Welcome Students!
I like to congratulate you for taking the first step in helping make your life little easier, as new technical writing students, by visiting this weblog site. This can be a simple tool to help you accomplish your assignments without being overwhelm. I have posted several different assignments that you will have to complete yourself this semester. I know that it would have helped me plan how I did my assignments and the grade I got with plenty of past examples of the assignments. This weblog should be a place that you should visit quite often this semester.
In my college experience, there have been many different writing techniques taught to me. Every professor or college seems to have a different guideline they use. At the beginning of the technical writing class, I was very confused. I had to learn to integrate what I got from all my other classes and use it for this one. The technical writing class helped me learn to write so many different professional documents I will use in the future. I know that it would also be helpful for you in your future career.
My professor did provide help throughout the semester. The writing center in the English building is another place that can help you. My biggest advice for you and any other new students is to take advantage of any help that is provided to you. It will help with accomplishing your assignments efficiently. You will more than likely receive a good grade.
This weblog is here to give you an extra advantage for this class. I have already gone through the process of trying to write these assignments. The examples posted on here will allow you to have a simple guide to writing your own. I have also posted a reflection for each assignment. The reflection is about what the assignment is about. It also contains my thoughts and advice on each assignment. The weblog has the assignment posted from the first assignment you will do this semester to the last one. You can either click on the example after each reflection or simply use the category menu for the assignment you need to look at. After taking this class, I know that I am able to help you and anyone else with writing a resume, formal memo, job letter, or even a proposal report. I know that I will be able to write very professional documents in my career. I hope that my examples, guidelines, and tips will help you write with a better understanding for each assignment.
word count: 428
Resume and Job Letter
The first major assignment you would have to do is the resume and job letter. For those who have been keeping up with a resume, you have a good advantage. This is because you will not have to put all your work experiences together at this time, it’s already done. It is also a big advantage because you have the experience of writing a resume already. This assignment will help you tremendously in seeking a job after college.
First, you have to decide on what profession you will be applying for. It could be one you plan to actually work in one day. It could also just be a career you pick for this assignment. This is because you may not have decided on what profession you truly want to be in yet. You should then collect information about the company or position you are seeking for this assignment. You also need to specifically find a person or department that will be handling your resume. You also need to find an example of a resume in your profession. After you have completed all of these tasks, you will be able to write your resume, job letter, and thank you letter.
The resume you create will be based off your example resume you found in the profession you chose. You are using this as a guide because it is a resume that is appropriate for your profession. The resume should first contain some basic personal information as in your name, address, university you attended, etc. You then need to put your work experience in the order of the most present to the oldest one. If you do not have a lot of work experience or even none, use some related coursework. My resume is based on a retail buyer’s resume. It contains specific job descriptions that relates to this profession. I have also made use of the entire page. You should not leave so much white space on your resume. I also kept it organized by using a consistent format and font. I did not want to clutter the page up. The employer that reads your resume wants to have something easy look at. They will have plenty of resumes to go through so your resume should not be something hard to read. It could easily be thrown aside.
The job letter is a professional letter to the specific employer that will be reading your resume. It should contain research about the company. You want to let the employer know what position you are applying for. The job letter should also highlight some of your qualifications that will help you excel in this position. It should also have a little bit of weakness that you can explain on how it will work towards this position. The weakness could be something that will be improved by getting that particular position. The end of the letter should also contain a “call to action.” This is just a few statements containing when you be in contact with them again and make sure your information is correct.
The last part of this assignment is a thank you letter. This is simply to be professional and show that you are truly interested in the job. You should remind them who you are. It should have anything in the interview that you feel that will make you stand out or need to be clarified.
I want to strongly advise you to use all the resources given to you and make sure you have a good editing strategy.
word count: 590
Formal Memo
The second major assignment is the formal memo. In my opinion this assignment is a little easier than the resume and job letter assignment. There are three types of memos you have to choose from. They are informative, analytic, and recommendation. The informative memo is very easy to do compare to the others. A formal memo is basically using one of these styles to convey your message in a professional manner.
First, you need to decide on the memo you are planning to write. You will have to use the memo worksheet to help you decide what topic and style you are using. This exercise will also provide your professor with an idea of your formal memo. The memo will inform the reader what the topic is and why is it important to them. The formal memo will have a specific goal. Like every assignment, the formal memo needs to have the proper heading or salutation that is needed in it. You need to make sure you have the correct spacing for the entire memo, basically a consistent format.
