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Minimalism (technical Communication)
Minimalism in structured writing, topic-based authoring, and technical writing in general is based on the ideas of John Millar Carroll and others. Minimalism strives to reduce interference of information delivery with the user's sense-making process. It does not try to eliminate any chance of the user making a mistake, but regards an error as a teachable moment that content can exploit. Like Robert E. Horn's work on information mapping, John Carroll's principles of Minimalism were based in part on cognitive studies and learning research at Harvard and Columbia University, by Jerome Bruner, Jerome Kagan, B.F. Skinner, George A. Miller, and others. Carroll argues that training materials should present short task-oriented chunks, not lengthy, monolithic documentation that tries to explain everything in a long narrative. A historian of technical communication, R. John Brockmann, points out that Fred Bethke and others at IBM enunciated task orientation as a principle a decade earli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Structured Writing
Structured writing is a form of technical writing that uses and creates structured documents. The term was coined by Robert E. Horn and became a central part of his information mapping method of analyzing, organizing, and displaying knowledge in print and in the new online presentation of text and graphics. Horn and colleagues identified dozens of common documentation types, then analyzed them into structural components called information blocks. They identified over 200 common block types. These were assembled into information types using information maps. The seven most common information types were concept, procedure, process, principle, fact, structure, and classification. Some of the problems that structured writing addresses Structured writing has been developed to address common problems in complex writing: * Organizing large amounts of material * Maintaining an orderly structure to provide a consistent experience to users * Providing users with a more intuitive and o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Topic-based Authoring
In technical communication, topic-based authoring is a modular approach to content creation where content is structured around topics that can be mixed and reused in different contexts. It is defined in contrast with ''book-oriented'' or ''narrative'' content, written in the linear structure of written books. Topic-based authoring is popular in the technical publications and documentation arenas, as it is especially suitable for technical documentation. Tools supporting this approach typically store content in XHTML or other XML formats and support content reuse, management, and the dynamic assembly of personalized information. A topic is a discrete piece of content that: * focuses on one subject * has an identifiable purpose * does not require external context to understand Topics can be written to be independent of one another and reused wherever needed. The Darwin Information Typing Architecture is a standard designed to help authors create topic-based structured content. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John M
John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Epistle of John, often shortened to 2 John * Third Epistle of John, often shortened to 3 John People * John the Baptist (died c. AD 30), regarded as a prophet and the forerunner of Jesus Christ * John the Apostle (lived c. AD 30), one of the twelve apostles of Jesus * John the Evangelist, assigned author of the Fourth Gospel, once identified with the Apostle * John of Patmos, also known as John the Divine or John the Revelator, the author of the Book of Revelation, once identified with the Apostle * John the Presbyter, a figure either identified with or distinguished from the Apostle, the Evangelist and John of Patmos Other people with the given name Religious figures * John, father of Andrew the Apostle and Saint Peter * Pope Joh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert E
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Danish, and Icelandic. It can be use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerome Bruner
Jerome Seymour Bruner (October 1, 1915 – June 5, 2016) was an American psychologist who made significant contributions to human cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational psychology. Bruner was a senior research fellow at the New York University School of Law. He received a BA in 1937 from Duke University and a PhD from Harvard University in 1941. He taught and did research at Harvard University, the University of Oxford, and New York University. A ''Review of General Psychology'' survey, published in 2002, ranked Bruner as the 28th most cited psychologist of the 20th century. Education and early life Bruner was born blind (due to cataracts) on October 1, 1915, in New York City, to Herman and Rose Bruner, who were Polish Jewish immigrants.Schudel, Matt (2016)Jerome S. Bruner, influential psychologist of perception, dies at 100 The Washington Post, June 7, 2016 An operation at age 2 restored his vision. He received a bachelor's of arts degree in Psyc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerome Kagan
Jerome Kagan (February 25, 1929 – May 10, 2021) was an American psychologist, who was the Daniel and Amy Starch Research Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, as well as, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute. He was one of the key pioneers of developmental psychology. Kagan has shown that an infant's "temperament" is quite stable over time, in that certain behaviors in infancy are predictive of certain other behavior patterns in adolescence. He did extensive work on temperament and gave insight on emotion. In 2001, he was listed in the ''Review of General Psychology'' among the one hundred most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century. After being evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively, Kagan was twenty-second on the list, just above Jung. Biography Born in Newark, New Jersey, to Myrtle and Joseph Kagan, Jerome Kagan grew up in Rahway, New Jersey. After his graduation from Rahway High School in 1946, he chose to study psychology because ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Armitage Miller
George Armitage Miller (February 3, 1920 – July 22, 2012) was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of cognitive psychology, and more broadly, of cognitive science. He also contributed to the birth of psycholinguistics. Miller wrote several books and directed the development of WordNet, an online word-linkage database usable by computer programs. He authored the paper, "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two," in which he observed that many different experimental findings considered together reveal the presence of an average limit of seven for human short-term memory capacity. This paper is frequently cited by psychologists and in the wider culture. Miller won numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science. Miller began his career when the reigning theory in psychology was behaviorism, which eschewed the study of mental processes and focused on observable behavior. Rejecting this approach, Miller devised experimental techniques and mathematical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darwin Information Typing Architecture
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) specification defines a set of document types for authoring and organizing topic-oriented information, as well as a set of mechanisms for combining, extending, and constraining document types. It is an open standard that is defined and maintained by the OASIS DITA Technical Committee. The name derives from the following components: * Darwin: it uses the principles of specialization and inheritance, which is in some ways analogous to the naturalist Charles Darwin's concept of evolutionary adaptation, * Information Typing: which means each topic has a defined primary objective (procedure, glossary entry, troubleshooting information) and structure, * Architecture: DITA is an extensible set of structures. Features and limitations Content reuse Topics are the foundation for content reuse, and can be reused across multiple publications. Fragments of content within topics can be reused through the use of content references (''conref'' o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
JoAnn Hackos
JoAnn T. Hackos is a lecturer, consultant, and author of a number of books about technical communication. Now retired, Dr. Hackos is the founder of the Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM) and the president emeritus of Comtech Services in Denver, Colorado. She is also a fellow and past president of the Society for Technical Communication. She is a member of the IEEE Standards Association and active in the ISO SC7 Working Groups that is developing standards for information developers. She is the co-author of the standards on content management and information-development management. Hackos is considered an expert in the fields of content management and information design, with some of her work in the fields being described as "groundbreaking." Hackos was also an early and vocal advocate of the single source publishing idea. She was instrumental in founding the OASIS DITA Standards Committee. Works *A Practical Guide to XLIFF with Bryan Schnabel and Rodolfo Raya (X ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
