1. Project Details:
- Project 3: Annotated Bibliography
- English 7701: Research Methods in Technical and Professional
Communications
- Fall 2012
Description of Document/Assignment:
Critical Reflection:
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
2. Project Details:
- Project 4: Literature Review
- English 7701: Research Methods in Technical and Professional
Communications
- Fall 2012
Description of Document/Assignment:
Critical Reflection:
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
3. Project Details:
- Project 4: Electronic Editing of a Longer Document (Group
Project)
- English 6721: Copyediting in Technical and Professional
Communications
- Fall 2012
Description of Document/Assignment:
Critical Reflection:
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
4. Project Details:
- Assignment #1: Problem Definition Paper
- English 7790: Public Interest Writing
- Spring 2013
Description of Document/Assignment:
Critical Reflection:
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
5. Project Details:
- Poster
- English 6700: Technical Editing and Production
- Spring 2013
Description of Document/Assignment:
Critical Reflection:
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
6. Project Details:
- London Travel Guide
- English 6725: Document Design and Directed Readings in
Technical and Professional Communications
- Summer 2013
Description of Document/Assignment:
Critical Reflection:
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
7. Project Details:
- London Bridge Pub Story
- English 6740/41: Internship in Technical and Professional
Communications
- Summer 2013
Description of Document/Assignment:
Critical Reflection:
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
8. Project Details:
- Qualitative Study
- English 7702: Research Design in Technical and Professional
Communications
- Fall 2013
Description of Document/Assignment:
Critical Reflection:
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
9. Project Details:
- Patchwork Essay Final Project
- English 7765: Cultural Studies in Technical and Professional
Communications
- Fall 2013
Description of Document/Assignment:
Critical Reflection:
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
1. Project Details:
- Project 3: Annotated Bibliography
- English 7701: Research Methods in Technical and Professional Communications
- Fall 2012
Description of Document/Assignment:
Based upon a TPC topic of our choice relevant to career
interests and goals, we summarized research sources to produce an evaluative
annotated bibliography. Our evaluation
identified the scenario, communication problem to be solved, and question to be
answered. The abstract we wrote stated
the subject/purpose, methodology, overview of results, and evaluation of work
to topic.
Critical Reflection:
All of the sources obtained were very interesting and fully
relevant to both my personal interests as well as career goals. I was able to incorporate a diverse array of
sources to meet the activity of Information Connection Technologies and Social
Networking Sites in an effective descriptive manner while also rationalizing
their reason for being included well. My
professor advised that my annotations themselves actually offered very good, smart, critical, evaluative
claims in many instances. This was my first foray into doing citations
in years and I had a time being brief. I
also had issues with describing and summarizing more rather than making strong
evaluative statements. The evaluative
statement proved to be the key to making each work fit in with the sequence of
sources as they were listed in the annotative bibliography.
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
2. Project Details:
- Project 4: Literature Review
- English 7701: Research Methods in Technical and Professional Communications
- Fall 2012
Description of Document/Assignment:
Based upon a TPC topic of our choice relevant to career
interests and goals, we synthesized research sources to produce a literature
review. Like the annotated bibliography,
it contained a scenario indicating a communication problem to be solved and
question to be answered. The document
itself was a body of works synthesizing and interpreting the literature
read.
Critical Reflection:
This document brought the annotated bibliography to
life. I enjoyed weaving them together to
find their common threads in order to make them tell a story. I had careful notes from my annotations so it
wasn’t as rough and I began to see why having such careful annotations were
pivotal to whatever research focus you have.
It was interesting because you can use the threads to design whatever
evidence you need to support your research.
I didn’t like it because it took so long to do, but it was still natural
“drawing board” writing feeling for me to cut all of the information I’d
researched and then paste it back together so that it flowed together. It gave me more perspective seeing all of the
pieces in one document versus just left as annotations and the feedback from
the review was immensely valuable to me as I ponder my career direction.
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
3. Project Details:
- Project 4: Electronic Editing of a Longer Document (Group Project)
- English 6721: Copyediting in Technical and Professional Communications
- Fall 2012
Description of Document/Assignment:
This was the final course project completed in a group on a
longer document provided by the course instructor. The project had several parts: preparation of
a style guide, completion of a comprehensive edit based on the style guide,
interaction with the “author” or client, corrections made to the document and
queries written to the author about any issues, preparation of a table of
contents, preparation of a memo discussing our editorial decisions.
