Today’s plan:
- Notetaker
- Syllabus
- Brumberger and Lauer
- What is “coding”?
- A few job ads
What is due this week?
- ABO Introductory Email
- Reading response to Brumberger and Lauer
- List of 10 jobs
Notetaker Opportunity
Hi all. Let me kill two proverbial birds with one email. (Extend a professional opportunity that also fills an ethical obligation, examine a piece of professional writing).
Essential Systems
Hi everyone, welcome to ENG 301. Let’s start by talking about the syllabus and identifying the tools/spaces you’ll need this semester. Here are the things/spaces you will need:
- Syllabus
- Gmail / Google Drive Account (I’ll be sharing a lot of documents via Google Drive, and will ask that you share documents with me)
- Canvas Files and Discussions (most class readings will be available as .pdfs via Canvas)
Brumberger and Lauer on Jobs
Our first project is rooted Eva Brumberger and Claire Lauer’s article “The Evolution of Technical Communication: An Analysis of Industry Job Postings.” As we revise UNC’s writing minor, I have been curious as to what skills and technologies to focus on. This curiosity led me to research job advertisements for English majors, and Brumberger and Lauer stands as the most recent and comprehensive study I found. However, their article focuses on “technical communication.” This designation can have many meanings–sometimes it is merely a synonym for professional writing. But not in their case–they use (as do I) in the more precise sense of developing documentation (instruction manuals), product testing (usability reports), and working with scientific experts to communicate scientific/technical knowledge. Our department doesn’t have someone with those specializations–so as much as I appreciate their research, I wanted something a bit more relevant to a smaller department. Their research speaks more to folks at large research institutions with Professional and Technical Writing major, more specialized faculty, and software licenses such as MadCap Flare or Adobe RoboHelp. We are a much smaller department with 5 tenure-track faculty (and none of us, I think, would claim Professional or Technical writing as a core specialization). So my research question is: what skills, technologies, characteristics should we focus on to maximize your preparation for today’s job market?
In answering that question, I’ve turned my attention to Professional Writing jobs outside of technical writing. During my research, I came across a specialized job listing site–mediabistro.com. From their “About Us” page:
Mediabistro is the premier media job listings site and career destination for savvy media professionals. Whether you’re searching for new job opportunities, striving to advance your career, or looking to learn new skills and develop valuable expertise, we are here to strengthen and support your professional journey. We have the tools and resources to help you navigate your own path and find career happiness.
In addition to job postings, mediabistro.com offers resume services and courses on professionalization and personal brand building. Rather than turning to a more popular site like monster.com, I used mediabistro.com because it focuses specifically on jobs involving writing and communication.
I spent the month of June 2018 scanning every job ad posted to mediabistro.com. I filtered out jobs that:
- Called for experience in television production (especially those that required years of on-air experience)
- Called for extensive experience as a field journalist (although I retained jobs open to those without journalistic experience; a few jobs were looking for bloggers or content contributers)
- Required degrees in finance or accounting
- Required extensive experience with Google Ads and/or other Customer Relationship Management (CRM) softwares (Salesforce was particularly popular)
- Required applicants bring a client log with them
- Required management or hiring experience (the term management is quite slippery in adverts; sometimes it means “manage a team” and clearly indicates the need for leadership experience. Sometimes it means “manage our twitter account” and isn’t, per se, a leadership position)
- Required backend coding skills
- Required extensive graphic design portfolios (I did retain entry level graphic design jobs)
- Required 5 or more years of experience
- Telemarketing jobs, part-time jobs, or unpaid internships
After filtering out these jobs, I was left with a corpus of 375 jobs.
Over the next two weeks, you will code a total of 20 jobs from this corpus. I have selected 10 advertisements for us to code together; you will each select 10 other advertisements to create your own 20 ad corpus.
What is Coding?
In qualitative research, “coding” refers to a systematized method of tracking terms and ideas that appear across a large body (a corpus) of texts. Generally, researchers approach the corpus with a pre-determined list of ideas, which is reflexively revised and expanded as researchers begin to analyze it. I entered this research using B&L’s coding scheme, and along the way altered it so that it looks like this:
You can see that the scheme has 3 primary categories of codes: Tools and Technologies, Professional Competencies, and Personal Characteristics. Under those headings, there’s a number of different concepts. Each concept has a two or three letter abbreviation (its code).
I’d like to take sometime in class to practice coding a sample job ad.
What is Due this Week?
- ABO Introductory Email
- Reading response to Brumberger and Lauer
- List of 10 jobs
ABO on Emails: A First Day Assignment
- Turn in: Canvas discussion post ABO Introductory “Email”.
- Due: Friday, August 28th
For your first assignment, I would like you to post an introductory “email,” following the rules for email found in the Alred, Brusaw, and Oliu Handbook of Technical Writing. This course involves a heavy amount of group work; the introductory email is a way to introduce yourself to the class. Normally, you would send the email to me (so I can check your ability to craft a meaningful subject line and format) and then we would collectively read all the emails as a class. Instead, I’ll ask you to post them here. I will also ask everyone to comment on at least two other people’s posts (try to find posts that don’t have any other comments). Consider this an opportunity to introduce yourself to your teammates.
The Canvas discussion prompt has more information. Read that *before* you write your email.
Reading Response to Brumberger and Lauer
- Turn in: Canvas Discussion post Brumberger and Lauer, “The Evolution of Technical Communication: An Analysis of Industry Job Postings”
- Due: Monday, August 31st
To prepare for project one, finish reading Brumberger and Lauer’s (2015) “The Evolution of Technical Communication: An Analysis of Industry Job Postings.” You can find a .pdf of the file in Canvas (Files section). I would like you to print out a physical copy of the article and annotate it as you read.
By annotate, I mean I would like you to write comments in the margins and on top of the page. There’s a lot of different methods for annotating, and I wouldn’t force any one method on you. I tend to underline text that either highlights the author’s purpose/argument or that I find difficult or disagree with. BUT every time I underline something, I try to write a word or phrase at the top of the page that captures the essence/importance of that passage. Underlining without writing isn’t useful. Writing notes in the margins helps with retention and comprehension. Throw away your highlighter.
After you read and annotate, please post a 150-250 word response to the article in Canvas. In the future, I might ask you to focus your response on a specific element of a reading. For our first reading, I want to know two things: what in the article surprises you? What else do you wish the authors elaborated?
Identify 10 job ads
- Turn in: Canvas Discussion post Identify 10 jobs
- Due: Monday, August 31st
The first stage of project one is for you to identify ten jobs for analysis.
