Toward the end of the semester it is easy to begin doubting class work. Temptation comes to the weary student in many ways such as the paper which doesn't really need to be revised for a better grade and those office hours you don't really need to go to to see about that sketchy grade for an assignment you turned in weeks ago. Beyond the temptations of laziness and procrastination in academics comes the fear of summer employment. Because of the confusion and stress caused by this hunt for employment I found it very useful to be working on an employment section in my English 301 class. It's kind of like killing two birds with a single stone so to say.
I've been working on applying to a professional studio internship for the last few weeks. This has involved analyzing job ads, creating a resume, and writing a cover letter. So far I've learned a lot such as how to describe my work in previous jobs as well as listing my skills. To be real, and I hope the wrong person doesn't read this, I don't really expect to get a interview or even a call from the studio I'm applying at. The truth is I'm not nearly as qualified as other people who are probably applying. At least not yet. I have a lot to learn. Looking at my resume you may think that I've got all these great technical computer skills but it's more complicated than that. I would relate it to a musician's skill. For example, and amateur musician may say "I'm a violinist" because he or she plays the violin. However an expert musician would also call himself or herself a "violinist" if he happened to play the violin. Of course the expert is better but they are both violinists. In the same way when I say I know how to use Adobe Photoshop I'm saying I know a few things... But I'm no expert.
What has been very useful in the project is preparing for an interview. In my previous blogs I have mentioned that I'm the kind of guy who likes to "wing it." This is true to some degree but I've learned a few things in the material we've gone though recently. Mostly, I've just been learning a lot about myself. One of the biggest discoveries I've made is that preparing for a job interview can actually help a lot. I've had many job interviews before and I always bullshitted my way though them. As in I thought of things as they were asked. I didn't actually make anything up which was untrue or false.
Today I had a job interview at a nice restaurant so I decided to take some time before to go though some typical job interview questions. I answered them in good detail and thought a lot about word choice. Upon going to the interview I still knew I was going to wing it, but I felt much more confident because I knew the answers to the questions I would be asked. Unfortunately I didn't get asked many questions but I know I must have done something right because they asked me to come in for a second interview.
Monday, April 27, 2015
Monday, March 30, 2015
I can't even begin to say what a relief it is to be done with that last project which required me to work in a group with three others. The other's where fine people but the stress from to project was definitely something which had weighed me down over the last few weeks. I think the process of preparing for something (like the oral proposal) was bad for me. I'm usually into "winging it." But for the oral proposal I wrote out everything I wanted to say; prepared a speech so to say. But the words just didn't come out properly.
But this next project (The employment project involves inventorying job skills, building resumes, analyzing job advertisements, and writing cover letters) looks tight. It's just what I need currently. I know that my resume is out of date and definitely need to be updated. I have hopes that it will looks much much better than the one I had last summer which really wasn't any different than the one I created in 12th grade English.
Finding employment has never been easy for me. To me it seems like some people never have trouble finding jobs due to family connections and whatnot... I went through several interviews before I landed my first real job. First there was K-Mart. The K-Mart interview went well and they wanted to hire me but I failed their online aptitude test and due to policy they were unable to hire me. Then Golden Corral didn't even want me to wash dishes. I applied at so many places but didn't get hired that summer. I sucked too because my parents went on vacation for a month and I had to go stay with my grandparents since I didn't have a job.
A few months later I started making the rounds again and finally got called in for an interview at the local movie theater. At this point I didn't even really care and had seen so many other people who I considered less qualified land jobs like it was nothing. So I went into that interview and didn't really try to impress anyone. But it totally worked.
That's when I began to learn something that I've found important when trying to get certain jobs. This might sound a little bit ignorant and cocky but whatever this is my blog so I'm going to say it: management doesn't like smart people. Depending on the duties of the job I've applied for the management really could care less about how intelligent I was and (in my opinion) hired people on the basis of them not being smarter than management because that can control issues.
At the movie theater I learned lots of stuff. I learned public speaking when I welcomed guests into the auditoriums. I also learned time management skills and communication skills via the PTT radio systems we used. And of course I handled food and cash. They loved me there and rehired me twice and are still looking forward to me coming back this summer (although that probably won't be happening).
While living in Tempe I found it difficult to find a job once again. I was always taught to dress well and shave before interviews but that didn't work for me. Maybe it was other things like lack of work experience, So I decided to set the bar low and got hired at Raising Cane's as a cook (didn't even shave for the interview and I definitely needed a hair cut), Fast food and poor hours but it was a job and I made the best of it. I was valued there because I always came on time, ready to work, and I brought a good attitude. I learned how to work in fast under stressful conditions but that't about it. The best thing I personally got out of that job was how to interact with other workers and have a good time at work. I eventually resigned and left on good terms knowing that they would rehire me if I ever wished to return.
After a few months being unemployed I decided to start looking for a better job. My roommate convinced me to apply at the University Technology Office at ASU where he was working. I went with my instinct and went into my interview very relaxed. I didn't shave and I didn't wear a tie. But it totally worked. Now I'm the guy in the polo and nerd glasses who comes into the classrooms when the professors can't figure out how to get the projector to work.
I love my job and have practiced a lot of useful skills there. Namely, writing emails to coworkers, answering phone calls, and related technological skills with computer systems.
I still have a lot to learn. I'll soon be authorized to drive the golf carts around the campus after I finish the training course. I'll also have to learn more about the computer systems with experience that comes with time.
But I'm exited to redo my resume and start looking into what jobs I am qualified to apply for and whatever else comes with this next project,
Peace out.
But this next project (The employment project involves inventorying job skills, building resumes, analyzing job advertisements, and writing cover letters) looks tight. It's just what I need currently. I know that my resume is out of date and definitely need to be updated. I have hopes that it will looks much much better than the one I had last summer which really wasn't any different than the one I created in 12th grade English.
Finding employment has never been easy for me. To me it seems like some people never have trouble finding jobs due to family connections and whatnot... I went through several interviews before I landed my first real job. First there was K-Mart. The K-Mart interview went well and they wanted to hire me but I failed their online aptitude test and due to policy they were unable to hire me. Then Golden Corral didn't even want me to wash dishes. I applied at so many places but didn't get hired that summer. I sucked too because my parents went on vacation for a month and I had to go stay with my grandparents since I didn't have a job.
A few months later I started making the rounds again and finally got called in for an interview at the local movie theater. At this point I didn't even really care and had seen so many other people who I considered less qualified land jobs like it was nothing. So I went into that interview and didn't really try to impress anyone. But it totally worked.
