American Health Care Association - Assignment Example

INTRODUCTION TO TECHNICAL WRITING Defining Effective Communication The Website selected is that of the American Health Care Association. The organisation focuses on “providing quality care to the nation’s frail, elderly and disabled” (AHCA, 2009) with the help of long-term care professionals. AHCA provides treatment and advocates for the elderly individuals with trauma, illness or social needs, and also maintains long-term service provision. The main aims of the American Health Care Association are towards improving the standards of service and administration among nursing homes affiliated to the AHCA, to ascertain both public and official recognition of the work carried out by the institutions, and “to adopt and promote programs of education, legislation, better understanding, and mutual cooperation” (AHCA, 2009). According to Gurak et al (2009), the essential concepts of technical communication include: accessibility, usability and relevance of technical information. Improved accessibility of technical communication depends on optimizing the accuracy of the information through clarity, completeness, concreteness, organization, and visual effectiveness. The usability of a communication is assessed by the efficiency or speed and ease with which people can perform a task or retrieve information. The relevance of information eliminates unrequired data, and pertains to the target audience: the health care professionals, the elderly patients and their families. The AHCA does not mention effective communication in its Website. However, taking into account the organisation’s goals and mission, the AHCA would define effective communication as the verbal, nonverbal and written interactions (Burnard, 1997) both inter-institutional as well as intra-institutional, to make “complex technical information easily accessible, usable and relevant” (Gurak et al, 2009, p.4) to the elderly population in the nursing home setting, and to the health care staff. This effective communication between staff and patients, as well as between the health care professionals, is vital for achieving the elderly residents’ emotional as well as physical well-being, optimal life satisfaction and health outcomes. Paper Analysis The research paper at the “Use-it.com” Website (Morkes & Nielsen, 1997) is a detailed, full length paper, whereas its summarised version at Nielsen (1997) is comparatively more user-centered as it is more easily scannable, concise and objective in presentation. The authors (Morkes & Nielsen, 1997) state that most online readers only scan the content in Websites, picking out the main conclusion presented first in the inverted pyramid style of essay writing, the important key words, sub-headings, and most often reading only the first line of every paragraph since that is supposed to contain the main idea or theme discussed in the paragraph. Concisely written papers, with important issues highlighted by bulleted points for easy retention is highly preferred by readers. Similarly those essays which are objectively presented with actual facts, without any overly descriptive or promotional language used for the issue under study, win over those which try to promote or build up the topic which is being written about. The authors of the long version (Morkes & Nielson, 1997) provided the highlighted section immediately following the abstract, in order to state that their research paper was academic and comprehensive in content, hence may be more appropriate for a printed version of the article. The main idea behind the research study of five different writing styles was to find the most usable version of the study from the perspective of the online reader. The researchers found that there was a 58% increase in measured usability when a sample Website was concisely written, 47% increase in usability in the case of the scannable version, and 27% increase when objective in style instead of the promotional style used in the control version of the text. Further, combining the three modifications into a single Website whose content was scannable, concise and objective, showed an outstanding increase by 124% in measured usability. Moreover, in the highlighted section immediately following the abstract, the authors provide a link to the short summary of their research article (Nielsen, 1997) more appropriate for online reading, and links to their tutorial on content usability as well as to their training class on writing for the Web. These are meant to help writers produce web content more conducive for efficient online reading, comprehension and retention. Questions Audience 1. Based on Morkes & Nielsen (1997) and Nielsen (1997), who will read or use each of these pages? These pages pertaining to writing web content and how users read on the web, will be beneficially used by researchers who wish to present their research study on the web as an online version, and by web content writers and students investigating various research studies. A study of the differences in the differences in the two versions wold highlight the accessibility, the usability and the relevance of the long version versus the summarised version. This would help them to determine the most beneficial way in which articles and essays should be presented in Websites, for maximum comprehension and retention of the content by readers. 2. Will the audience be the same for each page? Why or why not? For both pages, the audience will be the same: researchers-writers and students. This is because researchers writing articles on their studies as well as students investigating research studies on writing web content for optimal reading efficiency will be interested in knowing the full length version, and the summarised version, so that they can understand the differences in the impact and learning outcomes created by both. Web content writers may be interested only in the summarised version, to get a concise picture of the requirements for developing a web page with high quality text. 3. What special characteristics might each of these audiences have? The research-writers would be graduate students or teachers writing articles based on studies conducted by them, while the second audience: the students are learners. In this case, they search for articles that would help them learn more on the topic of writing web content, and the evidence will help them to write essays keeping in mind the essential conclusions drawn from the article, both the long and summarised versions. Both types of audiences would be interested in increasing the relevance and usability of their technical writing by making it concise and to the point. 4. What is the audience’s background and attitude toward the subject? Both the types of audience have an academic background, in the first case the research writers may frequently be in the teaching line, while the second audience of students and web content writers would be learners, acquiring knowledge of the techniques of writing online articles. The researchers’ attitude would be of marking the difference between online and print version of research studies, while the students’ attitude would be of recognising the significance of presenting online text in a concise manner. Purpose 1. Why is this communication important? The greater accessibility, usability and relevance of the summarised version of the article would prove to be beneficial for both audiences to produce web content that is useful for all viewers. This communication would lead to beneficial outcomes for audiences learning to enhance their online writing skills from the articles, as well as for general online viewers. 2. Why is it needed? Web users’ performance and personal satisfaction is greatly increased when the content is scannable, concise and objective in style rather than promotional. Promotional web content has low usability scores on almost all the usability measures. 3. What will users do with the information on each of these pages? Users will improve their writing and presenting skills, to make their communication more accessible, concise and objective to successfully reach more audiences. Context 1. What role(s) might the users of these documents play in their organization? In their organisation, the users of these documents may be researchers, instructors, students, or web content writers. Each of these roles require the ability for effective and optimal technical communication skills. 2. What political or social situations for their users do each of these documents suggest? The users of these documents may require the knowledge for enhancing their competitive research writing skills, and for communicating their ideas and concepts to maximum benefit and to the largest possible viewership online. Relevant information would be based on the purpose of the communication, and on the context of the topic. Finding the needed information quickly and efficiently determines the usability of the document (Gurak et al, 2009). 3. What might the users’ professional values or affiliations be? The users’ professional values may be as research scholars, researchers- academicians, and would be affiliated to academic institutions of higher education. In the case of web content writers, they may be working on their own, or for a web-based organisation producing content for general viewership. References AHCA (American Health Care Association). (2009). Who we are: Profile of the American Health Care Association. Retrieved on 7th November, 2009 from: http://www.ahcancal.org/about_ahca/who_we_are/Pages/default.aspx Burnard, P. (1997). Effective communication skills for health professionals. Edition 2. The United Kingdom: Nelson Thornes Ltd. Gurak, L.J., Lannon, J.M. & Seijts, J. (2009). A concise guide to technical communication. The United States of America: Longman Publishing Group. Morkes, J. & Nielsen, J. (1997). Concise, SCANNABLE, and objective: How to write for the Web. useit.com. Retrieved on 8th November, 2009 from: http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/writing.html Nielsen, J. (October 1, 1997). How users read on the web. Jacob Nielsen’s Alertbox. Retrieved on 8th November, 2009 from: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html Read More