Global Talk

Summary

Story proposals of 300 words are requested for an upcoming collection Negotiating International and Cross-Cultural Technical Communication: Stories of Technical Communicators. This collection is designed for technical communicators to tell their stories working in international and cross-cultural contexts, working for and with clients and colleagues from diverse cultural backgrounds, or writing and designing for audience from diverse cultural backgrounds. The goal is for contributors to share their experiences and lessons-learned, to inform and educate fellow practitioners, and to demonstrate their value-add to employers and clients. Submissions that meet the scope of the collection will be followed up for full-length stories.

Themes (See Writers’ Guidelines, also, below)

The editors welcome a wide range of stories from technical communicators who work within or outside the U.S. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
* Working as technical communicators outside of U.S.
* Non-U.S. technical communicators writing or designing for clients or audiences outside of the communicators’ own countries or cultures
* U.S. technical communicators working with clients, subject matter experts, writers, or editors from various nations or various cultural backgrounds within the U.S.
* U.S. technical communicators writing or designing for audiences from various nations or various cultural backgrounds within the U.S.
* Coordinating or managing technical communication projects that span national or cultural borders
* Involvement in outsourcing, translation, localization, or globalization projects
* International and cross-cultural stories from various technical communication fields such as business communication, science writing, engineering writing, medical writing, nonprofit organizations or NGOs, government writing, usability testing, technical translation, etc.

Payment for Contributors

Contributors will receive a free copy of the book and book royalty shares. Specific amount of the share will be determined when a book contract is finalized with the publisher.

What to Submit Now
* Story synopsis (300 words)
* Biographical note (150 words)

How To Submit

Email submissions to both:

• Hyu1@ksu.edu
• gjsavag@ilstu.edu

Timelines

* Submission of story synopsis and biographical note: July 31, 2010
* Notice of synopsis acceptance: August 31, 2010
* Submission of 1st draft full-length story: November 30, 2010
* Notice of draft acceptance: January 31, 2011
* Submission of final draft full-length story: June 30, 2011 Read more…

Tech Comm News Cross-cultural communication, Cross-cultural context, Technical communication

Emotional and persuasive perception of fonts
Juni S, Gross JS.  New York University, Department of Applied Psychology, NY 10003-6674, USA. sam.juni@nyu.edu

Journal: Percept Mot Skills. 2008 Feb;106(1):35-42.
Abstract:
The aim of this study was to explore the latent affective and persuasive meaning attributed to text when appearing in two commonly used fonts. Two satirical readings were selected from the New York Times. These readings (one addressing government issues, the other education policy) were each printed in Times New Roman and Arial fonts of the same size and presented in randomized order to 102 university students, who ranked the readings on a number of adjective descriptors. Analysis showed that satirical readings in Times New Roman were perceived as more funny and angry than those in Arial, the combination of emotional perception which is congruent with the definition of satire. This apparent interaction of font type with emotional qualities of text has implications for marketing, advertising, and the persuasive literature.

Features Cross-cultural context

“Human Work Interaction Design: Usability in Social Cultural Contexts” edited by Dinesh Katre, Rikke Orngreen, Pradeep Yammiyawar, and Torkil Clemmensen has been listed on Amazon as due for release in March 2010. The book is published by Springer Verlag in the series of IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology (AICT).

Tech Comm News Cross-cultural context, Resource, Usability

A report has been posted on the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) HWID 2009 Working Conference on Usability in Social, Cultural and Organizational Contexts held on October 7-8, 2009, Pune, India.

The theme of Cultural Usability and Human Work Interaction Design was very timely and relevant for India, given the increasing investment by the government in e-governance, e-learning, e-health and applications of information systems to empower the rural and agricultural population of India. Cultural usability is also highly relevant to the work of information technology in India in providing solutions for customers world wide.

Tech Comm News Cross-cultural context, Event, India, Interaction design, Social media, Training, Usability

Technical Communication, the journal of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), is soliciting article proposals for an upcoming special issue that will examine how factors of law and of culture affect how technical communicators work in international and cross-cultural contexts.  This special issue will be published in November 2010, and the guest editors are Kirk St.Amant of East Carolina University and Martine Courant Rife of Lansing Community College.

SPECIAL ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Legal issues are increasingly affecting the work we do as industry practitioners, academic researchers, university and college educators, and independent entrepreneurs in technical communication.  In some cases, these legal issues involve notions of ownership, copyright, and trade secrets.  In other instances, legal concerns related to privacy, disclosure, and free speech affect how technical communicators perform different activities.  These legal issues are further complicated by different cultural perspectives related to working in global environments and to addressing the informational needs of different cultural groups within our own nations.  Very few individuals in technical communication, however, are lawyers or have formal training in issues of law and its intersection with different cultural communication expectations and assumptions.   This special issue of Technical Communication will examine the legal issues affecting technical communication practices related to designing materials for or to working with individuals from other nations and cultures.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Completed proposals or questions about either proposal topics or this special issue should be sent to Kirk St.Amant and Martine Courant Rife at tc.special.issue@gmail.com

STC News Cross-cultural context, Workplace

Author: Carol Luttrell

Surveys are popular tools used to assess a condition, opinion, situation, or held value. They come in many forms, such as online and paper questionnaires, in-person interviews, focus groups, telephone, and mail.  Sometimes, a technical writer will be asked to get involved in a conducting a survey either in-house or for an external customer.  This article discusses issues associated with doing online and paper benchmark surveys (which monitor the progress of something or compare data within an industry) and provides basic information on the roles that a technical communicator may play.  Full article in PDF

Features Cross-cultural context, Surveys