Dialogue and monologue: A practice of producing a coherent document

It is well known that, for second language learners, producing a coherent piece of documentation is a difficult task. It is especially true for Japanese who often use ambiguous expressions in their writings. One source of this ambiguity comes from Japanese culture, where everybody is (theoretically) expected to have the same background which would enable all readers to disambiguate a text. Personal idiosyncrasies in interpretation do persist, even among those who have the same cultural background. This is the greatest obstacle to clear technical communication. Another source of ambiguity in technical texts lies in the omission of premises essential for deploying a logical explanation. The present research evaluates the effectiveness of the reader/writer dialogue method for discovering the flows of logic, others' alternative interpretations and for developing readers' viewpoints necessary to break or bridge their differing interpretation frameworks.