Sunday, May 1, 2016
Introduction to Technical Communication
Hello everyone,
My name is Yagmur and welcome to my blog. I'm taking a "Writing for Engineers" class which requires me to create a technical communication blog as a final assignment. In this class, we use Markel's Technical Communication book. Markel is a great source to understand technical communication. What is a technical communication? It means to communicate about technical topics such as a computer engineer talking about coding by using specific terms in his field. As we all know, most of the engineers work with different group of people to solve problems or design new products. This is where the technical communication comes into play in an engineer's life. It is very important to gain these communication skills in order to be successful at working with people.
On my blog, I will be posting some of the assignments that we had from Writing for Engineers class.
Enjoy.
Analytical Assessment
On Tuesday 4/11, when I checked my blog’s statistics, it was reviewed by two people. My most viewed post for that day was the self-assessment. On Wednesday 4/12, my blog’s visitors were 7. I was really surprised with the increase in the number, but then I realized that probably most of these visitors were from the Writing for Engineers class since I posted my blog’s URL on Blackboard. For that day, five people reviewed my Introduction post, two reviewed Self-Assessment. On Saturday 4/16 when I checked by blog’s statistics, I had 3 new pageviews since Wednesday. Two of these viewed my Introduction post and one reviewed Complaint Letter that I posted. On Sunday 4/17, my pageviews were 5. I was surprised with the sudden increase in the number because there is only one-day difference. Three of these viewed my Introduction post, one viewed Self-Assessment and one viewed Fracking. If I look at a weekly statistics of the pageviews by the browsers from April 11-April 18, 91% (22 people) of these viewers accessed by blog trough Google Chrome, 4% Mozilla Firefox and 1% through Safari. Likewise looking at the statistics of the pageviews by the operating systems, 66% of the viewers used Windows, 16% used Linux, 2% used Macintosh, 8% used Unix. These statistics also show that Google Chrome is the most popular browser and Windows is the most used operating system. In addition, my most viewed posts are Introduction and Self-Assessment so far. I think this shows that usually the first thing people check on a blog is the introduction.
Business Correspondence
Mr. David Geffen
CEO of MAC Cosmetics
Topeka, KS 1666
I am Ashley Moore, CEO of Urban Decay cosmetics. I heard that your company is looking for a partnership; therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce my company. We are Urban Decay, a private makeup company in the United States. We provide makeup products for face coverage as well as eyeshadows and lipstick. We had several partnerships experience with Makeup Forever, Dior and Colorpop for a new eyeshadow palette and a lipstick line.
Your company, MAC, is well known for eyeshadows. We believe that such eyeshadows have a very good potential to interest both MAC and Urban Decay costumers. For this reason, we would like to extend our interest in forming a partnership with your company for an eyeshadow line. We believe that Urban Decay eyeshadows can well match with MAC eyeshadows in order to improve total customer satisfaction on eyeshadows.
If you would like, I can send our company’s profile or you may check our website at urbandecay.com. If you are interested in such partnership, please feel free to send an email at ashleymoor@ud.com.
Best regards,
Ashley Moore
CEO of Urban Decay
Visuals About 80's Drug Use Among Rock Musicians
Description: Above graph shows the most popular drugs that led to rock musicians’ death in the 80’s.
Description: Pie chart shows the countries that rock musicians had frequently found that in the 1980’s. This also illustrates that drug use among rock musicians was the most common in England and USA.
Work Cited: "List of Pop Musicians Who Died of Drug Overdose." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 01 May 2016.
The videos below are about John Bonham from Led Zeppelin and Bon Scott from AC/DC. Both of these famous musicians died from an alcohol overdose in 1980.
Designing a Chair for College Students
Have you ever taught of having a combo desk that has a comfortable chair as well as a plastic pocket for food? Then, you are at the right place!
A combo desk, a combination of a desk and a chair, allows you to save both money and space in a college classroom. In addition, these are a best seller due to their durability. Combo desks have specifically been designed for college students. The desk provides a big and a comfortable space for students to study. A textbook rack is under the chair so that the students can place their textbooks or bags. Plastic pocket allows students to put their food or drinks in so they do not have to take them out of their bags during the lecture. The padded leather is one of the most important things in a chair. It helps student’s spine to be in a comfortable position while paying attention to the professor.
Features: Specifications:
- Adjustable seat height Color: Black
- Armrest Width x Depth x Height: 25 x 35 x 33 in
- Desk combined with a chair Weight: 37 lbs
- Textbook rack under the chair Desktop Material: Plastic
- A plastic pocket attached to the side of the desk Weight Capacity: 350 lb
-Padded leather Bookrack: Yes
Handling: Left and Right Handed
Exterior Seat Material: Plastic, Padded Leather
Interview Questions for Leonardo DiCaprio
1) What did you feel when they announced your name at the Oscars saying that you got the award?