Critical Reflection:
This was one of my least favorite projects in the
course. The first reason is that not all of my teammates had the same priority in terms of attending to the project with timeliness. I
don’t like procrastination and I prefer to work with people who make their projects a priority. I struggled in this course because I wanted
to be better than I was prepared to be.
As soon as I took ENGL 6700: Technical Editing and Production, I learned
so much that could have made me more successful and comfortable in ENGL
6721. I feel like I had a disadvantage
to those who had tremendous experience with styles or were aware of the terms
and techniques we learned in 6700, which I took in the following semester. Another reason I struggled with this project
was that it was about creating a boiler manual.
I realize that with any professional project, you have to have to focus
on creating quality content and information design for the client, but as the daughter of a builder I know many colorful characters from those job
sites who don’t read manuals like the one we designed. As a result, I had issues with the amount of time
and effort that had to into creating such a polished professional product. It turned out well once all was said, done,
and submitted, but I did not enjoy the process as much as hoped.
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
4. Project Details:
- Assignment #1: Problem Definition Paper
- English 7790: Public Interest Writing
- Spring 2013
Description of Document/Assignment:
The policy-making process begins with and is driven by
defining the problem one wishes to address via a policy-based approach. We were to select a problematic topic to research,
describe its influential conditions and interests, provide a history of prior
governmental action or inaction, and present a persuasive argument concerning
proposing solutions.
Critical Reflection:
I had no idea what a challenge it would be to select a topic
and my professor had to talk me down from female genital mutilation in Africa
and Muslim sects, illiteracy in poverty-stricken countries, sex trafficking
around the world, and domestic violence and sexual assault in the American
military to something a little more local and possible to accomplish in one
semester. I still struggled. But, after talking to an engineer friend I
learned that water was an issue which many people look at as being unlimited, but
it is something that is needed, must be accessible, and must be managed. At last, I was intrigued and excited about something that concerns everyone and was very worthwhile. This assignment got me more interested in
government and nonprofit work. It also
gave me a taste of how unresponsive those in government could be. In that regard, I loved it and I hated it at
the same time. In some regards, this
course and this project lit the fire that’s burning inside of me right now to
go make serious legislative change.
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
5. Project Details:
- Poster
- English 6700: Technical Editing and Production
- Spring 2013
Description of Document/Assignment:
Creation of a poster, designed for the workplace, which
explained how to effectively use graphs in presentations and written
material. Assumptions are that no one
will be standing next to the poster and it would probably end up hanging in a
break room or hallway at work.
Critical Reflection:
Despite the level of detail covered in this course, I still
struggle with knowing how best to use color and am lacking in software
exposure. That’s not a detriment to the
course content or the professor though.
That’s something that will come with time, application, and
experience. I would like to know how to
use Illustrator and Publisher for designing productions like this. This was definitely a project that should be
repeated in every tech design course henceforth though. The final product was worthy enough to be
included in my collection of samples that I use in showing off my design work
though.
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
6. Project Details:
- London Travel Guide
- English 6725: Document Design and Directed Readings in Technical and Professional Communications
- Summer 2013
Description of Document/Assignment:
We were to research, design, and produce a visitor’s guide
focusing on a thematically unified set of London sites or attractions. We selected a theme, identified theme-related
public sites in and around London, and conducted field research on those
sites. Then we applied course-developed
principles of document design, visual rhetoric, usability, and style to design
and produce a Travel Guide to the selected sites. The travel guides were due a couple weeks
after the trip) and were to be accompanied by a cover memo describing and
justifying our design choices.
Critical Reflection:
I really loved this project and readily selected
gardens and parks as my theme. London is
a large city, but it is also very scenic and I wanted to share that. I hated that I didn’t have enough time both
in London and upon return to garner enough detail and imagery from the
sites. I also wanted to spend more time
in the gardens and parks. All images
incorporated aside from some banner images were taken with my own camera. All text aside from some of the text written
in the section intros was my own wording.
I had to do research about each district of London that I was profiling
though. Time again flew by too quickly
upon my return from London so before I knew it my design needed to be done. I’d never really tried to incorporate borders
into a design before and had trouble with it.
For the most part, I was happy with how it turned out, but I always want
my work to be better. This was no
different.
