In this article, we present a method for analyzing the communication of people who exchange dynamic and complex information to come to a shared understanding of situations and of the actions planned and monitored by one party, but executed remotely by another. To examine this situation, we analyzed dispatchers working in police dispatch center in a large city in the Netherlands and their communication behavior in three different settings. The results of our analyses answer the question of how collaborative parties should assess an emergency situation in order to decide how to handle the incident in accordance with the procedures. Our results indicate which information must be communicated in order to deal with the current problem during the course of an incident. We will also demonstrate the proposed way of analyzing the communication used here is needed to understand how information is collaboratively handled in complex tasks.

In this article we focus on professional readers who have to write recommendations in an online environment. We address the question whether taking notes on screen influences the reading process and the quality of the recommendations in terms of applicability, completeness, and persuasiveness. Seven participants each composed two pieces of advice on technical communication issues. They could use an electronic Notepad whenever they wished. Taking notes appeared to influence advice quality negatively, which may be caused by attention shifts from reading to taking notes on screen. Although we could not find a relationship between the contents of the notes and advice quality, we noted differences in note-taking approaches between the participants.

In this article, the review process is described as a method of formative evaluation of texts. The description is based on three empirical studies of professional writing practices. It includes the goals of review, the actors involved in the process, the moments in the text production process that review is taking place, and the procedures followed. The studies make clear that review serves more goals than just improving the text. For improving the text, other methods than review probably produce better and more reliable results, especially when the goal is to improve the usability of the text. But review also has the function of having the information checked by experts and of building consensus and commitment in the organization. Because in most organizations review is taking place anyway, all remarks about the quality and acceptability of the document that are collected in the review process can be considered additional information that writers could use—with caution.