The reading from Chapter 8: Organizing and Drafting provided helpful instructions to crafting an organized technical document. Specifically the details of this chapter include methods on how to organize an introduction, body, and conclusion with a genre for a technical document. At the start of the chapter, the author provided a good example of an excellence form of a document skeleton. The memo from NASA about the erosion around the space shuttle O-rings, demonstrated the reasoning of why it’s essential to properly organize a technical document. The example memo supported the discussion in the text of being able to provide framework to help readers understand the content of the text and its importance.
Organizing with Presentation Software was a very informative section in Chapter 8. The chapter demonstrated steps in how to help you organize your material with any presentation software. I will be gathering large amounts of research data for my senior design project, in which this section became very useful to me. I thought it was a very creative way to layout your outline using any presentation software, making it easier to manage your material rather than a written document outline.
Another topic in Chapter 8 which appealed to me was the Patterns of Arrangement section. Using the patterns of arrangement strategies when writing a technical document, will defiantly help make the context easier to understand for your audience. For example, if I was preparing a document to the head CGT department on trying to get better equipment for a lab, using one of the many patterns of arrangement strategies would help organize my supporting argument.
Unfortunately, the conclusion section of Chapter 8 I would have to disagree upon. The obvious transition words such as “In conclusion” or “In summary” were blacklisted from my English class in sixth grade. I do agree that a conclusion should be written, but using one of those obvious transition words does come off to me as cheesy.
Organizing with Presentation Software
When you were talking about how you had large amounts of data collected for your senior projected reminded me of mine. I had mass amounts of data and if I hadn’t made an outline it would have been disastrous when presenting. After reading this chapter I realized my errors and if I had rearranged a few information slides and added a couple more to space out information would have expressed my thoughts more clear. Overall I am sure this chapter helped a couple of experienced presenters by looking at the reading on outlining in a new way. I know that the next PowerPoint I create I will look back over these guidelines.
Zebulon Rouse
R3 Cheese
On the final subject of transition words, you describe them as "cheesy." I would wholeheartedly agree that they are but I also think that they can serve a very useful purpose. Words and phrases that are used for transition clearly state to your audience where the paper is going and where it has been. Personally I think this is a lot more useful when giving a speech or presentation since the audience can't see the entire document, although they can have their place in written language as well. The fact remains that whether you use transition words or not, they will always sound cheesy.
Shane
Transition Words
I would have to agree with you about transition words to a certain degree. Usually I try to stay away from words like these because they're just too generic and make me feel like I'm writing a cookie cutter paper. However, these are technical documents we are discussing. Not necessarily creative writing. These two totally different types of writing usually hold two totally different objectives. I think technical writing is mainly used to convey information in an efficient manner. It’s not really for entertainment purposes. So using phrases like “in conclusion” help the reader know that things are being summed up here and it’s towards the end of the document.