Fundamentals of information technology

¶ … Information Technology

People who are involved in technical writing should consider the importance of persuasion because technical writing's purpose is to persuade people that whatever they are recommending is "effective, legal, ethical, financially feasible, and safe" (Lay, Wahlstrom, Rude, Selfe & Selzer, 2000). The audience must be persuaded by the piece of technical writing in order for the writing to be effective. Just like in advertising where L'Oreal wants you to know that "You're Worth It" or Smart Water wants you to know that "Purity is Good," technical writing must appeal to an individual's emotions as well as their rational reasoning (2000). Therefore, technical writing must be persuasive in two very distinct ways.

"High involvement products" are more appealing emotionally because of the fact that the "product is associated with such qualities as respect and achievement" (Yeh & Lin, 2010). Respect and achievement are attributes that one aspires to have and thus it appeals to us on a very fundamental level. However, rational appeal produces higher average results for "low involvement products," products that can be simply defined as "functional" (2010). This means that something as basic as an informed description of the features of a product can inspire an individual to want to buy a product. The article basically found that consumers take in advertising information in m-commerce the same way in which they take it in via other forms of media (2010). A good example of this is how we buy batteries based on the life of the battery, the size, and other elementary information based on our needs. A high-involvement product, such as an Apple iPad, for example, has a certain amount of involvement attributed to them and there is a certain amount of respect and achievement that goes along with using Apple products -- as they are generally thought of as "cooler" or some kind of status symbol.

O'Hara and Shadbolt's (2010) article discusses privacy in the age of the Internet. The authors argue that "privacy is a game for the rich and well informed" (2010). There is the constant question these days when it comes to a person's privacy. How do we know who is saying what about us? Who is looking at us? Data is gathered, aggregated and graphed, but, the authors insist, "its use should be clear and traceable" (2010). Also, if people are out there making money based on information that is gathered about individuals, shouldn't those individuals be compensated for that information?