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- Title
Contextual Information in Social How-To Questions That Initiate Documentation.
- Authors
Baker, Matthew J.
- Abstract
This study introduces social question-and-answer (SQA) documentation to technical and professional communication scholarship. It conceptualizes SQA as interactive, user-generated documentation and describes contextual information types within social how-to questions that initiate documentation. It also explores whether contextual information associates with answers that complete the interactive documentation. Results reliably describe 15 information types based on content analysis of 3,529 contextual information types from 500 questions. Exploratory statistical analysis suggests that askers may increase answerability by including less speculative thought, more error messages, and less general situation information. To facilitate complete SQA documentation, the study calls for additional research into question content and answerability.
- Subjects
DOCUMENTATION; COMMUNICATION of technical information; SOCIAL sciences education; USER-generated content; CONTENT analysis
- Publication
Journal of Business & Technical Communication, 2020, Vol 34, Issue 3, p287
- ISSN
1050-6519
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/1050651920910226