English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

The chapter 8 reading focused on the organization of writing, the steps involved in writing a technical document, and a multitude of ways to bring your point across.

I thought the section on genres was a little far fetched. This seems like it should be placed at a much early level in our writing careers. By now most of have written enough memos, emails, letters, research papers, etc. to know how to use each effectively. On that same note I noticed a lot of this seemed like review material.

This week’s reading from Technical Communications Today, entitled Organization and Drafting, focuses on the various aspects of organization that go into constructing a well-planned technical document. The author goes beyond the simple introduction, body, and conclusion layout and presents several genres available to the reader, each offering a different method of presenting information to an audience. In constructing large technical documents, the text makes the recommendation of creating an informal outline to guide one’s work. I found this section pretty interesting.

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

I understand the need for an introduction, body, and conclusion in most documents, especially technical documents. For example, the letter about the O-rings was a perfect situation when points needed to be re-iterated and emphasized several times over. However, in many of my experiences writing memorandums and such documents, the manager reading them has specifically said or implied to ‘cut through the crap and tell me what I need to know so I do not have to read things that are considered fluff’.

Chapter 8 is a good review chapter. While it did bring up some points that were new, most of the items it discussed were things I have been using in writing for awhile. Saying a writing should have a introduction, a body, and a conclusion is mostly common sense by now. As well as stating you should outline a document before writing it. However it did bring up some new things, and also discussed some things in ways I hadn't considered before.

According to Chapter 8 – Organizing and Drafting in TCT, the organizational pattern of a document should be constructed distinctively for the type of genre at hand. One of the first steps toward this is to create an outline, which I think can be an effective tool in technical writing especially. I’d assume that all of us were required to come up with an outline for at least a few of our research papers from elementary school through high school, but I’ll admit that I usually drafted the outline after my paper was written.

     Chapter 8 of TCT offers forth one of the single most important guidelines to follow in writing any paper but applies fully, in concept and application, to technical documents. That guideline is, “tell them what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Then, tell them what you told them,” (TCT). For instance, in my line of work we deal with white-papers quite often.

In the chapter 8 reading the structure of a document and techniques for good organization were visited. The author began by expressing the importance of determining a genre. The first step listed was to determine what you are writing; this can be accomplished by asking questions to yourself to pinpoint what you are trying to say. These questions will also help identify the audience and lead to the general order that the document should follow. An outline is a good way to begin to organize. State the main topics to be discussed.

Everyone in this class has organized and drafted documents as well as given presentations either for school or outside purposes. Chapter 8 goes into detail of how to prepare a draft and outlines, and how to follow both to help keep thoughts organized. Looking at the summaries, which have the step by step process (e.g. six moves in an introduction), throughout the chapter helps me keep on track and serves as a guide while writing.

As stated in this chapter different genres are used to help achieve a purpose and patterns for your writing to make it better. After reading this chapter I discovered new genres that I didn’t think about while writing before. Some of these are definitions, Instructions, and proposals. I guess I never really thought about using these in my writing because I never really had to explain anything in great detail like you would with instructions. I have also never really had to give definitions in a piece because the terms I used were generally understood by the person reading it.