English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

After reading this week’s assignments, I have learned about the different usability tests. For my instructions assignment it seems that the document markup will aid me the most in creating effective instructions. While my instructions might work well with more advanced audiences, this test will ensure that my novice audience will also be catered to.

This week’s readings have given me some good insight into the creation of instructions. Overall Chapters 24 and 25 discussed different ways for creating effective layouts. This can be accomplished by taking aspects ranging from color to image placement, into consideration. As many people have pointed out so far, this is ironic because our book obviously did not follow the design suggestions.

I plan on creating instructions to guide a user through setting up an Enterasys RoamAbout® Wireless Access Point. Enterasys RoamAbout® Access Points are a popular choice for providing wireless access to the network for businesses. The instructions will instruct the user how to take an access point with no configuration and configure it so that users can connect to the network wirelessly. These instructions are necessary because there is very little documentation on how to configure this type of access point.

This week’s reading provided plenty of good insight into creating technical descriptions and instructions. Chapter 19 focused on creating technical descriptions while the others readings focused on creating instructions. While some of the reading was very similar to concepts read in other readings, there was plenty of good advice given.

1. Do I sound too confident?

2. Should I go into more detail about my work experiences or classroom work?

After reading these articles, it’s clear that the most important part of crafting a cover letter is to tailor it in a professional manner to suit the requirements of the position. Both Instructor Blog #3: Cover Letters and Junk Cover Letters Kill Good Resumes provided many good strategies to achieve this.