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Writing and Database Technology: Extending the Definition of Writing in the Workplace

I know, it’s late and you want to take a nap…

 http://www.jest.com/video/3233/declaration-of-

war-against-justin-bieber-haters

Data Collection: Justin Bieber Haters

 YouTube Username  Group Title  Video Title  Name  IP Address  Where you live  Photo  Phone Number  Websites  Groups  Videos  Hateful Comments

Why Databases?

 Nontechnical employees

can manage and compose their own data

 Database retrieval  Reports

 Retrieval of information

 They’re only valuable if you

can *do* something with them  Turn data into information

and knowledge

 Pull data of all Bieber haters

by location, user, etc.  Supporting interpretive

needs

 Improved communication

Who Uses Them?

 Supervisors  Marketing  Finance—budgeting  Production Reports  Scheduling  Sales  Technical Writers

Wait, databases are rhetorical?

 “If data reports are to serve readers’ needs for

recordkeeping and problem solving, then writers’ technological skills must serve their rhetorical aims and strategies.”

Where’s Rhetoric?

 Rhetorical Activity: transformation of raw data into

meaningful information

 Rarely taught in technical and professional writing  Technological>Rhetorical skills

 Too much time spent on data mining  Not knowing how to use a technology fully  Invention  Delivery  Arrangement

There’s the Rhetoric!

Zmud’s (1978) Four Qualities For Effective Data Reports

 Quality of information  Selecting the right scope and detail  Sequencing, ordering, and chunking information

effectively

 How would you chunk information for da Bieber haters?

 Quality of meaning

Detailed Charge Report (DCR)

 Identify Purpose  Describe strategies for accessing and analyzing

 Report has too much data  Overly narrow content  Random data  Unintelligible data (unclear meanings)  Unpresentable data (low legibility and layouts with little

difference)

 Content and Form  Needs and Purposes  How do they derive information that they want?  DCR’s full capabilities

Takeaways and Implications

 How can database applications constrain and

enhance rhetorical choices?

 Usability  Rhetorical and technological skills are reciprocal

 Mutually support and shape each other

 Must learn the capabilities of databases that enable

us to achieve rhetorical aims

 Invention  Arrangement  Delivery  Organization  Legibility