English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

For my topic I have selected to create instructions on how to use the open source software program TrueCrypt to create a hidden and encrypted virtual drive for storing sensitive files. This topic is legitimate and necessary because information, stored on a computer as data, is becoming a businesses most guarded asset. TrueCrypt provides government grade 256-bit AES file encryption. In theory it would take the current world's fastest super computer longer than the time-span of the universe to guess at the key.

This week’s reading response covers chapters 19 and 20 and is about writing technical instructions. The main focus in these chapters is tailoring your documents to your audience and their needs. This seems to be an emerging theme between all technical writing—audience analysis and context.

Some questions for comments:
1.) Does my language balance concision and level of detail?
2.) Did I use enough information about the employing company to show my interest in them?

When writing my cover letter for this particular resume and job opening, I plan on utilizing several techniques outlined in the reading. The first piece of advice comes from the second article, Junk Cover Letters Kill Good Resumes, when it instructs you to ask yourself some very important questions about your cover letter, “Does your cover letter use a personal approach?” This means addressing both the HR employee/manager and the company itself by name. This tailors your resume and cover letter to this specific job application, and so they know you’re interested.

This week's reading featured a gauntlet of tips and information on creating a good resume. I've never had to craft a resume in the past, so this is all new to me. In my attempt to absorb all this information and in a few days churn out a rough draft of my first resume, I'll highlight some things I'm going to seriously take into consideration.

http://jobview.monster.com/getjob.aspx?JobID=78463592&JobTitle=PHP+Web+D...

As defined by the TCT, a genre is a predictable pattern for organizing information to achieve specific purposes (pg 183). Different genres dictate which document types are utilized, eg. the report genre could use a research proposal document and the hypertext genre could use a web format. Most of my experience with genre's falls into these two categories. I've written plenty of research papers for other English classes, and I've written my share of content for the web. What interests me are some of the other genres described in the article.

Chapter 15 offers a hard-hitting, quick cut guide to resumes, application letters, interviews, portfolios, and follow-up thank you letters. This chapter specifically discusses the importance of tailoring your documents to emphasize particular skill sets. Content can be emphasized by both design factors such as fonts and size, and where it is placed in the documents. Archival resumes, the most common, stress your previous experience by placing all information from educational background and prior work experience at the top.