Quick Tutorial
You may find that screen captures will be helpful for your assignments. How do you do screen captures?
[ALT] + [Print Screen] {capture the active window}
Try it out. Then, paste the image into MS Word or a different application, and play around with manipulating the image. For instance, although I doctored this image slightly (removed the ad), this is a screen shot from the UNC Charlotte Bookstore’s list of materials for this course:
Focus on Chapter 1 in Tebeaux & Dragga
Ch. 1 is an introduction to what technical communication is. It’s short, but it’s foundational, so we should discuss it a bit.
- What is technical communication? What is technical writing?
- How is technical writing received–do audiences want to read?
- Who needs to understand technical communication?
- Where (in what industries) do we find technical communication?
Technical Writer Outlook (from BLS)
Focus on Chapter 2 in Tebeaux & Dragga
Ch. 2 brings us to two of the most important ideas to consider when approaching ANY communication situation–Audience and Purpose.
- Reader-based vs. Writer-based prose
- Limit interpretation and ambiguity
- The best thing you can hope if you send an unclear message is that the receiver will get a hold of you to clarify what you mean.
- Of course, this assumes a reader knows who you are and takes the time to get in contact with you. It’s doubtful this would happen unless it was someone within your organization.
- Ethos: the presentation of one’s credibility or character
- Writing process(es) (pp. 15-19, 4th ed.; pp. 16-20, 3rd ed.)
- Grammatical correctness, while important, is NOT as important as having a clear message
- Re-visioning vs. editing
- Editing is proofreading and catching technical errors.
- Re-visioning is a much deeper commitment to re-doing the communication and re-thinking the rhetorical strategies as they relate to audience and purpose.
The following topics may or may not be familiar to you. Please read them over and then contemplate the questions below.
- Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccinations
- Hurricane evacuation routes
- Introduction to a Major (English, Comm Studies, SIS, Chemistry, etc.)
- Obtaining a Driver’s License
- Sports Injuries
- Pick an infectious disease
- Planning for your estate
- Carowinds
- The Biltmore
Imagine that you were writing a brochure for one of the topics. Consider the following:
- Who would be the primary audience?
- Who would be the secondary audience?
- Other audiences?
- How would you gather information about these assumed audiences?
- What is the brochure’s main, secondary, and/or tertiary purposes?
- What would be the context for your brochure?
- How could your context change? Explain. (p. 19 in Tebeaux & Dragga–4th and 3rd ed.)
Homework
Don’t forget to keep up with the syllabus. You should read Ch. 12 in Tebeaux and Dragga and read the supplemental résumé reading for tomorrow (5/27).