That's when I began to learn something that I've found important when trying to get certain jobs. This might sound a little bit ignorant and cocky but whatever this is my blog so I'm going to say it: management doesn't like smart people. Depending on the duties of the job I've applied for the management really could care less about how intelligent I was and (in my opinion) hired people on the basis of them not being smarter than management because that can control issues.
At the movie theater I learned lots of stuff. I learned public speaking when I welcomed guests into the auditoriums. I also learned time management skills and communication skills via the PTT radio systems we used. And of course I handled food and cash. They loved me there and rehired me twice and are still looking forward to me coming back this summer (although that probably won't be happening).
While living in Tempe I found it difficult to find a job once again. I was always taught to dress well and shave before interviews but that didn't work for me. Maybe it was other things like lack of work experience, So I decided to set the bar low and got hired at Raising Cane's as a cook (didn't even shave for the interview and I definitely needed a hair cut), Fast food and poor hours but it was a job and I made the best of it. I was valued there because I always came on time, ready to work, and I brought a good attitude. I learned how to work in fast under stressful conditions but that't about it. The best thing I personally got out of that job was how to interact with other workers and have a good time at work. I eventually resigned and left on good terms knowing that they would rehire me if I ever wished to return.
After a few months being unemployed I decided to start looking for a better job. My roommate convinced me to apply at the University Technology Office at ASU where he was working. I went with my instinct and went into my interview very relaxed. I didn't shave and I didn't wear a tie. But it totally worked. Now I'm the guy in the polo and nerd glasses who comes into the classrooms when the professors can't figure out how to get the projector to work.
I love my job and have practiced a lot of useful skills there. Namely, writing emails to coworkers, answering phone calls, and related technological skills with computer systems.
I still have a lot to learn. I'll soon be authorized to drive the golf carts around the campus after I finish the training course. I'll also have to learn more about the computer systems with experience that comes with time.
But I'm exited to redo my resume and start looking into what jobs I am qualified to apply for and whatever else comes with this next project,
Peace out.
Monday, March 23, 2015
- oral communication
- teamwork and collaboration
- Professionalism and work ethic
- Written communication
Beyond these another study discussed on page 3 says that writing skills are very important.
I bring this topic up because I'd like to talk about the progression of my technical communication skills. I've gone from not really know what technical communication was (the beginning of the semester) to understanding that yes it's an extremely important skill.
In the past two months I've had both good and bad experiences which involved using technical communication skills. I'm going to give a brief summary of these in somewhat chronological order to bring you up to date and then I'll try to conclude with my most recent experience followed by my predictions for the next assignments which I'll be working on.
At the beginning of the semester I started this blog. Writing was never a major struggle but knowing what content to put in and write about was usually an area I struggled. I feel like my blogs became less humorous and more monotonous for myself every week until we come to today which I present you the most boring blog yet. Maybe it's because I'm worn out, or it might be because I feel no inspiration to write anything clever in this blog anymore due what I perceive as a lack of appreciation from my audience. Whatever it is you as a reader should know that my current effort of writing this blog is a complex of both love and hate. I loathe the fact that I'm up writing this because of my commitment to post it within a time constraint (I mean it's been a long day and I'd much rather be asleep in my cozy bed), On the other hand I'm a person who actually really likes to sit around and think about stuff (and I don't mean that sarcastically, I actually like to ponder). Writing it down can really help me focus and reflect on things which I otherwise might not think of or be distracted from thinking about. This blog has purpose for me.
My first project in English 301 was a bust. I didn't do too well on it. I had hoped that I would receive a good grade because I actually tried very hard to do a good job. Unfortunately I must have overestimated my technical communication skills. I apparently didn't understand the project and completed unsatisfactory work. So I knew I would have to make it up on the other projects.
The next project was done working with a single partner. This actually worked out quite well. I discovered that my communication skills within a small closed group are rather effective. We divided work well and it really wasn't too bad. Our grade for that project was OK.
I've been trying to analyze and observe other outlets which I use technical communication skills. I use these skill at my work all the time. Often I have to send emails to supervisors to ask questions or report things which I've done. The other week I had to compose a document which illustrated that I've satisfactorily completed all the training procedures. I know I did a good job on that and impressed my supervisors.
Finally this last assignment I did in English 301 was a collaborative research project. I disliked this project from the start and will be glad when I'm done with it after this week. I've found that working in a larger group is much much more difficult than working with a single partner. People don't communicate as well and it's hard to agree on things. I often feel like I'm forced to agree to something because I don't want to start an argument which could create tension within the group.
It's often the things which things we dislike which help to form us the most and can help us learn. This experience working with a larger group has definitely made me rethink my place within the group and caused me to take initiative or to disagree and propose my own ideas which I think should at least be heard. It's not comfortable to do these things for me but I suppose it's part of my technical communications training. While I'm glad to be done with this project soon and won't miss it, I don't believe it was a loss or a waste of my time.
The next assignment is what I'm looking forward to. Literally. I should have a chance to draft a new resume which I really need to do. I've done a lot since the last time I really did that (it was senior year in high school).
As I was attempting to convey in the beginning of this post. Employers are looking for people skilled in technical communication. I think I'm well on my way.
Until next time.
Monday, March 16, 2015
And just like that spring break is over and I'm back on my grind getting work done and creating blog posts... I've been requested by my vast audience to include images in my post so... Let's talk about memes for a minute.
I love memes. They're hilarious. I especially dig this one above because I can heavily relate to it. So can most of the people who look at it. What really makes memes so great is that they're easy to understand and relate to. It could be argued that memes are a great advancement in human communications. But I'd like to analyze this concept further.
Now let's hypothetically say I was working my job one fine day and it just so happened that day that there was absolutely no work which needed to be done. After leaving my work I post a selfie on Instagram of myself in my work polo with a nice smile on my face. I accompany the photo with text which basically says, "Today at work I did absolutely nothing. I just sat around. This is me leaving work." Except with more descriptive words.
That would be dumb. Nobody does that. As soon as I see someone post that I'm going to wonder, "Why are you telling the world you did nothing at work today? Was the selfie really necessary?"
But when I see the baby face in the meme accompanied by the text it clicks. It makes perfect sense and of course I know what the creator of the meme was getting to. Not because I worked the exact same job he or she did and was there that day when he or she did nothing. Rather because I've had a similar experience which I relate to. Did my face actually look like the baby's face? No. But it felt like that and that's all that matters.
But it's odd that something as vague, impersonal, and crude as a meme is so effective. Memes seem to be a really efficient way of expressing an idea. While I've established my love for memes, I believe that older media is much more powerful and deeper in meaning.