I chose an informative memo. My memo is address to a store manager at one of my jobs. It is informing her about a merchandise floor move. I provided information concerning this topic. I wrote about what is expected for this move. I also wrote out my suggestions I had for a plan and why it was important to her. I explain in detailed my plan to her and how it would be an effective plan. I had a professional format and specific goal in the memo. I found this assignment to be very helpful to me. It was actually something that I used during my time with that particular employer.
During this course, you will be expected you write a lot of memos. You will benefit from writing this memo. You become familiar with how a memo is constructed. At first, I thought these memos were a lot complicated. As the semester went on, I felt that they were not that hard to do. The biggest challenge I had was editing my work. I did not do a good job of going over my work and catching the grammatical errors or typos. Many of my classmates also had a big problem with editing their work as well. I think the best solution is to have your professor help edit your paper. I strongly suggestion you take advantage on any in class help and office hours. Editing will be something that I will constantly remind you about in each assignment. It is something that can decide if you will receive an A or a C.
word count: 444
Instructions Selection Memo
Following the formal memo, you will have to work on the instructions selection memo. The instructions selection memo should not be too much of a challenge for you. The last assignment should have given you some practice with writing memos. At this point in the semester for me, I was starting to understand the importance of writing a memo. I also started to be more comfortable with writing one as well.
The instructions selection memo assignment requires you to select a set of instructions for anything. The goal of this assignment is to be a tool to help you start planning for your instruction analysis paper. The set of instruction you choose can be for a toy, a procedure, or anything else you want to write about.
I looked at many different instructions to things I had at home and online. I finally had decided on a set on instructions to make a kite. All I needed to do at this point with the instruction was to print it out to hand in. The real work was writing the memo. My memo consisted of information that would be useful to the professor about my instruction. My memo answered certain questions on how it could be relevant to my major, the goal of the instructions, the audience, etc. I had to also write about how I was going to test my instructions. I will explain about the testing more in the instructions analysis assignment. I also included any feedback I should make my professor be aware of. My memo was typed with a proper format. I used headings for each section of memo to make it more organize and easy to read. I typed my heading according to the instructions posted by the professor. This memo explains what I plan and my goals are for what I want to accomplish for my instructions analysis paper.
This assignment does not have as much writing to do as in your first one of others to come. You still need to make sure that you get your memo edited before you turn it in. This is, once again, a key part of having a good paper. You also need to be sure that you follow all the instructions from your professor. Like editing, following the instructions exactly the way it is asked also affects your grade. Your memo maybe free of errors and typos, but does not have the heading the way you were asked. This can cause you to get the grade you didn’t think you deserve. I, myself, have done this and it was a difference between an A and a B. I would have rather received an A, but my heading was incorrect. So be sure to follow directions exactly.
word count: 459
Instructions Analysis
The instruction analysis is what will be produce from all the planning you had with the instruction selection memo. First, there needs to be a clear goal on what you expect from your instructions. This should have been decided from the previous memo or it could have been changed since then to make the overall assignment easier. You will have to do some usability testing with the set of instructions you chose. You will need at least two testers for the assignment. You can use the usability testing worksheet that has been provided to write down your result. It is a worksheet that has already been formatted for you. It also has questions already on there that will help you write about the results in the memo.
My instruction analysis originally had a goal of just to see if the testers can make a kite. After getting some advice from the instruction selection memo, it was changed. I decided that my goal was based on the difficulty level of the instructions. I simply tested how hard it was to follow the instructions. I had a father and son for one of my testers. I also had a mom and daughter as my other testers. I gave them the set of instructions and stepped back and let them read it themselves. I study how hard it was for them to read the directions to complete the task correctly and efficiently. After all these results were collected, I put it all into my instruction analysis.
My instruction analysis was set up like a lot of my other memos. It is about the overall instructions and process that was taken throughout this assignment. It had to be address to the professor as my audience. I came up with different categories to write about in my analysis. The analysis was about the set of instructions, the purpose, and the audience. I then wrote about my results on how difficult it was or not for my two set of testers. I discussed the interactions between the child and parent when the read the directions. I also wrote about how long it took them to make the kite based on the instructions given to them. The result was that the instructions did not have a high difficulty level. Both set of testers finished making the kite pretty easily.
