English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

Today’s readings on technical documents were a constant reminder of how much I dread reading technical instructions. I will admit I usually take a stab at a product and if necessary then consult the technical document only to find myself more frustrated. So the idea of learning about these is a little enthralling, a little… Once again we refer back to many of our readings of how important it is to cater to your audience. If you don’t put yourself in their shoes, your document is probably only really catered to you and ultimately sucks like most technical documents.

The biggest thing I took from this week’s readings on writing your cover letter really taught me how situational factors can affect writing your resume. I will admit, I haven’t reached that 50 resume count, nor have I surpassed one. So sitting somewhere in cyberspace on my computer is your average generic cover letter that will work for almost any company, in the most negative way that is! So after reading these articles, I found it absolutely to approach this with a new mindset. First and foremost, do your research.

I found all of the posted articles to be very informative and quite interesting. I actually came out of reading these, thinking to myself that my resume really sucks when I think of it. Fortunately I haven’t needed it in over a year now! I really think the most key point I got out of these readings was to put yourself in the shoes of a recruiter/resume reader. Really this goes back to considering your audience, as we have discussed before.

I think we all have an idea of the ideal job for us in our heads and spend most of our lives wondering if we’ll ever be in this wonderful position. While it may be a little unrealistic that you’re going to jump right out of college and into your dream job, it’s very feasible to take a step in the right direction. Ideally I would like to work for a very dynamic company that has a vastly positive impact on our world. I’ve chosen to analyze some career opportunities at a little company by the name of Google.

I found chapter 8 to be somewhat of a refresher for me as far as the concepts in the chapter go. I feel like by this point in most of our lives we have a pretty solid idea of how to outline and draft documents. However there were some key points I took away from this document. I’ve definitely had to write some documents where I implemented some of these useful key points I observed in the reading

Chapter 15’s focus on career building strategies was very pragmatic and somewhat interesting. I found some of the strategies and ideas discussed somewhat common sense and some others I had never really thought about. The chapter’s explanation of how to form your resume and cover letter to tailor to specific skill sets and specific audiences insightful and provided me with some new strategies I had never really considered.