English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

What hit the closest to home for this week was in “Instructor Blog #4: Technical Instructions.” It speaks of how successful video game instructions are built into the game so that you learn while performing the task itself. I almost always skip looking at the instructions of a new game. It just always seems easier to jump in and learn by doing. Unfortunately, in most situations you may not be able to merge the instructions directly into the task and skipping them may result in a lost life (and not just the virtual kind).

Attached is my Employment Project Assessment.

Both revisions should be attached.

The two things I would like to know are:
-Does the formatting lose or draw your attention/why?
-Did I go too deep or not deep enough into awards, jobs, or personal interests?

For the most part it seems like the cover letter doesn't depend on me, it depends on where the company is going and what the company wants from me. I want to relate myself to them in a way that they see beneficial. For the cover letter project I will research my company and find out what their intentions are for people in their company that have the training and goals that I would have. In my case I can contact a friend with the same position and find out what he knows about the job.

My draft is attached

After going over the readings one of my major beliefs about resumes was reaffirmed. That is the fact that nothing beats quantifiable data. This was most apparent in “A Glimpse and a Hook” in which the person looking over resumes described his process. When looking over a resume he says that he concentrates on job history, interests, and schooling and does not look at the professional objective, skills, and summary of qualifications. He also states that cover letters are useless. He (or she) wants the obvious truths about your life to get that quick picture of who you are.

http://jobview.monster.com/getjob.aspx?JobID=78717204&JobTitle=Field+Ser...

Above is the link to the job I chose for this project. At first I thought I would do this project from the standpoint of 20 years down the road when I am done with the Air Force but I know that's too far away and my goals will likely change. So, I'm doing this project as if I were to somehow become unaffiliated with the Air Force today.

What really stood out from this reading to me was the common saying that tied together the chapter: “Tell them what your are going to tell them. Tell them. Then, tell them what you told them.” It may seem redundant and pointless to basically say the same thing over and over but it is the basis of most technical writing and presentations.

Although I may not be able to apply the methods in chapter 15 to a resume for more than a decade due to my career in the Air Force, there is still a lot of common ground that relates to me. One of the points in chapter fifteen that stuck out to me was the part about verb-first phrases that are used to save space. This is a technique used very often by the Air Force for awards and promotion packages. It’s for the same reason as what would happen in the resume process.