2) What does winning an Oscar mean to you?
3) What were the difficulties that you had when you were playing in the Revenant?
4) Why did you choose to play “Hugh Glass” in the Revenant?
5) Since you spent a lot of time in cold Canada and Argentina, were there times that you asked, “Why am I doing this?” when you were shooting the Revenant?
6) In one of the scenes of the Revenant Hugh, your character ate a raw liver. Did you really have to eat it raw?
7) Why do you think that the Revenant got more recognition than the Great Gatsby?
8) What are your plans for the next film?
9) Is there a particular actor/actress would you want to have a movie with? Why if there is any?
10) If they made a movie about your life story, would you rather Johnny Depp to play “you” or Samuel Jackson to play you in the movie? What is the reason that you chose either one?
Fracking
Fracking, also known as "hydro fracking" is a process of extracting natural gas. In order to succeed in this, first, a drilling location has to be established. Once this location is chosen, you would have to drill a well vertically to the ground and then turn it ninety degrees horizontally for several thousand feet into the place that is believed to contain the natural gas.
After completing the step one, the chosen area has to go through the process of perfing and fracking. A perforating gun has to be lowered by a wire into the casing. An electrical current is sent to set off a charge that creates small holes through the casing and cement. Once this step is over, the perf gun gets pulled out of the hole. Next, the well has to be fracked. A mix of water, sand, and chemicals get pumped into the well at high pressure to create pressure in the shale to fracture. This will allow the released gas to flow to the wellbore and then to the surface where it gets processed and refined. Flowback, which known as the wastewater, goes back to the surface completing the fracking process.
Description: Above graph shows the U.S. states that allow fracking. In addition, on the y-axis, the graph illustrates the role of fracking in global warming pollution (metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent). According to the graph, well completion from 2005 to 2012 is 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
Work Cited
"Appalachia By The Numbers." Appalachian Journal 38.2/3 (2011): 334. Web.
Description: Illustration above shows the process of fracking.
Legend: Map above shows the states that allow fracking, states may allow fracking and a state that banned fracking.
Procedural Writing
How to Play Lacrosse (Basics)
Goal:
By the end of this, you should have the basic knowledge of lacrosse.
Equipment Needed:
· Lacrosse stick
· Lacrosse ball
· Helmet (if necessary)
Instructions:
Get your hands on the stick. Know the parts of the stick; the head, the mesh and the shaft.
Learn how to cradle:
· Cradling helps you to pass a defenseman without dropping the ball.
· Place the ball in stick’s pocket and put your dominant hand below the head of the stick.
· Bring the head across your face while curling the wrist. Keep practicing until you are perfect at it.
Learn to pass:
Learn to pass:
· Make sure the head of the stick is next to your ear.
· Flick your wrist of your top hand while pulling your bottom hand towards you.
Learn to catch:
· Put your dominant hand on top and your other hand on the bottom of the stick.
· Put the stick in front of you make sure there is distant between the stick and your face.
· Cradle when the ball lands in the pocket of your stick.
Learn to get ground balls:
· Place your foot next to the ball and sink your hips.
· Lower your stick and scoop the ball.
· Bring the stick closer to your face.
Make sure you know how to pass, cradle, and catch with both hands, not only with your dominant hand.
Adjustment Letter
Beauty Cosmetics
666 Shore Avenue
Topeka, KS 1666
February 8, 2016
Ms. Ashley Moore
Brooklyn, NY
Dear Ms. Moore:
I was very sad to read your letter about one of my lifting concealers. I am sorry to hear that you were not able to get an excellent coverage with our concealer.
I have talked to my customer service department about your issue; you should be getting your refund within the next seven business days.
In addition, you will receive another concealer with the same shade that you bought. I am hoping this new concealer to give you a better coverage.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. If you do not receive your refund, please give us a callback.
Sincerely,
David Mister, Founder of Beauty Cosmetics
Complaint Letter
Ashley Moore
Brooklyn, NY
February 7, 2016
Mr. David Mistler
Beauty Cosmetics
666 Shore Avenue
Topeka, KS 1666
Dear Mr. Mistler:
As a customer of yours for over 5 years, I am writing to you to point out an important issue regarding one of your facial concealers. Two weeks ago, I purchased one of your Lifting Concealers that you advertised as “the most amazing concealer with a full coverage”. After applying this product on my face several times, I noticed that the conceal did not cover the ache at all.
