UNIT 2 - SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT

A. Based on the steps/ stages of writing which I provided (please refer to PPT
presentation “Technical Writing Lesson1”, briefly discuss the following in
outline form:

1. Preparation
a. Purpose
b. Audience or readers
c. Considering the context
d. Scope of coverage
e. Medium
2. Research
a. Brainstorming
b. Note-taking
c. Interviewing
d. Documenting sources

( Some terms above may not exactly be the same with some of the words found in the presentation but
you will note that they have the same line of thought. Please read between the lines.)

B. Read the article below. Then answer the following questions:

1. What is communication continuum?

2. Explain: Asynchronous tools in communication may not be able to replace the old
conventions of meetings and phone usage for in fact, they have simply extended what we
refer to as the 'communication continuum'.

3. Explain what the author is emphasizing in the last two paragraphs.

===================

Addressing the communication continuum

It's interesting to take a moment to reflect on what the last 15 years of technology
advances have delivered for our workplaces – to question if the effectiveness of our organizations
has actually improved, and if so, how?

For the vast majority of today's 'knowledge workers' – the folks based in offices using some
form IT for their daily activity – the most common interaction they have with technology is as a
communication tool of some of form or another.

If we reflect back to 15 years ago, the choices of communication in the workplace was far
simpler and mostly confined to three straightforward choices. Managers could have a face-to-face
meeting with an individual, they could have a team meeting, or they telephoned people.
 On those rarer occasions, managers might have sent a memo or a letter. But,
predominantly they used synchronous communications – one where you could distribute a
message to your colleagues, and receive instant feedback. Was the message good? Was it poorly
received? Understood or misunderstood? Whatever the outcome, you knew the message had
been received.

In the ensuing 15 years, for our knowledge workers, the advances in ICT software have
predominantly been in communication tools. We have seen the insurgence of fax, voice mail, e-
mail, SMS, web cast, etc – all of which are fine as tools in the right place at the right time. But, how
often do we ever question "when is the right time?" or "which is the appropriate tool?"

Interestingly, the marked difference from 15 years ago is that majority of the new tools
adopted across our workplaces are asynchronous. Asynchronous communications of this kind are
'notifications' – they may elicit a response, but if so, the response is invariably not immediate.

With an asynchronous message, the sender is left in limbo, not knowing when a response
might be forthcoming or even whether the recipient actually understood the message. And worse
still, these asynchronous tools are increasingly being used as 'broadcast' medium – using the
dreaded 'cc' or 'bcc' functions to communicate messages to vast swathes of the workforce,
whether they like it or not!

The result of these new workplace tools is a massive increase in the volume of
communications we generate across our workplaces.

The majority of managers receive between 30 and 60 e-mails per day. This is consuming
more than half of their working day
Our research has found it is not uncommon for managers and knowledge workers in
today's organizations to receive 30 to 60 e-mails per day. At the extreme, we encountered some
city managers that were receiving over 1,000 e-mails per day.

Further, we found that handling asynchronous messaging (e-mail being the main culprit)
commonly consumes 50 – 60 per cent of a manager's working day.

None of these newer asynchronous tools has replaced the old conventions of meetings
and phone usage – they have simply extended what we refer to as the 'communication continuum'.

The term the 'communication continuum' describes the array of possible channels we have
at our disposal for communicating and collaborating with colleagues.

Today the spectrum across the 'communication continuum' stretches from a face-to-face
meeting through team meetings to e-mail solutions and an ever-increasing spectrum of virtual
collaboration tools.
 The conundrum facing today's workforce is which tool to choose and when? When should
e-mail be used as opposed to a simple face-to-face chat? How many of us have received and
abrupt or poorly worded e-mail – and one that has been cc'd to several colleagues – when the
message could have been far more effective had it been conveyed in a quick face-to-face chat
over a coffee?

The impact in the workplace of this insurgence of new tools into the 'communication
continuum' is two fold – a sharp increase in demand on time and huge middle management
pressures.

The demands on our time caused by the extended 'communication continuum' is that
somehow, somewhere, the additional 50-60 per cent of our working day being consumed by
asynchronous communications needs to be made up.

We still need to meet with our colleagues, to be creative and inventive in our workplaces, to
craft those new solutions and services that make our businesses competitive – quite simply, to do
the jobs we're employed to do.

The pressure on our middle managers is more strident. Being a middle manager in today's
organizations is fast becoming the most thankless and least favored job in the workplace.

For most, the step up the ladder into middle management means embracing a greater
diversity of asynchronous tools in the 'communication continuum'. Frequently it involves stepping
away from the daily interaction with our colleagues and co-workers and moving into an
increasingly virtual world.

The adoption of asynchronous tools have enabled our workforces to become more
distributed and remote from the middle management strata, yet the expectations of middle
managers remain to do more, better, quicker and faster with less. How often have we heard
middle manages plea's of; "what's expected of me?", "how do they know I'm a manager?", and "I
don't understand my role as a virtual manager".

Now, we're not advocating the rejection of new technologies or tools – far from it, the
appropriate use of emerging tools can be a boon to workplace effectiveness. But, to be effective,
there needs to be greater understanding of the appropriate tool to use – and when – across the
communication continuum.

How many organizations offer any coaching or mentoring about which tool to use, never
mind how to use the tools effectively.

It's time to recognize the old adage about placing good tools in poorly trained
hands. For our workplaces to be truly effective, forward-looking business leaders must
recognize the issue of the ever-extending 'communication continuum' and that locking
middle managers into a cycle of increasing time spent on asynchronous tools is not
productive.

C. We must consider the 'communication continuum' in its entirety and adopt a

balanced diet of tool usage across the spectrum. Put simply – do not forsake the
quick chat over coffee for the sake of dealing with the e-mail mountain – just
remember, if it's asynchronous, it'll wait.
UNIT 3 - SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Give the needed answers to the following items. Use the answer sheet provided for the
hard copy output.

A. Identify differences in the audience, purpose, structure, style, and presentation of technical
texts in different fields.

B. Briefly discuss each of the following the stages which are required to produce competent,
professional writing:

1. Planning
2. Drafting
3. Revising
4. Editing

C. Based on the following extract from a news article (https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/

369049/children-have-stronger-antibody-response-to-covid-study), write five sentences that
discuss ideas or data which you derive from it.

Children have stronger antibody response to COVID — study

WASHINGTON — Children who are 10 and younger produce more antibodies in

response to coronavirus infection than adolescents and adults, a study showed
Monday.

The authors of the paper, which appeared in JAMA Network Open, said the
finding helped illuminate why children are less susceptible to severe COVID-19
than adults — though this is still an area of very active research and many factors
are believed to be at play.

A team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine examined almost 32,000

antibody tests from New York City between April and August 2020, finding that a
similar number of the 1,200 children and 30,000 adults showed signs of past
infection — 17 percent and 19 percent.

The scientists then examined a subset of patients who tested positive — 85

children and 3,648 adults — to determine the levels of immunoglobulin G (IgG)
antibodies.

This is a key type of “neutralizing” antibody that binds to the spike protein of
the virus, preventing it from invading cells.

The 32 children aged one to 10 years showed median IgG levels almost five
times higher than 127 young adults aged 19 to 24 years.
 Finally, they focused on a subset of 126 positive patients aged one to 24
years, none of whom had experienced severe COVID-19, to further characterize the
antibody response.
In this final group, children aged one to 10 years had on average more than
twice the levels of IgG antibodies of adolescents aged 11 to 18 years, who in turn
had more than twice the average level of young adults aged 19 to 24 years.