Chapter 7.

Chapter 7 put a great emphasis on visuals.  It breifly talked about tables, graphs and charts. it explained the basic funtions that they served, and why they were important. the section on icons and symbols caught my attention. When creating an icon or symbol, you must account for your audience. Symbols and icons are important for large populations that may not speak one universal language. For example, a symbol of a skull-and-crossbones image means "danger" or "warning". This is something people from most cultures will understand right away. It is helpful, becuase there gemerally aren't any language barriers associated with these items.

Chapters 4 and 5

Starting with chapter 4, the first thing that caught my attention was audience. This chapter mentioned that there were essentially two different types of audiences. The first audience--the primary audience-- is more geared towards an immediate audience. Those are the people you immediately trying to convince.  An example of that could be a professor teaching students. The next phase was the secondary audience. These people constitute of everybody outside of the immediate audience. In regards to the last example, the secondary audience could be another faculty member coming into the class room to observe the lecture.

Chapter 5 was much different from chapter 4. It seemed to put an extreme emphasis on writing structure. One thing that I got out of this chapter was the importance of overviews.  Overviews are generally used for longer, more complex documents.  It is essentially a preview, so your readers will know what to expect from your document. It simply states: what the purpose of the document is; why the individual should read it; and what knowledge they will gain from reading this document. It is an essential part of a document that should be included in any lengthy document.

Ethnography

Ethnography is a hard concept to interpret. It is essentially a recording or sampling of different social settings. I found it interesting how ethnography is becoming more prevalent in the more recent forms of technological and social settings. Ethnographers have to try to understand their external settings, and make sense of everything that confronts them. I found interesting how one of the articles stated that ethnography is not a sufficient practice for software engineers. It said that we aren't ready to perform ethnographic studies in trades like that, because it is a fairly new field that is still going through its stages of infancy. Basically this field lacks experience that other fields typically have.  Another thing that struck me was the time involved. Ethnograpy is best when sufficient time is given, and the number of participants is generally small. It is a long process that generally looks for qualitative data--over quantitative data-- within a study. Ethnographers typically want the most in-depth information that they can get their hands on. That is why they will always take quality, over quantity.

Chapter 13

The main topic that this chapter dealt with was instructions. Instructions are great for furthering a persons knowledge about something, in a clear and concise way. One thing that I agreed with was need for warning signs. Warning signs are vital for any product that could have the potential of adversely affecting an individual. Instructions may be self-explanitory for some people, but for others, having that vital information at their disposal is crucial. Not everybody is going to point out the obvious, and as a writer, you must keep this in mind at all times. Another thing you must do is try to make your bullet points as short and clear as possible. It is very likely that the people who are reading an instructions manual, are trying to read and perform a desired task at the same time. So, if you make the directions long and confusing, your audience will more than likely be ineffective when trying to complete the certain task. Clarity is an essential ingredient for a successful instructions manual.

People, People, People.

The main thing this chapter wanted to emphasize was audience. First off, it mentioned right off the bat that narrowing down terms will often drive people away. For example, if you write a website for people in the financial world, but refer to your audience as "bankers" only, you are leaving out everybody else who might be interested. It is much better to be broad in this instance, than concise. By reading this, I also realized how much work it takes to reach the general consensus. You have to interview people, give out questionnaires, and so on. You need a lot of input to make sure that you are reaching out to the audience as a whole.  Plus you have to keep in mind the language of the audience. Terminology is very important. If you know your audience well, then you can use vocabulary words or certain phrases that are more suitable for them. This will make your audience more comfortable and engaged overall.

Color Theory Response.

This reading brought up many interesting points. The thing I found most interesting was how they mentioned certain colors had certain meanings, or send a certain message. One example was the color black. He stated that the color black is usually associated with maturity. Two examples he gave us were limos and tuxedos. When I think of those two things, I often associate them with power and maturity.  Another color he talked about was the color blue. When I think about the color blue, the word "calm" comes to mind. This is mainly because the color blue is associated with beaches or the sky.  That is why many travel companies use blue backgrounds in their advertisements or commercials.

Chapter 2 Reflection.

I thought that the cultural perspective section in this chapter was interesting. This is because the book pointed out many instances where engaging in a certain action can offend someone from another culture. It reminded me that all cultures have to be accounted for; you have to take into the other persons background. Different people respond to issues or problems in different manners.

Examples of technical writing

There are many examples of technical writing. Two examples that stand out to me most are: memos and manuals. These two stand out to me because they are both generally very short and concise. These two forms of writing generally try to make things very straight forward for their readers. When reading a manual or a memo, there is much less bulk. When trying to convey a message, is getting to the point in a quick manner is important. Because if you don't, you can lose your audiences' attention fairly quickly.

When I think of a form of writing that is not directly related to technical writing, I generally think of novels or poems. Obviously, these are forms of writing are very different from one another. Novels typically are longer and very descriptive, while poems are generally short and less informative. I usually associate reading a novel or writing a poem as a hobby, or something you would do in your leisure time. Technical writing is generally known to be much more professional, and useful in the workforce. I believe that that is the main barrier when trying to differentiate between these two forms of writing.

Weekly reflection: chapter 1

I found the 1st chapter to be very informative and enlightening. In this first chapter, it mentioned how e-mails are becoming much more prevalent throughout the business world. Twenty years ago, memos were used widely and often, but today it seems as if more and more people are making the switch to the more convenient and less time consuming forms of communication. Those reasons alone have made the modern day e-mail a phenomenon. Technical writing can comprise of many different forms of writing. Learning about all of these different styles of writing was the most challenging aspect for me. Technical writing is usually concise and to the point. Knowing this, you almost have to automatically expell the idea of linking technical writing with writing an essay or novel. Those two forms of writing are lengthy and generally take a great of deal of description to get their points across to the audience. This is not the case with technical writing, and as the year goes on,  I hope to become more and more familarized with the general concept of "technical writing".

Defining technical writing

In my opinion, technical writing is a straight-foward and concise explanation that deals with a particular technical subject.

My blog

Overall I will keep this blog brief and to the point. I will try as often as I can to add pictures and images to this blog. In my opinion, pictures can help make a piece of writing one hundred times more clear and transparent. I also want to try to use different colors throughout this process, because I believe that people are generally tired of reading black and gray colored text. When text is presented in a different color, people will be more likely be attracted to it. If you were to ask me, I would say that blue is more appealing than gray or black. I will also try to play around with other different fonts. Like I mentioned before,  I hope that the fonts I choose are more appealing than that of  the norm.  I will try to stay away from the very generic "Arial" font as much as possible. Overall,  I hope that the experience that I gain from this blog helps me become more familiarized with the always evolving technological world.