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.