In the past people looked to literature such as Shakespeare to find concepts which they could relate to and which represent the human condition. Artists (I'm not going to pretend I know an example for this) could paint pictures which did the same thing. And even today I'd say that many music artists (especially hip hop) capture the essence of the human struggles and triumphs through their lyrics.
I just think it's crazy how an image with a virtually anonymous creator can accomplish or even come close to representing the phenomena of the human condition in ways which other artist spend years attempting to convey through their given medium.
That took more words than I expected... Now on to the good stuff about English 301.
Chapter 18 of the Markel text book changed how I think about lab reports. Don't get me wrong I still hate doing them but I think I respect them more now. I never thought of a lab report as a persuasive argument (Markel 491), The entire chapter really informs the reader of the importance of a lab report and also how to effectively compose one. I really wish I had read this chapter when I was taking that Physics class the other year... But now I know how to plan for creating a lab report if I ever decide to do research on something.
I suppose the project I'm working on now (the report on the Institute for Humanities) is kind of a lab report like document. I'm creating a document which illustrates and describes my findings from conducting primary research on the organization's website. So I think I can actually use this new found instruction right away.
There's a lot of information in chapter 8 which one might find interesting. I've always liked writing persuasively rather than informatively. I feel the need to convince people of something through examples. I might not be the best at it but I guess that's why I'm reading this chapter.
I thought that it was interesting to learn the how claims should be presented (Markel 192). There are different styles and patterns of presentation and how the persuasion goes down that differ between cultures. I'm curious to see more examples of this and compare it to my own personal styles of persuasion.
What's really great are the logical fallacies which Markel brings up. I'm sure I'm guilty of these on a regular basis and but I'm glad that these were brought to my attention. I'll be on the lookout to see that I don't fall victim to one of the blunders.
That's all for now. Have a wonderful day, World.
I love memes. They're hilarious. I especially dig this one above because I can heavily relate to it. So can most of the people who look at it. What really makes memes so great is that they're easy to understand and relate to. It could be argued that memes are a great advancement in human communications. But I'd like to analyze this concept further.
Now let's hypothetically say I was working my job one fine day and it just so happened that day that there was absolutely no work which needed to be done. After leaving my work I post a selfie on Instagram of myself in my work polo with a nice smile on my face. I accompany the photo with text which basically says, "Today at work I did absolutely nothing. I just sat around. This is me leaving work." Except with more descriptive words.
That would be dumb. Nobody does that. As soon as I see someone post that I'm going to wonder, "Why are you telling the world you did nothing at work today? Was the selfie really necessary?"
But when I see the baby face in the meme accompanied by the text it clicks. It makes perfect sense and of course I know what the creator of the meme was getting to. Not because I worked the exact same job he or she did and was there that day when he or she did nothing. Rather because I've had a similar experience which I relate to. Did my face actually look like the baby's face? No. But it felt like that and that's all that matters.
But it's odd that something as vague, impersonal, and crude as a meme is so effective. Memes seem to be a really efficient way of expressing an idea. While I've established my love for memes, I believe that older media is much more powerful and deeper in meaning.
In the past people looked to literature such as Shakespeare to find concepts which they could relate to and which represent the human condition. Artists (I'm not going to pretend I know an example for this) could paint pictures which did the same thing. And even today I'd say that many music artists (especially hip hop) capture the essence of the human struggles and triumphs through their lyrics.
I just think it's crazy how an image with a virtually anonymous creator can accomplish or even come close to representing the phenomena of the human condition in ways which other artist spend years attempting to convey through their given medium.
That took more words than I expected... Now on to the good stuff about English 301.
Chapter 18 of the Markel text book changed how I think about lab reports. Don't get me wrong I still hate doing them but I think I respect them more now. I never thought of a lab report as a persuasive argument (Markel 491), The entire chapter really informs the reader of the importance of a lab report and also how to effectively compose one. I really wish I had read this chapter when I was taking that Physics class the other year... But now I know how to plan for creating a lab report if I ever decide to do research on something.
I suppose the project I'm working on now (the report on the Institute for Humanities) is kind of a lab report like document. I'm creating a document which illustrates and describes my findings from conducting primary research on the organization's website. So I think I can actually use this new found instruction right away.
There's a lot of information in chapter 8 which one might find interesting. I've always liked writing persuasively rather than informatively. I feel the need to convince people of something through examples. I might not be the best at it but I guess that's why I'm reading this chapter.
I thought that it was interesting to learn the how claims should be presented (Markel 192). There are different styles and patterns of presentation and how the persuasion goes down that differ between cultures. I'm curious to see more examples of this and compare it to my own personal styles of persuasion.
What's really great are the logical fallacies which Markel brings up. I'm sure I'm guilty of these on a regular basis and but I'm glad that these were brought to my attention. I'll be on the lookout to see that I don't fall victim to one of the blunders.
That's all for now. Have a wonderful day, World.
Monday, March 2, 2015
The month of March brings me to realization of a few things. Firstly, it means that the school semester is basically half over. That's nice because the second half always seems to go faster than the first half. The next thing which strikes me about this time of the semester is mid terms. Mid terms never seem to stress me out like they should but I still end up a little anxious about my grades in classes because I know that at this point there's only so much I can do to improve the grade. But the best thing about this time of the year is spring break. It's like a mini Christmas except you don't have to waste money buying people presents,,,
Looking into chapter 17 of the Technical communications book I'm starting to more fully realize the scope and purpose of the research project we're doing in class. In the book it is written, "informational reports share one goal: to describe something that has happened or is happening now" (Markel 467). How interesting it is that I'm in a research team and we're doing a report on somethings. It's almost like I was meant to read this chapter!
In the book there a lot of pointers on how to create a good report. To begin with it needs to
provide clear, accurate, and specific information to an audience" (Markel 467). The first thing that strikes me is the last part of this quote from the book. Audience. In the project we're working on in class our primary audience is the same person who gives us a grade. Our teacher and supervisor.
Now I don't think this is bad because there are of course several instances in the professional world where reports will need to be made to a specific person. In my life I've completed a lot of reports like this. Ever since I can remember I was writing essays about stuff and I knew that the only person who would be reading it was my teacher. In some ways however I felt like it was really unnecessary to create such a document just for one person. I feel like an informal letter or a small meeting would function just as well.
Don't get me wrong. I'm glad I had the writing practice because today I know I'm a better writer than I was as a kid. It's like what we discussed on the first day of class for English 301: how do you get better at writing/technical communication? practice doing it.
Only when I was in high school did I start having to create more interesting reports for a more diverse audience. I remember doing some short presentations in science classes. These were always very informal. While some may have considered them "unprofessional" they were still very informative and I did my best to keep it humorous when possible.
