English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

On Sunday last week, I participated in our group chat during which we created our Gantt chart and set out a plan for how to divide our solutions. I volunteered to cover the introduction/problem for our White Paper.

Monday started with the group needing to renegotiate our proposal a bit. I participated in these e-mail conversations and e-mailed our re-proposed problems and solutions to our instructor.

When I started reading, I thought I might have a lot of trouble finding an ethical situation in our White Paper, since our topic is fairly mundane (comparing wireless routers for home use). Other than straight up lying or misrepresenting information, I wasn't sure how I might address ethics, but with the division of ethical systems, I think it becomes easier to see how each system contributes to possible ethical situations.

This week, in addition to the reading responses and blog posts that pertained to the project, I spent a lot of time e-mailing with my group and planning out the project. I found three sources dealing with wireless security to contribute to our list of potential sources on Google Docs.

I also spent some time talking with Pat about our proposal and brainstorming about the best way to proceed with a project of this size. We concluded that it’d be easiest if the entire group had a quick “meeting” via AIM or in person (if possible) so we could all be on the same page before doing more work.

After watching the posted videos, reading the Thompson Handbook, and reviewing the sample Gantt charts, it looks like there are several steps we’ll need to lay out in order to create our research plan and Gantt chart.

To get started this week, our group members e-mailed and traded
contact information. We spent most of Tuesday brainstorming and
narrowing down our topic choices, and finally settled on dealing with
wireless security for home networks. We then started to brainstorm
how we might tackle the project and divide up responsibility for both
the proposal and the activity reports.

We settled on using Google Docs to post and share information as we
work, and then decided that one person would be responsible for
writing the bulk of our weekly report and posting it to the course

From the readings and the sample white papers, it seems that the general use of white papers is to disseminate information and offer an analysis of that information as a foundation for people to make decisions.

Assessment attached.

My two instructions sets are very different. My novice instructions are catered to an audience that knows virtually nothing about InDesign or how the program works, but has basic computer skills. The advanced instructions are catered to an audience that knows the basics of InDesign, but may not know how to use this particular feature (Master Pages). The novice instructions, thus, are much longer as they contain detailed explanations about features and are ordered sequentially.