At the end the analysis, I felt like this was not as difficult as I originally assumed it would be. I just had to follow the instructions given to me. At this time, I still was not getting as much editing help as I needed. Here’s my reminder again. Have a good editing strategy. You may not be able just to rely on yourself.
word count: 456
Proposal Plan Memo
The proposal plan memo is the start of one of the biggest assignment for this course. We put into groups of three to four members. My group consisted of Ely Martinez, Jasmine Flores, and Thomas Beaumont. This why in other assignments, regarding the group project, there are individual works from them for examples. I was not too sure about a group project because of the fact that my grade will be relying on three other people’s contributions and skills.
The proposal plan memo asks for your group to let the professor know what will be your group’s topic, who is it for, and how will your group complete it. It discusses why this topic is a problem. Your will also need to talk about how this problem is relevant to a specific audience. The audience should be someone very easy for your group to gear directly towards. It will make it a much easier process if you do this. Your group could also discuss on the workload or position assigned to each group member.
In my group proposal plan we decided on the proposal to implement a sex education program in Lubbock Independent School District. We focused our attention on Amanda Eldredge, a health educator for Texas Tech, as our audience. We described in our memo the current problem that is relating to this topic and our solution. The memo also has a chart of how we are delegating certain tasks and goals for this project. Your group can actually create a chart or anything else that would let the professor know how you guys are delegating things. One of the best decisions we made was to create our own weblog on WordPress to communicate with each other. We are all very busy with jobs and other courses. This was a great way to post any comments and work to each other. It helped us tremendously.
Your groups should want to start being organized from this point on. It will help with the process of writing the final report. We had a plan on our memo on delegating responsibilities, but it changed as we were further into our project. This is actually fine if your plan changes. You will start to learn what strengths each group member has, causing a shift in responsibilities. This first memo for the project is just creating a framework for the report and presentation that will be due later. The memo should be edited for and grammatical errors and typos. There are about two to three other students that are able to help you with editing now. I still recommend you also have a reliable person outside your group edit the memo. We did not take advantage of our professor’s help in the beginning of the group project. This reflected in our grades. We were all not happy with a couple of the grades we first received. Then we decided a group to use our professor as our editing strategy. Your group should actually do this from the beginning. Your group would probably receive better grades than we did from the start.
word count: 517
Proposal Outline and Progress Memos
By now, you should have a clear and specific idea of what you want to do for the proposal report. Your group now has to create some kind of outline of how your report will look. The outline will mainly show the professor what the report will consist of. The outline will not only be a guide for the professor by for the group as well. The outline can be in any form that is easiest for the group. A cover memo also has to be turned in with the outline. The cover memo is a brief summary of what you guys have done, any problems, and what else has to be done. Then there also has to be individual progress memos by each group member. The progress memo gives each member a chance to also write about the current status of the report and any problems the group is having.
My group created a fairly simple outline that showed every section we will have in the report. We used this outline and created a template for the report. By using a template, it made it easier to go back in just put in information to each section. It also kept the report to stay consistent instead of each person using a different font or spacing. At this time, we already knew what we wanted to write in each section. We went ahead and put typed it in the outline. We went ahead and placed it in the outline. Our cover letter had basic information about the project. We wrote about our audience mainly in this cover letter. We explained our plan to approach her with the proposal. We also talked about how she would be the better person to talk the LISD school board. The last thing wrote about was what we will provided her with. All of our individual progress memos were about the same. We all spoke about what the group has done and any type of problems, like our personal schedules.
This assignment was where my group and I learned the hard way that we have to come up with a better editing strategy them ourselves. We had the professor edit our cover letter. We did not think there was a need to have all of our individual memos edited. The cover letter was great after corrections from editing. Our memos were full of grammatical errors and awkward sentences. All of our memos affected the overall grade that we got on this assignment. We didn’t ask questions and got all the help that was available. We were all pretty disappointed about the grade. You and your group need to ask any questions you guys feel that will benefit your project. You should also use the power point presentations and textbook to help you continue working on your report.
word count: 472
Happy Le - Individual Progress Memo
Ely Martinez – Individual Progress Memo
Jasmine Flores – Individual Progress Memo
Thomas Beaumont – Individual Progress Memo
Proposal Rough Draft and Progress Memos
This assignment is where you and your group should have your all your information already collected and is putting it all together. The rough draft should have almost everything written out as a report. If you and your group used a template, like we did, it should not be hard to go back and write parts of your report. This is simply a version that resembles the group’s final report that the professor should expect. The professor will expect you to turn this in with a cover memo and individual progress memos as well.
