English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

This weeks reading in the TH focuses on how to do a research project. For our white paper it seems like research will be the bulk of the work that we do. From the very beginning of the reading the TH lays out ways to make sure your research project is a success. TH says to make sure you start early and plan your research ahead of time. I think that my group and I have a good start on this after completing our Gantt chart where we divided up the research and set up initial time frames that we want to have our research accomplished by.

For this week, aside from the normal reading responses and comments, I spent the beginning of the week communicating with my group via email to decide on a topic and how we wanted to divide up the workload. We decided to do the white paper on wireless network security solutions and to use google docs to list the potential sources we found and start work on our project proposal.

Topic
Our white paper will cover wireless internet security for home networks. Unsecured wireless is a problem because it leaves your network open to a wide array of malicious uses.

Before this week I had heard of white papers, but I never really knew what they were. While there are some different types of white papers, such as a government white paper, or a marketing white paper, they all have the same basic goal in mind. They all try to inform the audience about an issue and the possible solutions.

Just a note to the Professor Tirrell. The pdf's are exported in a 8.5 X 11 format. But that is because they are meant to be used online where they will probably be opened in a web browser. Because they are meant to be viewed inside a web browser, it made sense for me to keep in the 8.5 X 11.

These instruction sets are for using Steam. For a novice user, someone is someone that may have never played a computer game, or is unfamiliar with computers in general, it provides a step by step instruction of how to install the software and installing and playing your first game.*

For the expert user, which is someone that has experience with Steam and is already familiar with its basic functions, the instructions expand on some of the more advanced options to improve the users experience while using Steam and customize it to fit his or her needs.

The readings this week focused on editing and revising your documents so they achieve everything you as an author set out to achieve. The readings form TCT gave a very detailed break down of the editing process and steps involved. I think one of the most helpful parts of this reading though was the tables with some of the most common grammatical mistakes or the list of words that are commonly misused. While writing our instructions for the project making sure they are free of grammatical and usage errors goes a long way to making the instructions look much more professional and finished.

In my instructions the novice ones presents more of a step by step process to get the program install and some basic features.

The expert instructions I plan on having links at the top of the page so the user can jump to the section which describes the feature they are using.

The readings and instructor blog both did a fairly good job of pointing out the basic things to keep in mind while designing a document, such as alignment, repetition, proximity, and contrast. Although I think it could have gone into a little more depth as to what makes a good design. Saying things like alignment and spacing are important. And its true that if they are off, it will make for a poor design and many people will notice that something is "off" or "wrong" with the document.