Honors English is where I really started making use of my technical communication skills. There were a lot of papers, a lot of peer reviewing, and of course many oral presentations. Not to mention the plethora of reading. I think what I learned most from all that practice was that you can write infinite words about a subject if you know what you want to say.
Last year I was in APA 200; an Asian Pacific American Studies class. For our final project we had to do what was called an "oral history paper." Basically I had to find someone who was Asian/Pacific/American, conduct a length interview, and write a paper about him or her. It wasn't easy. I got my interview done early enough but I had no idea how to create a 12 page paper out of that information. I needed a thesis of some kind to get me going but I had nothing. Eventually I created a semi-bullshit thesis by connecting the interview to a book we had read in class and once I did that then the paper wasn't too bad.
In this research project I'm working on now I find myself in a similar quandary. I don't really know what kind of a thesis we'll have for our document. What'll probably have to do is analyze the data collected from not only myself but all of the team members and then come up with a thesis, and work with it as a team.
I think part of the goal of our research project is to create a recommendation report. So basically we're going to tell our supervisor what we think the Institute of Humanities Research can do to be a better organization. We will need to justify this through our research.
Looking into chapter 17 of the Technical communications book I'm starting to more fully realize the scope and purpose of the research project we're doing in class. In the book it is written, "informational reports share one goal: to describe something that has happened or is happening now" (Markel 467). How interesting it is that I'm in a research team and we're doing a report on somethings. It's almost like I was meant to read this chapter!
In the book there a lot of pointers on how to create a good report. To begin with it needs to
provide clear, accurate, and specific information to an audience" (Markel 467). The first thing that strikes me is the last part of this quote from the book. Audience. In the project we're working on in class our primary audience is the same person who gives us a grade. Our teacher and supervisor.
Now I don't think this is bad because there are of course several instances in the professional world where reports will need to be made to a specific person. In my life I've completed a lot of reports like this. Ever since I can remember I was writing essays about stuff and I knew that the only person who would be reading it was my teacher. In some ways however I felt like it was really unnecessary to create such a document just for one person. I feel like an informal letter or a small meeting would function just as well.
Don't get me wrong. I'm glad I had the writing practice because today I know I'm a better writer than I was as a kid. It's like what we discussed on the first day of class for English 301: how do you get better at writing/technical communication? practice doing it.
Only when I was in high school did I start having to create more interesting reports for a more diverse audience. I remember doing some short presentations in science classes. These were always very informal. While some may have considered them "unprofessional" they were still very informative and I did my best to keep it humorous when possible.
Honors English is where I really started making use of my technical communication skills. There were a lot of papers, a lot of peer reviewing, and of course many oral presentations. Not to mention the plethora of reading. I think what I learned most from all that practice was that you can write infinite words about a subject if you know what you want to say.
Last year I was in APA 200; an Asian Pacific American Studies class. For our final project we had to do what was called an "oral history paper." Basically I had to find someone who was Asian/Pacific/American, conduct a length interview, and write a paper about him or her. It wasn't easy. I got my interview done early enough but I had no idea how to create a 12 page paper out of that information. I needed a thesis of some kind to get me going but I had nothing. Eventually I created a semi-bullshit thesis by connecting the interview to a book we had read in class and once I did that then the paper wasn't too bad.
In this research project I'm working on now I find myself in a similar quandary. I don't really know what kind of a thesis we'll have for our document. What'll probably have to do is analyze the data collected from not only myself but all of the team members and then come up with a thesis, and work with it as a team.
I think part of the goal of our research project is to create a recommendation report. So basically we're going to tell our supervisor what we think the Institute of Humanities Research can do to be a better organization. We will need to justify this through our research.
I’m hoping my team will be able to make some good observations
over the next week or so. If we do, we
will be able to create something we can work with.
Tune in next week for more about adventures in English 301. Just kidding next week is
S P R I N G B R E A K
Every week and every new blog post I compose leaves me wondering how necessary it is to introduce the blog. English 301, this is a blog about it.
The latest project our class has been working on involves what can be considered "communicating with the public." Essentially we will be researching an institute and reporting our findings. As with most assignments, it's a little bit more complicated than that.
Now we are working in groups of four. This makes life pretty complicated. Decisions are much more difficult to make. In class we were tasked to choose an institute to do our report on. I didn't really have much of a say on it. I wanted to do the institute that had something to do with science but before I was even given a chance to say that it seemed like one or two of the group had already decided that they wanted to do research on the Institute for Humanities Research. So i didn't really feel like trying to convince them otherwise so I just went with it.
So now that we've chosen an institute the quest for information begins. We will gather this info by conducting research. Research will yield data which we can use in the report. Our team will conduct both primary and secondary research. For my research I will go to the official website and record some statistics and other interesting data.
Currently I'm wondering what exactly this report is. So I'm looking into the the text to learn more about it...
In the book it says that it is necessary for organizations to have accountability with the public (Markel 635). Now a days people just want to know what an organization is doing. They're curious and want to know who does what and how it all went down. I guess I can relate. I like to know who does what at Apple and I like to know all the inside info. Unfortunately Apple doesn't like to share most of this information with me.
Also in the book we read about the impact public relations has on advertising and overall success. Much of the advertising an organization gets these days is though word of mouth. So if the public can easily find information about an organization then that organization will likely be talked about a lot. On the other hand an organization like Apple kind of does the opposite but still gets talked about. Perhaps because they're so secretive.
There's an entire section on collaborating with the public through social media (Markel 648). I think it's very important to know about this. Social media is probably the most powerful venue of both advertising and sharing information. For an organization to be able to use social media effectively is a subject of much interest. Websites like Twitter and Instragram provide the public with a primary source of news from celebrities. This is something with is pretty new. In the past all information we read was secondary. If you knew something it was most likely through secondary research from a book, newspaper, or magazine. Today we can simply look at someone's Twitter posts to gain a direct quote from them. Furthermore we can look at websites of organizations firsthand to gain information.
Another component to think about in this report is the audience for our report. Typically I would have thought I'm writing this report for the general public. For anyone to read. But our team has decided that we will write it for an audience which is our supervisor. So basically we are creating a report on the Institute and we will report our finding to our supervisor, or basically our teacher for the class.
Monday, February 16, 2015
Another week brings me to another report on the developments in relation with my writing class at Arizona State University. As mentioned in my last post I was working on a project which entailed creating a document which instructs a user on how to leave a review at www.tripadvisor.com. That project is now finished and I have a few things to report.
In my previous post I discussed how my partner, or teammate we will call her, was unable to attend the first day of in class work on the project due to illness. This was to some degree an inconvenience but also a nice opportunity to practice communication over the medium of email and texting.
