Module 4 serves as an opportunity to continue applying the fundamentals and skills of technical communication through a job application. There are several intended outcomes from Module 4:

1. Create or improve your LinkedIn profile through audience analysis and purpose
2. Customize your résumé or CV, cover letter, and other application materials for a specific job posting
3. Identify career resources available to University of Richmond students and alumni
4. Explore the relationship of ethics and technical communication
5. Describe the role of AI-augmented technologies in business processes
6. Contribute an artifact to the Fabric of Digital Life collection

Unless otherwise indicated, all work for Module 4 should be completed by midnight on Sunday, June 4.

Lecture Notes

Review Module 4 Lecture Video post (above) with notes and slides.

Readings & Resources

• Open Technical Communication
  • Chapter 3: Ethics in Technical Communication
  • Chapter 7: Collaborative Writing
• Technical Writing
  • Chapter 9: Ethics in Technical Writing
  • Chapter 12: Employment Materials
• Building Digital Literacy through Exploration and Curation
  • Background
  • Readings (the four available, don’t worry about any others not appearing)
  • Curate (pay special attention to the sample documents)
  • Video Tutorials (Keywords, Augments and one of the Archiving Demos)
• Jane Fleming’s 20 steps to a better LinkedIn profile in 2023
• Melançon & St.Amant’s Empirical Research in Technical and Professional Communication
• Lauren Kolodziejski’s Harms of Hedging in Scientific Discourse
• Guest career preparation presentation from Becca Shelton, UR Career Advisor

Activities

Using the AI-augmentation technology representation artifact you’ve proposed and finalized, complete the following:

1. Review the Fabric of Digital Life Metadata Guide to better understand what the specific metadata fields require when submitting an artifact to the collection.
2. On one row of the shared Curated Collection Metadata Planning Sheet, add required metadata for your selected artifact.
3. If your AI-augmented technology representation artifact must be downloaded rather than linked to, upload the file to the Fabric of Digital Life project shared Google Drive folder.
4. Respond to the prompts on this Google Doc where we’ll collaborate to compose our collection introduction.

Responses

Write a 150-200 word response to the Kolodziejski article as a comment on the page. Respond to an idea or statement from the article that appeals (or doesn’t appeal) to you, explaining why the idea or statement resonates with or bothers you.

Write a 150-200 word response to the Melançon & St.Amant article as a comment on the page. In your response, address this question: What is the role of empirical research in the field of technical communication? What changes do these author recommend?

Write an original blog post of about 200-250 words that reflects on the process of studying AI-augmented business technologies toward developing our collection on the role of AI-augmentation in business processes. What have you learned about AI-augmented technologies? About the use of AI and ML in business processes? About digital archives? About the process of selecting and describing an artifact to include in a digital archive? Include the category “Reflection” and several relevant tags.

Reactions: Read everyone else’s responses and posts. Reply in a threaded comment to at least one response. Your reactions are due by midnight on Wednesday, June 7.

Project Work

Employment Project: Complete as assigned, and be sure to update your LinkedIn profile.

Fabric of Digital Life Project: Complete activities listed above.

Upcoming Project Reminder

Communication Project: Start (or continue) outlining your proposal of a communication project for your professional context using recommended guidelines from Open Technical Communication section 2.4: Proposals.

Ticket Out

Complete the Module 4 Ticket Out only after completing all other sections of the module. Completing the Ticket Out lets me know that you’ve completed the Module’s assignments.