We had used a template for our report. This made it easier when each one of us had an assigned section of the report to write. Each member just opened the template and added in their written sections. We were also able organize all the research we had very quickly into our rough draft. As a group, we thought it was the smartest thing to treat this rough draft as if it was our final report. This would allow us to finish faster. We wanted to be able to have time to get it edited and plan for the presentation to the class. We all could not go to our professor’s office hours. One of our group members was able to take our work to office hours to get it edited. Your group could do the same thing if not everyone is able to go see the professor for extra help. We also finally took more advantage to in class time for help. This time we all had our individual progress edited in class and the cover memo. We figured the person that is grading our work was probably the best person to help edit our papers.
The cover memo and the individual memo is something you should be use to by now. The cover memo is about the report itself. We talked about our audience and what we actually have in our rough draft. You and your group will be able to actually use answers from the other memos that answered the same questions as this one. My group just rewrote the answers to the same questions as in our previous memo. This saved a lot of time and stress. The individual memo at in this assignment is another chance for any member to voice their concerns about the report our group itself. After you finish this assignment, you are very close to the end.
word count: 410
Happy Le – Individual Progress Memo
Ely Martinez – Individual Progress Memo
Jasmine Flores – Individual Progress Memo
Thomas Beaumont – Individual Progress Memo
Formal Group Proposal Report
The formal group report is the fifteen page report your group has to now turn in. This is the final product of you and your group’s hard work. The report should be completely stapled together. If your group had a rough draft edited by the professor or anyone else, turn it in with the final report. The day your report is due should be also when you give your group presentation. The presentation can be done in any form you want as long as it is appropriate and conveys the message of your proposal report. You can do something from a skit to a power point presentation. Your group is required to have a handout for the class. The presentation will be graded by your fellow peers. I want to advise you to look at the grading sheet that has been provided for you online before you present.
My group actually had a total of seventeen pages in our proposal report. Our professor said that was fine. He said he would just stop reading at one point. Our overall report was a simple read. It provided Amanda Eldredge with all tools she would need to understand our message. It also provided her with information to present to the school board. We had a lot of statistics in our report due to the subject we chose. We did have our group member Jasmine to go get our rough draft edited before it was due. We then corrected and errors that was there. We had to turn in that rough draft with our final report so the professor can see the editing that was done. It was a huge relief to finish the report. When I look back at the whole process, it wasn’t that hard. It did take some time to do but was not something that should have overwhelmed us. I know that you will also look back at it and feel the same way.
Our presentation was a power point presentation. We each had equal amount of time to talk. We also had a handout with facts regarding our topic. There was one thing that did cause us to get a lower grade than we should have gotten. On the handout, our heading was left off. This is why I want to make sure you and your group pays close attention to the instructions, even the very basic stuff. I was very proud our work and presentation. I thought we actually did a very good job overall.
word count: 418
Proposal Report Summary Memos and Presentation Handout
This last assignment for the course is to summarize your group project and reflect on the process overall. This will be all written in your proposal report summary. You will also be required to turn in a copy of your group’s presentation handout. On this day that you turn your assignment, you will receive your group proposal report and the presentation grade back. You will also receive your classmate’s grading sheet your group.
The proposal report summary is also an individual memo. It was our very last chance to be honest about the group. Every member in my group got along very well. We learned how to work with each other in a positive manner really fast. You can look at the examples I posted from my other team members and myself below. My summary spoke about how our group got along so well. There were very few issues among our group. We were able to joke around with each other and still got our work done. The only issue we had was that we didn’t have a specific leader in the beginning. I briefly wrote about how sometimes we ended all trying to delegate at the same time. That would be the only thing I might have changed. Even though this is your last memo, you should still take it seriously and have it edited. You need to make sure you have the proper heading that has been asked for. This is still a graded paper that will affect your overall course grade.
We got to look at the grades that our classmates gave us. I think this was little awkward because people were wondering why they got graded by each other poorly. I did think it was nice to read their comments they made for our presentation. It allowed us to see what we could have done a little different. Overall, our group received pretty good grades. I was very happy about our overall performance as a group.
This project turned out to be something very interesting to do. The professor did tell us that this whole project is also a big exercise to see how well we can work in a group. In most of our careers, we will have to do some sort of group work. This was help in practicing for our future. I really enjoyed the group members I had for this project. I can tell you that we have all remained friends after this project. I hope that you have had a good experience with your group. I hope that you will take away the same understanding and appreciation I did for this project and class.
word count: 443
Happy Le – Individual Summary Memo
Ely Martinez – Individual Summary Memo
Jasmine Flores – Individual Summary Memo
Thomas Beaumont – Individual Summary Memo
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