We did end up meeting up a few days after class to create a draft of the document and that turned out to be as successful as I could have hoped. We were able to communicate easily and both had a similar vision of what we wanted to do. We also seemed to have a lot in common beyond the project which I won't go into. But the point is we were a good match for a team.
One of the first steps to my project was organizing information. It is suggested in the book the "analyze your audience and purpose" (Markel 153). I knew for this assignment I didn't want my audience to be my grandparents. I imagined them to be people who have used computers and are rather literate in modern internet technology. As for purpose, this was a document which would be designed to teach someone how to leave a "good" review. Good not as in I really approve of this place it was not bad but rather what I defined as professional and useful to other readers.
I think we succeeded in making instructions on how to create a review. However I don't feel that the instructions really focused on how to leave a "good" review. It just didn't totally match. I feel like How to Write a Good Review should be it's own article. We tried to follow Markel's organizing principle by using a pattern. By doing this we were limited on how much depth we could go into about what is a "good" review.
I do believe that my literacy skills are improving slightly. Partly I think it's confidence. before I did follow many of the steps which are suggested in technical communication but I never really thought about them. They were basically instinct and I never fully trust my instinct. Now I actually have reason to back myself up so I'm confident in my communication actions.
For example I had to write an email to my supervisor last week about some technical issues I was having on a website and found it to be very simple and not intimidating at all. Also my professional texting skills are pretty good i think. In this last project most of our communication was texting and I also use that medium for group projects in other classes.
Memos are really useful I've found. I've created at least three memos for this last assignment so I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. I found writing email to my grandparents to be easier than I remember.
Another thing that I'm getting better at is typing. I've been doing way more typing due to these emails, memos, and this blog included. I can see I'm starting to memorize the feel of my own keyboard and can write with more ease.
I think I still need to work on my oral communication skills. At the beginning of our classes we do what's called table topics. Basically you have to stand up and talk about something for 90 seconds. It's really hard. I feel like I could easily do it if I was speaking to someone who I' comfortable with but in the class setting it's different. As soon as I feel like one person out of the class doesn't really care or agree I instantly start to lose my train of thought and start looking for a way to conclude my speech.
I image this week I'll be called upon to do another table topic so my plan is to avoid anything which will lead to a conclusion until i'm confident I'm ready to stop talking.
Besides that I guess I'm ready to being tackling the next writing project. I honestly don't even know what it's going to be but I'm not really scared of it. I'm actually somewhat looking forward to meeting more people in the the class and seeing what kind skills I can learn from them.
That's all for today folks.
In my previous post I discussed how my partner, or teammate we will call her, was unable to attend the first day of in class work on the project due to illness. This was to some degree an inconvenience but also a nice opportunity to practice communication over the medium of email and texting.
We did end up meeting up a few days after class to create a draft of the document and that turned out to be as successful as I could have hoped. We were able to communicate easily and both had a similar vision of what we wanted to do. We also seemed to have a lot in common beyond the project which I won't go into. But the point is we were a good match for a team.
One of the first steps to my project was organizing information. It is suggested in the book the "analyze your audience and purpose" (Markel 153). I knew for this assignment I didn't want my audience to be my grandparents. I imagined them to be people who have used computers and are rather literate in modern internet technology. As for purpose, this was a document which would be designed to teach someone how to leave a "good" review. Good not as in I really approve of this place it was not bad but rather what I defined as professional and useful to other readers.
I think we succeeded in making instructions on how to create a review. However I don't feel that the instructions really focused on how to leave a "good" review. It just didn't totally match. I feel like How to Write a Good Review should be it's own article. We tried to follow Markel's organizing principle by using a pattern. By doing this we were limited on how much depth we could go into about what is a "good" review.
I do believe that my literacy skills are improving slightly. Partly I think it's confidence. before I did follow many of the steps which are suggested in technical communication but I never really thought about them. They were basically instinct and I never fully trust my instinct. Now I actually have reason to back myself up so I'm confident in my communication actions.
For example I had to write an email to my supervisor last week about some technical issues I was having on a website and found it to be very simple and not intimidating at all. Also my professional texting skills are pretty good i think. In this last project most of our communication was texting and I also use that medium for group projects in other classes.
Memos are really useful I've found. I've created at least three memos for this last assignment so I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. I found writing email to my grandparents to be easier than I remember.
Another thing that I'm getting better at is typing. I've been doing way more typing due to these emails, memos, and this blog included. I can see I'm starting to memorize the feel of my own keyboard and can write with more ease.
I think I still need to work on my oral communication skills. At the beginning of our classes we do what's called table topics. Basically you have to stand up and talk about something for 90 seconds. It's really hard. I feel like I could easily do it if I was speaking to someone who I' comfortable with but in the class setting it's different. As soon as I feel like one person out of the class doesn't really care or agree I instantly start to lose my train of thought and start looking for a way to conclude my speech.
I image this week I'll be called upon to do another table topic so my plan is to avoid anything which will lead to a conclusion until i'm confident I'm ready to stop talking.
Besides that I guess I'm ready to being tackling the next writing project. I honestly don't even know what it's going to be but I'm not really scared of it. I'm actually somewhat looking forward to meeting more people in the the class and seeing what kind skills I can learn from them.
That's all for today folks.
Monday, February 9, 2015
To be honest at this point in the semester I've already lost track of time and can't tell you if this is the fourth or fifth week of the semester. What we do know is that this is my fourth entry about my experiences learning technical communications in a writing class at Arizona State University. A lot has happened and it looks like much more is in the works.
Last week we finished up the first project and began working on our next project which is due one week from today. The Instructions Project is a group project which requires the group members to create directions (instructions) on how to leave a review on a website which the group is assigned.
My group, consisting of two members, will do an instruction set for leaving a review on www.tripadvisor.com. So far we haven't had the best of progress. I received an email from my group partner several hours before class in which she explained that due to illness she would be unable to attend class that day. We were supposed to complete a strategic planning memo together in class that day and my partner was sincerely sorry for putting that burden upon me to complete it on my own. I was glad that she was nice enough to let me know what was going on.
To say I was actually disappointed that I would have to work alone would not be completely true, however. I now realize after reflecting on my class period that working in a group may be something I actually need to work on. Working alone is something I've become very comfortable with and as a result I think I've missed many opportunities to let other people help me out and give me ideas. Many times have I decided to just take charge and do most of the work myself rather then count on others to do it.
So this I figured that this project would be a good chance to help develop my group working skills. That's what the project was designed to do at least. I think.
Anyways, in class I wrote a pretty cool memo. It seems kind of odd to be excited about writing a memo but it was actually interesting to me. I don't think I've ever written a legitimate memo before. Wanting to know more about memos I took a look in the text book to see what I could find about memos.
