ASSIGNMENT 4

EN360 Technical Communication

Directions: Unless otherwise stated, answer in complete sentences, and be sure to use correct English, spelling and grammar. Sources must be cited in APA format. Your response should be four (4) double-spaced pages

Part A:Written and Oral Communication Skills

Locate a website for an organization that hires graduates in your major. Besides technical skills, what writing and communication skills does this organization seek in a job candidate? Write a one-page essay on what they say directly on this subject. Include reasons why each skill is important, and any additional written/spoken skills that you believe would give a candidate a competitive advantage.

The American Cancer Society hires a variety of positions for its organization, including business-oriented candidates for jobs such as cancer information specialists. Aside from the technical skills that go along with the job, working in this position also requires strong, specific writing and communication skills. A cancer information specialist must have strong written and verbal communication skills for various requirements such as needing to handle high call volume, emails, and chats to the National Cancer Information Center in a manner that remains consistent and centered on the customer’s needs. This individual must be able to communicate, in both written and verbal fashion, accurate and thorough information to the customer and/or health care professionals, students, and community organizations(American Cancer Society, 2015).

Additional written communication skills required include being able to update and maintain constituent records, and to present a consistently professional manner with constituents. This individual should be able to conduct all written and verbal communication with utmost tact, courtesy, and empathy at all times(American Cancer Society, 2015).

It is apparent that the candidate must have strong writing skills in order to fulfill the writing requirements this position calls for, such as responding to emails, chat, information requests, record keeping, and more(American Cancer Society, 2015). Verbal communication skills, as well, are clearly important in the context of needing to be capable of responding quickly and with tact. A skill that goes along with both of these that this individual must have, though, are strong interpersonal skills, or emotional intelligence. Candidates must be able to assess a caller’s emotional state at times, for example, and divert them to the appropriate authorities if suicidal or in an abusive situation (American Cancer Society, 2015). Having strong interpersonal skills, and being able to respond easily and well to virtually any scenario would give a candidate for this position a strong competitive edge.

Part B: Effective Writing Teams

  1. What types of projects require collaboration?

Many long-range or high-stakes projects in the business world require collaboration. Teams can ensure that all stakeholders have been satisfactorily represented. The combined efforts of team members can also ensure a higher creative energy and output, as well(ENotes, 2015). A project such as a user manual, which might require a lead writer, graphic designer, proofreader, and marketing department representative, would require collaboration. More involved documents, such as lengthy proposals necessitating teams of writers, technical experts, and possibly legal experts, would fare better with collaboration. Project documents, as well, frequently require thousands of documents that will end up being created, edited, and updated continuously as a project unfolds, and would thus necessitate large teams of individuals (ENotes, 2015).

  1. What are four primary attributes of an effective writing team? Provide an example for each.

The four primary attributes of an effective writing team are leadership and decision making, planning, conflict resolution, and consistency. An example of leadership and decision making is to make sure that the team institutes a clear leader and procedures for making decisions. This should allow all team members input into decisions, but allow for a path to a single, quick and efficient choice. An example of planning includes having an outline with target dates for each goal and clearly detailed tasks for each team member. An example of conflict resolution is allowing for a means of settling conflict in a positive fashion, including taking steps to deal with team members who fail to contribute to team goals. Consistency means being sure to keep tone and voice of a collaboratively written document the same throughout. Use of a style sheet that stipulates such details as font, citation style, and general format will assist with maintaining consistency. Having one proofreader conduct a final edit of the document as a whole for consistency is another example of how to accomplish this (ENotes, 2015).

Part C: Internet Source Distortion/Misrepresentation

From media, personal experience, or the Internet, identify an example of each of the following sources of distortion (faulty causal and/or statistical inference) for the following:

  1. A study with questionable sponsorship or motives

An example of a study with questionable sponsorship or motives is Microsoft’s funding of a study about open-source software and Microsoft technologies. The study examined a cost-savings argument put forth by Microsoft, but none of the schools polled in the UK had used an open-source software, making the comparison moot (Paul, 2007).

  1. Reliance on insufficient evidence/hasty generalization

An example of a hasty generalization is Donald Trump’s assumption that Mexico sent their unwanted population to the United States, and the U.S. was getting criminals like rapists, drug runners, and general thugs when undocumented immigrants slipped over the border.

  1. Unbalanced or biased presentation

An example of unbalanced or biased presentation can be seen in the presentation of drug advertisements in the United Kingdom, specifically with the medication Seretide. An official review determined that a doctor had been briefed with information provided by the pharmaceutical company to report things concerning the medication that was “too positive and more suited to promoting Seretide than providing factual, balanced, non-promotional information,” and thus a pharmaceutical code had been breached(Mayor, 1999).

  1. Unexamined assumptions

The source Strong Families reports that an unexamined assumption exists in believing that immigrant women, particularly Latina women, are not in charge of their own immigration experience. As a result they are often left out of conversations and policy decisions that directly impact them and their families (Forward Together, 2011).

  1. Faulty causal reasoning

An example of faulty causal reasoning occurs frequently in our home with our children. If a child gets sick with a fever, and then vomits, we sometimes assume that the fever has caused the vomiting. This is not necessarily the case, though, as the child could have a virus that causes both fever and vomiting.

Part D: Checklist for Style - Local Newspaper

Using the “Checklist for Style” on the following page, rewrite the following letter to a local newspaper.