Coordinating Distributed Memory

Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jul 2018

Kristin Marie Bivens Harold Washington College ; Kelli Cargile Cook Texas Tech University

Abstract

This case study of an environmental engineer’s proposal-writing process reveals how the engineer (Beatrice) reifies, archives, and accesses her distributed memory across physical and digital sources in order to write proposals. Based on the authors’ observations of Beatrice’s proposal-writing process and their interviews with her, they arrived at three key conclusions: Beatrice distributes her memory across multiple physical and digital sources, the (spreadsheet) product calculator helps Beatrice to manage her cognitive load and relieve her working memory, and the product calculator allows Beatrice to reassemble her distributed memory and coordinate her cognition.

Journal: Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published: 2018-07-01
DOI: 10.1177/1050651918762028
Open Access: Closed
Topics: qualitative research

Citation Context

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