What I didn't realize until the exercise in class and then reading the text was that a memo was as formal as it is. For some reason I had imagined memos as basically a digital post-it note. Well the one I wrote was way more than that. In Chapter 14 of the text book there's a section about using the proper level or formality (Markel 373). Although I have not put too much thought into this before I can see it's something I do. Many people do it without thinking.
For example, when my group partner emailed me about her absence last class, her composition was moderately formal. Communicating with my group partner has been exclusively formal. This is of course much different than if I were working on a project with a close friend who understands me when I text him or her incomplete sentences and incoherent phrases which only he or she understands due to the scope of our relationship. There was a lot of interesting pro tips in that chapter about writing a good memo.
To better understand this Instructions Project and look for tips I reviewed chapter 20. From looking at the examples of instructions it seems like how the document is graphically organized makes a huge difference. It looks like we will be doing brief instruction in this project so we will at least need skills in writing and graphics but fortunately will probably not need to worry about legal issues.
What will need to be figured out is how to delegate work within the group. In past projects I feel like I've been a bit of a take over and haven't let other members contribute enough. In this project one of my goals is to allow my group partner to have input on what we do and also to let her do her share of the work. I realize that it may be difficult to figure out how to effectively communicate within the group to achieve these goals but I guess that's just part of the assignment and one of the main reasons for this class.
I have a meeting with my group tomorrow and will give an update on how things went next week. Peace.
Last week we finished up the first project and began working on our next project which is due one week from today. The Instructions Project is a group project which requires the group members to create directions (instructions) on how to leave a review on a website which the group is assigned.
My group, consisting of two members, will do an instruction set for leaving a review on www.tripadvisor.com. So far we haven't had the best of progress. I received an email from my group partner several hours before class in which she explained that due to illness she would be unable to attend class that day. We were supposed to complete a strategic planning memo together in class that day and my partner was sincerely sorry for putting that burden upon me to complete it on my own. I was glad that she was nice enough to let me know what was going on.
To say I was actually disappointed that I would have to work alone would not be completely true, however. I now realize after reflecting on my class period that working in a group may be something I actually need to work on. Working alone is something I've become very comfortable with and as a result I think I've missed many opportunities to let other people help me out and give me ideas. Many times have I decided to just take charge and do most of the work myself rather then count on others to do it.
So this I figured that this project would be a good chance to help develop my group working skills. That's what the project was designed to do at least. I think.
Anyways, in class I wrote a pretty cool memo. It seems kind of odd to be excited about writing a memo but it was actually interesting to me. I don't think I've ever written a legitimate memo before. Wanting to know more about memos I took a look in the text book to see what I could find about memos.
What I didn't realize until the exercise in class and then reading the text was that a memo was as formal as it is. For some reason I had imagined memos as basically a digital post-it note. Well the one I wrote was way more than that. In Chapter 14 of the text book there's a section about using the proper level or formality (Markel 373). Although I have not put too much thought into this before I can see it's something I do. Many people do it without thinking.
For example, when my group partner emailed me about her absence last class, her composition was moderately formal. Communicating with my group partner has been exclusively formal. This is of course much different than if I were working on a project with a close friend who understands me when I text him or her incomplete sentences and incoherent phrases which only he or she understands due to the scope of our relationship. There was a lot of interesting pro tips in that chapter about writing a good memo.
To better understand this Instructions Project and look for tips I reviewed chapter 20. From looking at the examples of instructions it seems like how the document is graphically organized makes a huge difference. It looks like we will be doing brief instruction in this project so we will at least need skills in writing and graphics but fortunately will probably not need to worry about legal issues.
What will need to be figured out is how to delegate work within the group. In past projects I feel like I've been a bit of a take over and haven't let other members contribute enough. In this project one of my goals is to allow my group partner to have input on what we do and also to let her do her share of the work. I realize that it may be difficult to figure out how to effectively communicate within the group to achieve these goals but I guess that's just part of the assignment and one of the main reasons for this class.
I have a meeting with my group tomorrow and will give an update on how things went next week. Peace.
As the semester picks up I once again find myself struggle to survive each day. It grows increasingly difficult to wake up in the morning and easier to find dozing off during lectures. Not to mention my addiction to procrastination is getting worse.
So... Writing for professions. I suppose in the profession there's not really a place for procrastination. Things need to be done right and completed properly. People aren't pleased or impressed with work that looks like it was completed last minute. I wonder what the book says about this.
Sure enough... In chapter 4 the book discusses effective ways of writing collaboratively. Under the guidelines for managing your project are listed "plan your project" and "create and maintain an accurate schedule" (Markel 60). I think that if someone like me would actually create and commit to a schedule then I wouldn't have procrastination problems. That's the thing about procrastination I think... I mean look at this blog... I was scheduled to have this written by now and look I did it. At the last minute? Maybe.
But that brings up another topic of managing a project: breaking down the project into several smaller tasks (Markel 60). I think that if I create a schedule that has small parts of a project have deadlines then I would probably get things done on time no problem. I'll hopefully try to employ this strategy in my next project. Maybe I'll report on that in a future post.
Maybe you're wondering about my current project. The Technical Description Project (TDP) which Ive been working on the last week turned out to be more complicated than I imagined. While looking through other example projects it seemed to be that the way the TDP was layed out was very important. Organization.
From the book I found the three principles for organizing technical information (Markel 153). The first one says "analyze your audience and purpose." So I started thinking about that and realized that my first draft for the TDP was kind of poor. I needed to determine who my audience was. Initially I think I wrote it for someone like my grandmother who is not very tech savvy. But I reconsidered thinking that most people are at least somewhat familiar with purchasing things online. So instead of giving a description of how to buy something on Amazon I wanted to show a user some neat function which will make his or her buying experience better.
I think I used good patterns in my TDP. They were at least consistent.
As suggested by Markel I tried to avoid "sexist sentences." I was always taught by my mother that using "he" in a sentence as a pronoun(?) was fine and represented either a male or a female person unless that pronoun was explicitly referenced as a non-female person previously. But I guess it's good to avoid offending anyone in the professional workplace so I'm willing to pour some sugar or cream in his or her coffee if it makes him or her happy.
I thought the section in the book for using the people-first approach was interesting. Basically it's a strategy of naming people by stating that they are persons before describing what kind of persons they might be. That's something I've never thought too much about but it makes a lot of sense.
Anyways I did actually finish the TDP on time and I thought it looked pretty good. The hardest part was deciding what features to include and what to leave out. Amazon is a huge website and there's a lot of material that could potentially have been covered.
