English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

I'm usually really bad with commas, what do you think? hmhm

How is the formatting of this document?

Thanks!

I have actually never written a cover letter, thus I am on a new adventure! Upon reading these articles a few points clearly stood out regarding cover letters. Though they may not always be read or considered these letters aren’t by any means pointless and they may gain or cost you a position.

The quotation in the instructors blog regarding resumes, “I keep seeing resumes that are little more than buckets into which a lot of data has been dumped in the apparent belief that I will fill in the gaps,” certainly hits home with me due to my IT background. It is completely understandable that just filling any report and or resume with loads of data just to give it bulk would be an overall bad idea. In writing my draft resume I will try to be careful about needlessly including insignificant details.

“Today, effective “information management” is one of the great challenges to communicating effectively in the technical workplace.” – This quote really conveys the meaning behind why we are reading these chapters and why we are even taking this course. I wanted to mention how important I thought this quote was, as it really gives me reason to appreciate what we are learning throughout this course. I also found it interesting that technical documents should be approached as basically any other document; it should contain an introduction, a body, and an end.

Hewlett Packard - Technology Consultant C#/.NET

This chapter starts out with tips on beginning and executing a job search. The job search tips provided do seem useful, such as setting goals for your job search and being prepared to hear “no”. Overall methods of job searching have changed drastically in recent years with the invention of job search websites and online resumes. The new online job market can be much more demanding in regards to the quality of resumes and the quality of information provided within those resumes.

This chapter was very interesting. I never realized that there was so much to consider about your audience when writing a document. Many valid points are made as to why audience analysis is important and why a document may be totally ignored if certain guidelines aren’t followed. One must take special care when writing a document so that it will be useful to its intended audience, but it will also be informative to its unintended audiences.