Reading reflections on: “A Research Primer for Technical Communication” written by Michael A. Hughes and George F. Hayhoe

 

The book “A Research Primer for Technical Communication” written by Michael A. Hughes and George F. Hayhoe is a fountain of knowledge for students of Tech Comm and for those wanting to learn more about it. In technical communication the purpose of a literature review is to determine what foundational knowledge there is on the area of study, the need to identify gaps in the research that can be further reviewed and analyzed, to educate the reader, and finally to establish credibility with one’s audience.

Additionally, when it comes to differentiating between primary and secondary research it is important to note that “primary research involves formulating and testing a hypothesis, collecting information through observation, or conducting a survey or usability study” and that “secondary research is conducted by reading reports of previous research, analyzing the results, and then formulating a synthesis of the current state of knowledge on the topic” (Hughes and Hayhoe 39).

Moreover, when conducting research or a study in the field of tech comm, it is important to analyze data appropriately and to be able to understand the principles of effective and unbiased collection of data. As “Quantitative date are data that can be expressed in numbers—that is, where the observed concept of interrupt can be counted, times or otherwise measured in some way,” which this type of data can consists of numerical information, numbers, and statistics (Hughes and Hayhoe 57).

Furthermore, qualitative research is one process that gathers data that is non-numeric, but instead consists of words, visuals, sounds and objects to transmit its meaning. Examples of qualitative methods include interviews, focus groups, visibility texts, field observations, and document analyses.

With this in mind, “Technical communication is essentially a social study, one that tries to understand how people communicate with each other within technical domains” (Hughes and Hayhoe 92).

 

Work Cited

Hayhoe, George F., and Pam Estes Brewer. A Research Primer for Technical Communication :

Methods, Exemplars, and Analyses, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/shsu/detail.action?docID=6297540.