As I near the end of this course, I realize the significant influence of AI tools on my approach to grade work in this course and the impact of the course materials on my career goals.
After reflecting on my experience in this course, I would advise new students taking this course that it is important to make sure they become comfortable discussing linguistic variation using appropriate terminology early in the course and to avoid under-editing to succeed.
Influence of a Generative AI Tool
My use of ChatGPT-4 heavily influenced my approach to the Tone of Voice Versions & Peer Reviews with genAI and the genAI Tone Analysis Report.
In the Tone of Voice Versions & Peer Reviews with genAI assignment, I used ChatGPT-4 to generate feedback on the effectiveness of my peer’s revisions to a text to create funny, casual, and formal tones. ChatGPT-4’s approach to offering feedback felt quite different from the approach I typically use. I usually try to home in on the most important changes to make, whereas ChatGPT-4 seems to focus on the areas that it is most suited to providing feedback on.
In the genAI Tone Analysis Report, I used ChatGPT-4 to revise a text into a casual and a formal version. This approach felt very different from the approach I would have taken without generative AI. My use of generative AI led me to a trial-and-error approach where I regenerated outputs repeatedly with slightly different prompts to get a satisfactory result.
Influence of an AI Tool For Revision
My use of ProWritingAid in every graded assignment where the use of AI tools for revision wasn’t prohibited significantly influenced my approach to revision. In general, this was a positive change. I revise my texts much more extensively when I use ProWritingAid because it makes this process much easier and faster.
AI tools such as ProWritingAid expedite the revision process by automatically identifying grammar, spelling, and punctuation issues that would otherwise take time and effort to spot. This reduction in time and effort let me focus more on revising for style and tone.
Using an AI tool for revision changed the focus of my revision process from identifying and fixing incorrect grammar, spelling, and punctuation to ensure my texts look professional to more complex and subjective goals.
Impact of Considering Four Dimensions of Tone of Voice
Kate Moran’s article “The Four Dimensions of Tone of Voice” had a large impact on my career goals. This article introduced me to the idea of considering tone of voice as four spectrums: formal to casual, serious to funny, respectful to irreverent, and matter-of-fact to enthusiastic.
Before reading this article, my understanding of tone focused almost only on formality; learning about the idea of four dimensions of voice expanded my understanding of tone. By considering four dimensions of tone of voice, I can discuss it with much more specificity.
This increased specificity is particularly useful when working with generative AI because ChatGPT-4 tends to exaggerate the tone of the generated text when the prompter provides simple instructions for the tone, such as “use a formal tone.”
The ability to describe tone specifically has a large impact on my career goals by enabling me to make precise adjustments to tone to suit specific audiences and purposes. This ability was important for many graded assignments throughout this course, and I expect it to continue to be an important skill going forward in my career.
Impact of Prompt Engineering
Ryan Boettger’s article “From Technical Communicator to AI Whisperer: The Rise of Prompt Engineering” also had a significant impact on my career goals. The article discusses how prompt engineering is an emerging profession that technical communicators are well-suited for. Boettger’s article also provides advice for honing your prompt engineering skills.
This article is significant to my career goals because I agree with Boettger’s assessment that “Experience working with AI… is likely to become a standard expectation soon.” I expect AI related skills to become even more important as my career goes on. Gaining AI skills is a central focus in my career development, and I found the advice in this article to be highly useful.
Why it’s Important to be Comfortable Using Linguistic Terminology in this Course
The most important thing to do to succeed in this course is to get comfortable using linguistic terminology to describe levels, sources, and patterns of linguistic variation. It is important to get comfortable using accurate and precise terminology for linguistic concepts in this course both to establish professionalism and to make it easier to interact with colleagues and AI.
Not being able to use linguistic terminology accurately will make it impossible to succeed in this course. If you are uncomfortable with using linguistic terminology, it will make most of the assignments in this course much harder and severely limit your ability to use generative AI effectively. This ability is vital to succeeding in this course, and I feel it will continue to be vital throughout a technical communication career.
Why it’s Important to Avoid Under-Editing in this Course
The most important thing to avoid doing in this course is trying too hard to keep text revisions close to the original in terms of phrasing, vocabulary, or information. It is nearly impossible to create significantly distinct tones if you try to keep too many aspects of the original text. Reducing text to the essentials makes it more casual. On the other hand, using complex vocabulary and sentences can enhance text formality.
I encountered significant difficulties working on the Revise for Plain Language assignment because I was too hesitant to change the exact vocabulary used and to remove information that is not relevant to the reader.
It’s important to avoid under-editing in this course because it isn’t possible to create highly distinct tones (as assignments often expect in this course) while leaving the original phrasing, vocabulary, and information presented the same.