My main reason for taking this class is to determine how I can use different forms of communication in my desired career as a technical writer. My real goal is to someday become a technical writer for a company that has accomplished mainstream success in its respective field for their use of advanced technologies and attention to details such as Oakley, Apple, Gibson Guitars or many others. The website from Texas Christian University Survey of Multimodal Pedagogies in Writing Programs the page which addresses the question “What role should the production of non-textual compositions play in the writing class?” there are several responses that address the needs for multimodality across many fields. The importance for integrating several forms of composition is illustrated throughout, citing the influence of video games, websites like youtube.com and facebook, as well as print medias such as magazines. As a technical writer these modes are important because they provide different ways to approach as broad of an audience as possible. For example, the use of a video with simple text can speak volumes over a long, written manual.
Another issue facing my future career related to mulitmodality is the increasing use of non-text manuals. Jason Ellis discusses in his blog Dynamic Subspace the application of what is learned in traditional writing classes and how to apply it multimodally. He also mentions the streamlining of the entire process, by including easier to understand modes of discourse. Something he does not discuss is the elimination of compositional rhetoric as a whole. For example, the iPod instruction manual is a series of pictures with three or four word captions providing instrunctions. The Apple website also includes video support for simple iPod repairing tasks that are not included in the packaging. Even though these videos feature audio, they are just as easy to follow with the volume muted. Another example for the elimination of rhetoric through multimodality is as simple as a children’s toy. Lego instructions have never featured words, only diagrams of what you need to create out of the pieces (as frustrating as this might be). This kind of elimination of rhetoric can be very disheartening to a blossoming technical writer.
However, in most ways multimodality focuses on the seamless integration of technology and rhetoric as this animation illustrates, the user can get what he/she wants just by speaking the word on the screen, following a very natural process of selection. This issue faces a technical writer in a unique way. While a technical writer would want to be as concise as possible and employ the use of a similar system, if this system were to fail the technical writer would have to think of a way to create a manual that could instruct the user on how to troubleshoot the device, without the device working. This could be accomplished either through an included paper manual, any number of online digital formats such as video or flash animation, but the issue to create seamlessness still presents itself.
Thanks for linking to my post on dynamicsubspace.net. I wanted to add that I think that visual arguments sans words are a good thing. Ikea, Dyson, and Lego have well developed instructions for their products without requiring a lot of verbiage to tell folks how to build or use their products. The point that I was making in my original post is that I don’t think that multimodal compositional forms should supplant the written word. Generally speaking all of my students speak, so I can tap into their verbal resources to help develop their ability to write professionally. Taking an approach directly into the multimodal realm while avoiding written communication does two things: 1) it misses the opportunity to help our students rely on skills that they already have in their earlier writing and daily verbal communications, and 2) it avoids the pragmatic reality that our students immediately need professional writing skills in their other classes and eventual careers. Additionally, all forms of communication can layer or build on a foundation in professional writing.
As a future technical writer, I can see that these issues are paramount to your success, because the kinds of “writing” you will do may include multimodal forms of communication. I think that for your career, you should embrace these new forms of communication and add them to your repertoire. Best of luck!