Writing the document wasn't too difficult for me. I usually don't struggle too much with getting my thoughts onto the paper. How to people think? I'd like to say I think in the English language and use actual sentences and phrases inside my head when I think. I remember asking my dad about this and he said "yeah sometimes I still think in [his native tongue]..." It's the raw emotions and feelings which are sometimes difficult to think in a language because I don't know the right words to use. But technical stuff doesn't seem too bad.
Anyways I think my limit is up here. Same time next week?
So... Writing for professions. I suppose in the profession there's not really a place for procrastination. Things need to be done right and completed properly. People aren't pleased or impressed with work that looks like it was completed last minute. I wonder what the book says about this.
Sure enough... In chapter 4 the book discusses effective ways of writing collaboratively. Under the guidelines for managing your project are listed "plan your project" and "create and maintain an accurate schedule" (Markel 60). I think that if someone like me would actually create and commit to a schedule then I wouldn't have procrastination problems. That's the thing about procrastination I think... I mean look at this blog... I was scheduled to have this written by now and look I did it. At the last minute? Maybe.
But that brings up another topic of managing a project: breaking down the project into several smaller tasks (Markel 60). I think that if I create a schedule that has small parts of a project have deadlines then I would probably get things done on time no problem. I'll hopefully try to employ this strategy in my next project. Maybe I'll report on that in a future post.
Maybe you're wondering about my current project. The Technical Description Project (TDP) which Ive been working on the last week turned out to be more complicated than I imagined. While looking through other example projects it seemed to be that the way the TDP was layed out was very important. Organization.
From the book I found the three principles for organizing technical information (Markel 153). The first one says "analyze your audience and purpose." So I started thinking about that and realized that my first draft for the TDP was kind of poor. I needed to determine who my audience was. Initially I think I wrote it for someone like my grandmother who is not very tech savvy. But I reconsidered thinking that most people are at least somewhat familiar with purchasing things online. So instead of giving a description of how to buy something on Amazon I wanted to show a user some neat function which will make his or her buying experience better.
I think I used good patterns in my TDP. They were at least consistent.
As suggested by Markel I tried to avoid "sexist sentences." I was always taught by my mother that using "he" in a sentence as a pronoun(?) was fine and represented either a male or a female person unless that pronoun was explicitly referenced as a non-female person previously. But I guess it's good to avoid offending anyone in the professional workplace so I'm willing to pour some sugar or cream in his or her coffee if it makes him or her happy.
I thought the section in the book for using the people-first approach was interesting. Basically it's a strategy of naming people by stating that they are persons before describing what kind of persons they might be. That's something I've never thought too much about but it makes a lot of sense.
Anyways I did actually finish the TDP on time and I thought it looked pretty good. The hardest part was deciding what features to include and what to leave out. Amazon is a huge website and there's a lot of material that could potentially have been covered.
Writing the document wasn't too difficult for me. I usually don't struggle too much with getting my thoughts onto the paper. How to people think? I'd like to say I think in the English language and use actual sentences and phrases inside my head when I think. I remember asking my dad about this and he said "yeah sometimes I still think in [his native tongue]..." It's the raw emotions and feelings which are sometimes difficult to think in a language because I don't know the right words to use. But technical stuff doesn't seem too bad.
Anyways I think my limit is up here. Same time next week?
Once again I'm supplying details about a writing class which I'm
enrolled in at Arizona State University. Last week I talked a little bit
about what technical writing is and my plans on improving my skills in
technical communication. Moving on, this is a new week and there's more
for me to learn and more for me to blog about.
Our first assignment is
called the Technical Description Project (which I may refer to as the TDP later
in this post). It's basically a project where I will introduce a new user
to a website and explain how the website can be useful. It's a bit more
complicated than that... It's all written, and it needs to be
professional. Furthermore I'll need to user the Measures of Excellence in
Technical Communication (page 13) which is honesty, clarity, accuracy, etc...
I got assigned the
website to do my project on which honestly was a big relief for me.
Sometimes projects like this stress me out with making tough decisions
like which site would be best. So it's nice to know that any hardships I
encounter will not be causation for me to blame myself for picking a difficult
website to do the project on. Even better, I got assigned a website which
I'm excited to report on: Amazon.
Amazon.com is of course
one of the biggest online markets. I'm a regular customer and I know a
lot about the site. However explaining the site to a new user isn't
something I've ever really thought about. I guess in this day and age I
kind of expect people to just type in a URL for a webpage and just know how to
navigate the site by following whatever cues are present. To me most sites
are pretty self-explanatory. I didn't need a manual to figure out how
Snowbowl's website worked this last weekend when I wanted to figure out details
about snowboarding there.
After analyzing a
situation which occurred in class and thinking about some experiences I've had
with my own mother I've concluded that this technical writing stuff is actually
really important for some people who for some reason or another are not as self-intuitive
and adventurous on the web as myself.
See in the project we're
supposed to put in some images of the website. Visuals I guess we could
call them. You know, they help people who don't fully understand the descriptive
text and need to be physically shown what we're talking about. Anyways,
out professor asked if everyone knew how to capture those visuals and apply
them to their document. She then proceeded to begin a short tutorial on
how to "print screen" and use the Windows Paint program to crop the
image.
Now I've been using
computers a long time and I'm familiar with this practice. I've done it
several times before until I discovered a much easier way to do it. The
Snipping Tool (which is included on all Windows PCs running Windows 7 or
above).
You're probably
wondering where I'm going with this. Well in class I couldn't just sit by
and watch as an entire classroom was instructed to do something the hard way.
So I spoke up and sure enough not everyone knew about this gem of a
program. So the professor asked me to show the class. I just said,
"uh... You just go to the start menu and type in "snipping tool"
and you should get it..."
Then she was like,
"No... Come up here and show us." For a brief
moment I thought seriously this isn't that hard. But whatever
I went up there and figured how hard can it be to show the class this little
program? Now walking up to the front of the class you could imagine I
didn't have a plan about how I was going to going to give a tutorial on this
program which I can't even remember the last time I used. I was going to
wing it.
Long story short: while
I fully understand the program and what I did on it, I'm pretty sure my demo
went over a few people's heads. My bad.
I probably should have been more technical and descriptive in the demo
process.
But what I learned is
that people don't always know how to wing it when they encounter an unfamiliar
program. Many people have been taught how to use programs and don’t often
figure stuff out on their own. So technical communication is very
important in these circumstances. I can now see where better technical
communication skills would have helped me explain technology to my mother who
many times I've considered to be technologically impaired.
This TDP project reminds
me of the subreddit (a branch of a huge social website) called
r/explainlikeimfive (ELI5) where people who are not educated in a certain field
ask somewhat complicated questions in hope that an expert will give an answer
which he or she can understand. I think I might read up on there to get
inspiration for my assignment.