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
7. Project Details:
- London Bridge Pub Story
- English 6740/41: Internship in Technical and Professional Communications
- Summer 2013
Description of Document/Assignment:
The Triangle Downtowner Magazine does a monthly Nightlife
feature. The magazine was also trying to
give more of a personal story to its advertisers. My publisher assigned me the task of
interviewing the owner of London Bridge Pub and get details on how the pub came
to be, their patio, the dog friendly atmosphere, the football (soccer)
excitement, and more.
Critical Reflection:
This assignment could not have been more fitting since I had
just returned from London. I’d been to
this pub a couple times too. Just like
reaching government officials, reaching the owner of a bar also proved to be a
challenge, but finally we played text tag and I arrived only for there to be a mixup of appointments on his busy calendar. We laughed about
it, soon a drink was before me and we were sitting on the patio with his
PR/social media maven to monitor the interview. I got him to chat
rather casually about his beloved dog, football, his desire for a family
atmosphere at a pub, and his vision for growing the business with his “bezzie
mate” who was soon to return from Afghanistan.
Then, he requested to see a copy of the story before it was published,
which isn’t typical, so I felt a little unnerved although happy with my copy. The only thing I didn’t like was when the
recorder stopped more than half way through, but I knew I’d gotten the story
right with my memory and notes – both which are particularly strong; however, we still needed to check the facts first since the owner had been anxious
to see it before it went to press. It’s
gotten me some good recognition and I loved the interview process. The next time I saw the owner I asked him
what he thought and he said, “well done, you, thanks” just like one of my mates
back in London.
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
- - -
8. Project Details:
- Qualitative Study
- English 7702: Research Design in Technical and Professional Communications
- Fall 2013
Description of Document/Assignment:
Much like with Research Methods, we were to pick a topic
relevant to technical communication to explore in a qualitative study. The study would involve direct people contact
and could not be a discourse analysis or a survey, although it could include
them in addition to the observational methods.
We were to collect data for the study upon observing how people do
something. An introduction, literature
review, methods, and analysis section were all key components.
Critical Reflection:
We all struggled to select a topic for the project. Once I selected user guides, I figured I
could passively observe participants talking aloud through their interaction
with the guides, provide them with a chart to make notes on for getting written
responses in their own words, and then survey them after to get direct prompted
feedback. Doing the actual observations
was both fun and tedious at the same time.
I was intrigued by each individual’s responses. I noted that my participants really wanted to
understand the concepts even if the content was outside of their scope of
familiarity. I actually enjoyed the
process, but writing it up took quite a long time and including the chart
seemed to be more of a punishment to myself.
Ultimately, having the literature review, observations (notes and
video), written notes from participants, and survey, seemed to give my study
the most triangulation and credibility.
It paid off. When I submitted my
draft, I was advised that I had a good pilot and if I ran 10 – 15 more than it
would be something publishable or a good thesis. Now, I have no interest in going through with
a thesis, but getting that kind of feedback after running my study with only
five participants tempted me to run it with ten more just to get it
published.
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
9. Project Details:
- Patchwork Essay Final Project
- English 7765: Cultural Studies in Technical and Professional Communications
- Fall 2013
Description of Document/Assignment:
After opening our semester with an identity narrative, we
were asked to revisit that narrative at the end of the semester in light of our
readings and discussions. The way to
revisit this narrative was to perform some sort of collage / patchwork essay /
piece that incorporated thoughts about the semester, and research vignettes
where we interacted with pieces from our midterm annotated bibliography and
story interludes that tell specific events or moments from both our personal
and professional lives.
Critical Reflection:
I didn’t want to write just another narrative about my
life. I wanted to explore a topic that
had surfaced in our discussions and readings that resonated with me. Feminism and feminist rhetoric spoke to me
and I selected that as my topic. I
submitted a hefty proposal and was able to accomplish nearly all of it after
conducting a 6-week study using my personal blog as a platform to engage with
others and goodreads literature log to track my progress in collecting literary
sources. As it stands, I was able to
define feminism, include a two-part series of “feminism according to others,”
explore Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn’s “Half the Sky Movement,” analyze “Everyday
Feminism” on Twitter, delve into feminism as it is explored on YouTube, look
into women’s apologizing and other behavior patterns, assess women in the
workplace, identify some feminist icons, create a feminism reading list, and
more. Each post incorporated some sort
of imagery and I was proud to further explore both my own perspective as well
as others’ perspectives on feminism. I’d
love to revisit this later on and potentially publish my exploration.
Rating:
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Highly Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Highly Satisfied
Document:
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