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.