That's all for today.
My limit's up.
Monday, January 19, 2015
This is a blog about experiences in a writing class I'm enrolled in at Arizona State University. It's also my first blog ever.
Wednesday is my busiest day during the week. After struggling to stay awake in my programming lecture I attempted to revive myself by speeding to my next class on my BMX bike while blasting some good hip-hop through my headphones. That attempt was foiled by the "walk-only zone" which covers a majority of the campus.
For not knowing where the classroom was, arriving with a few minutes to spare was an accomplishment for me. I walked in wearing my over-sized beanie, aviator sunglasses and still bumping some straight up thug music. Needless to say I felt like a champion walking into that classroom.
As I stylishly removed my sunglasses to assess the seating options, I realized that the prime seating (those in the center of the classroom - the area where I would be surrounded people who know how to do things I don't) was already occupied. I took the next best option on the far side of the center row.
Upon removing my headphones I discovered the room to be silent except for the clatter of key stokes and clicking. Sitting behind a computer I did nothing to break the silence and instead logged into the PC just as everyone else seemed to have done.
Soon a woman walked in and introduced herself as the professor. I was very impressed with her professional conduct and relieved that she wasn't a boring speaker. One of the first topics the professor started on was the reason which I was enrolled in the class. My hand shot up immediately when she asked who was there to fulfill a "literacy" requirement. Yep. That was me. Only in there because I had to be there. Although I don't mind writing and reading in general I just wasn't looking forward to another class of essays and reading "literary masterpieces" which I personally thought were uninteresting.
Another topic brought up was what I as a student hoped to learn from the class. As if pre-programmed to say it, I immediately thought "I'm in this class to learn how to read and write better." While I don't think that would have been a wrong answer it seemed to be that our professor was looking for a more explicit answer. So began my quest to find the answer.
In Chapter 1 of the textbook it says that the purpose of the book is to improve the reader's skills of technical communication (page 5). It was at this point I started to question what I actually knew about communication and what the addition of the word "technical" meant to it. It's true that I live in an age where communication technology is better than it's ever been. Despite living in a world where communication is really easy it seems that many people area really bad at it. Myself included. I noticed that when my professor asked a question the class would resort to crude language of which at least 30% was "uh"s , "like"s, "stuff"s, and "things". Really poor word choices that demonstrate undeveloped communication skills in my generation.
Notice that I say "undeveloped" rather than saying that my generation is uneducated. We all know better but we have terrible habits of communicating. I think many of us know how to communicate but choose not to. It's because we don't practice professional communication skills. Much of our communication today (like Facebook and text messaging) is very informal. Even this blog I'm writing isn't the most professional.
In class we discussed how a person improves his or her literacy. If I remember correctly the class agreed that practice is the key. So basically, this class is going to be an opportunity to practice technical communication on a professional level.
But what is "technical communication?" After reading the textbook I still don't really see the importance of adding the adjective "technical" in front of "communication" to refer to reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Searching Google for the definition of the word "technical" I came up with "relating to a particular subject."
Since I'm interested in working in the music industry I'd imagine that technical communication on my part would be know how to talk about recording practices and various uses of audio equipment without confusing my audience. Conversely I would need to be able to understand someone telling me about the capabilities of a new music software program. Technical literacy so to say.
Wednesday is my busiest day during the week. After struggling to stay awake in my programming lecture I attempted to revive myself by speeding to my next class on my BMX bike while blasting some good hip-hop through my headphones. That attempt was foiled by the "walk-only zone" which covers a majority of the campus.
For not knowing where the classroom was, arriving with a few minutes to spare was an accomplishment for me. I walked in wearing my over-sized beanie, aviator sunglasses and still bumping some straight up thug music. Needless to say I felt like a champion walking into that classroom.
As I stylishly removed my sunglasses to assess the seating options, I realized that the prime seating (those in the center of the classroom - the area where I would be surrounded people who know how to do things I don't) was already occupied. I took the next best option on the far side of the center row.
Upon removing my headphones I discovered the room to be silent except for the clatter of key stokes and clicking. Sitting behind a computer I did nothing to break the silence and instead logged into the PC just as everyone else seemed to have done.
Soon a woman walked in and introduced herself as the professor. I was very impressed with her professional conduct and relieved that she wasn't a boring speaker. One of the first topics the professor started on was the reason which I was enrolled in the class. My hand shot up immediately when she asked who was there to fulfill a "literacy" requirement. Yep. That was me. Only in there because I had to be there. Although I don't mind writing and reading in general I just wasn't looking forward to another class of essays and reading "literary masterpieces" which I personally thought were uninteresting.
Another topic brought up was what I as a student hoped to learn from the class. As if pre-programmed to say it, I immediately thought "I'm in this class to learn how to read and write better." While I don't think that would have been a wrong answer it seemed to be that our professor was looking for a more explicit answer. So began my quest to find the answer.
In Chapter 1 of the textbook it says that the purpose of the book is to improve the reader's skills of technical communication (page 5). It was at this point I started to question what I actually knew about communication and what the addition of the word "technical" meant to it. It's true that I live in an age where communication technology is better than it's ever been. Despite living in a world where communication is really easy it seems that many people area really bad at it. Myself included. I noticed that when my professor asked a question the class would resort to crude language of which at least 30% was "uh"s , "like"s, "stuff"s, and "things". Really poor word choices that demonstrate undeveloped communication skills in my generation.
Notice that I say "undeveloped" rather than saying that my generation is uneducated. We all know better but we have terrible habits of communicating. I think many of us know how to communicate but choose not to. It's because we don't practice professional communication skills. Much of our communication today (like Facebook and text messaging) is very informal. Even this blog I'm writing isn't the most professional.
In class we discussed how a person improves his or her literacy. If I remember correctly the class agreed that practice is the key. So basically, this class is going to be an opportunity to practice technical communication on a professional level.
But what is "technical communication?" After reading the textbook I still don't really see the importance of adding the adjective "technical" in front of "communication" to refer to reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Searching Google for the definition of the word "technical" I came up with "relating to a particular subject."
Since I'm interested in working in the music industry I'd imagine that technical communication on my part would be know how to talk about recording practices and various uses of audio equipment without confusing my audience. Conversely I would need to be able to understand someone telling me about the capabilities of a new music software program. Technical literacy so to say.
My limit here is up. To
conclude for today I’ll finish with a well thought answer to the question of
what I’m hoping to get from the class:
In this class I hope to practice the use of technical
communication so that I can express myself more dynamically and understand more clearly the intentions of those who interact with me.
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