English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

Topic Choice

Some students have had questions about what topic to cover for the Instructions Project. This is a legitimate issue, and indeed part of the project is demonstrating your ability to identify an applicable object or process. The range of topics you can cover is quite wide. As the project description states, any technical object or process you are familiar with is fair game, and you can cover a specific operation or general use.

We recommend that you consider covering a piece of software: either its general use or a specific task. We suggest this because your peers will be doing usability testing over your instructions, and their feedback will be of limited utility if they cannot access the object or process you cover. This is also why we suggest covering free software—because it can be accessed by your peers without cost. Open source software is often fertile soil for topic ideas, because open source software is generally produced by and for experts, and has poor documentation, particularly for novice users. (The Professional Writing program has an online project in this area called The Open Source Development and Documentation Project.) However, if you feel comfortable that your peers will be able to get access to your object or process, you are of course free to cover topics outside of software. It won't impact your grade negatively if you don't cover software. If you have questions about particular topics, feel free to contact your instructors.

Topics with Existing Instructions

Be aware that there will be existing instructions for most topics, but it is likely that these instructions do not target your specific audiences and do not cover your specific usage. We caution you against drawing from existing instructions. When we grade, we will be looking for how you have specifically shaped your work for a particular audience and purpose (in terms of design, vocabulary, tone, context of use, etc.). Existing generic instructions likely will not suit your individuated goals.

Project Proposal

We do the Project Proposal step, which is due this Friday (2/27), to make sure that we all have a workable topic plan. As the project description states, your proposal should describe what topic you plan to cover, why this is a legitimate topic, and why you are credible to cover it. The issue of legitimacy is important; it is likely that if you select an overly simplistic topic such as "how to make toast" you will not do well on this project because you will have difficulty parsing different authentic audiences. When you define your two audiences in your proposal, you should identify the needs, expectations, values, and concerns of each. Finally, your proposal should include ideas for possible graphics that can be used and layouts you could employ for your instructions.

Examples

The Instructions Review Exercise has some useful examples of possible topics:

• The Dell instructions about battery operations
• The HP printer setup and configuration instructions
• The Primo PDF instructions for creating PDFs (beginning on page eight)

There are also many student examples covering software in the The Open Source Development and Documentation Project. Not all of them are great (or even in their intended format—many are designed for online delivery), and some are group projects, but they provide ideas of the kinds of processes that students have covered:

• How to create a letterhead in Open Office Writer (.doc)
• Inserting and editing images in Open Office Writer (.pdf)
• Creating a web page with Open Office (.doc)
• Editing a Microsoft Excel file in Open Office Calc (.pdf)
• Using the GIMP (.pdf)
• Creating and editing stories in Drupal (.pdf)

Other student samples dealing with software and non-software topics:

• Using Google Docs (.pdf)
• Using eBay (.pdf)
• Bowling Instructions (.pdf)
• Guitar Tuning Instructions (.pdf)
• Sony Dream Machine Clock Radio manual (.pdf)

As always, if you have specific questions, feel free to contact your instructor.