ENG 204-002

Repairing a hole in your dry wall
-What is my motivation?
I spent almost a month living in a room that had a whole in the wall the size of a soccer ball. Finally I patched the hole up after someone instructed me how to do so. My room looks much nicer now and I want to provide a solid set of instructions for both experienced do-it yourselfers and for the clueless college kid who doesn’t know anything about home improvement so that anyone will be able to fix an eyesore of a hole in their house.
-What do I hope my audience will feel or think after they’ve read my instructions?
I hope that they feel confident to fix their dry-wall and feel relieved that someone made clear instructions on this particular task.
-Is there some event that got me wanting to communicate these instructions?
As I mentioned first off, I don’t want anyone to be stuck with an ugly hole in the wall that the previous renter has left behind. I’ve felt the frustration of having an ugly hole in my wall and not knowing how to fix it, so I don’t want others to feel this same frustration.
-What would be the best possible outcome of the communication?
For the hole in the dry wall to be fixed and look as if it were never there in the first place
-What would be the worst?
For the patch on the hole not to stick and being unable to progress any further with the instructions.
-How will my communication change the situation in which I’m making the communication?
Hopefully it will change the situation greatly in a positive manner. I mean who would prefer to have a hole in their wall as opposed to not having one, it looks more appealing to your friends or more professional to co-workers if the hole is in an office.
-Generate a list of audience characteristics
Do-it yourselfer
Motivated, experienced, prepared, hard working, knowledgeable, finds it entertaining to some degree to repair things around the house. When this person looked at my instructions I imagine they are at least a little excited to have a new project. Even if they are not completely pumped to fix their dry wall it’s a small enough problem to where someone who knew their way around a tool shed would not be frustrated with the task at hand.

College student
Lazy, Ill-equipped, dependent, busy, doesn’t enjoy fixing things. This person is going to be frustrated that they have another chore on top of all the annoying things one already has to do to be a college student. There’s no way to make this fun, but to make the instructions clear and quick would be the only way this group will get much out of them.
-In this case time and place are completely out of my hands. Any home, office, shed, etc. could have dry wall that has a hole in it. When this hole is fixed is completely up to the person reading the instructions too. My dry wall had a hole in it for over a month before I finally got motivated to do it, found out how to do it, and bought the equipment needed for the job.
Strategies- one strategy I’m sure I’m going to use is pictures. There are certainly terms that can be confusing and might mean nothing to the college student so pictures will really clear this up. I also will highlight certain parts of the text, because some things can’t be taken lightly.
Medium- My medium here will most likely be a simple instruction manual. That is the standard for most instructions on how to fix something around the house.
Arrangement- Arrangement here is crucial. The steps to fixing a hole in ones dry wall are set in stone and I can’t even imagine how big of a mess would be made if the instructions aren’t followed in chronological order.
Testing- There are other holes in the dry wall at my house, just not in my room. After I’ve finished my instructions I plan on having a friend over (probably a female or someone very inexperienced in home improvement) to try and fix the hole using my instructions. Then I will do the same thing, but with one of my tool savvy roommates and the other set of instructions.