. In my internships I've had the opportunity to do something similar. Last summer I prepared a PowerPoint which explained the basic features of my design project, how it worked, and what it's benefits were. It had to be written so that a top supervisor could understand it and make a decision whether or not to implement it.

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  11. d) In what sort of work-place situation is it vital that you be able to perform just the kinds of "translations" of technical information that you're working on right now? Can you think of some sample instances?

    In the construction business, it is very common for a non-professional private party to work with architects. In these cases effective communication is essential. Chances are that the private party has no insight to what the details and protocol of the industry are. Because of this, the architect needs to be patient and very good at communicating.

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