At first, I thought that maybe I did not apply enough of the concealer, so I used some more. However, nothing really has changed. Acne was still visible.
I think you will agree that this an issue about your concealers. In addition, I believe that it is wrong to do a false advertising on this product. I would like to ask for a refund for the price of the concealer.
Please let me know as soon as possible about a refund. Thank you!
Yours truly,
Ashley Moore
First Self-Assessment
My favorite assignments are the complaint and adjustment letters, resume and emailing to a professor. Starting with the resume, I think re-writing my resume was helpful because after I got back my resume, I saw the comments that professor made. In addition, I saw some of my classmates’ resumes as well which made me realize I should have added some more information on my resume and I should have taken some out.
I have never written complaint and adjustment letters before, so when we had this assignment I had no idea how to write it. After reading the textbook, I found it easy to write because I knew the format. However, these letters are very technical so they have to be written in a formal language, which was the part that I was having trouble the most. I was trying to avoid being too formal and I think I did a good job at these assignments. This was a very useful assignment because everyone probably would have to write these letters at least once in their life about a product or something that they did not like. Since I know the format now, it will be much easier for me to write one in the future.
Another assignment that I found very helpful was sending an email to a professor. I always had a trouble sending an email to my English professor last semester. I did not know how to begin and what to write. In addition, I did not really know how to avoid writing long emails to professors. Therefore, this assignment helped me to write more professionally. In addition, I looked at my group mates’ emails as well and compared their emails with mine. We all had similar emails, which made me feel good, I knew that my email was not too short and was not too long. It was descriptive enough for the professor to understand without boring him.
Before taking this class, my writing, in terms of being professional, was not professional enough. After taking this class and writing couple assignments, my writing has improved. Now I know how to respond to certain types of technical writings. For example, if I were asked to write an incident report before taking this class, I would not be able to write one because I did not know the format and the technical words that I am supposed to use. In addition, I have never written “meeting minutes” before. I think it was the most challenging assignment for me because of its formatting. I found it very strange and hard to write about.
The Final Self-Assessment
It
has been nearly two months since I wrote the first assessment. During these two
months, I have realized that my writing has become even better and I learned
new things about technical communication. The first assignment we had after the
first self-assessment was the exercises number 4 and 5 from page 145. In this
assignment, we were asked to re-write the given questions and statements. I
found this assignment very helpful because sometimes I tend to ask vague
questions instead of being more specific.
Next
assignment we had was to create interview questions. I worked with my peer
group to do this assignment. The most important thing in this assignment was paying
attention to the close-ended questions. With the knowledge that we gained from
the previous assignment about the close-ended questions, we were able to write
better interview questions for Leonardo DiCaprio. Doing an interview with
someone requires a background information about him. For example, if you will
interview a person for a job, you would not want to ask a question that is already
on his resume. Moreover, this is exactly what I learned from this assignment;
not asking vague and close-ended questions.
Evaluating
a website was one of my favorite assignments. Before doing this assignment, I did
not paid so much attention to City College’s website. Most of the time, I was
only searching the information that I needed to find on the website, I did not
care so much about its design as long as it had the information I wanted. This
assignment helped me to pay attention to the website in terms of its design and
navigation. If I were asked to evaluate another website, I would evaluate it better
than I did with CCNY’s website.
Fracking
assignment was one of the most challenging assignments we had after the first-assessment.
What made it so challenging was to coming up three statements that you would be
able to turn into visual graphics. I picked three statements and explained how
I can make graphs out of them. However, later on when I was trying to gather
information to make visuals, I could not find so much information about one of
the statements I wrote and because of this, I had to come up with a different statement.
For two of the other statements, I drew a process of fracking and colored the
map of U.S. based on the states that allows fracking. This assignment is important
because it helped me with the next assignment, which was to create visuals for
our research topic.
Another
fun assignment we had was to write a business correspondence just like complaint
and adjustment letters. I did not really know how to write a business letter
when I was doing this assignment, and then I read the pages about it on Markel
and it helped me understand the assignment a lot better. This is an important assignment
because it is actually very likely to write such letter in the near future. With
the help of this assignment, I would definitely be able to write a better one
in the future.
The
last assignment that we had was to write an analytical paper about our websites’
statistics. This was a fun, interesting and easy assignment. It was really
interesting and exciting to see how many people were on my website on daily
basis. Another interesting thing was to see the statistics based on operating
systems and browsers.
Lastly,
I would like to talk about peer groups. We had these assigned groups since the
beginning of the semester. Having your classmates’ contact number or email from
is an important thing because most of time I had to ask questions to my group
member about assignments. In addition, when I was doing some of the
assignments, I contacted my group member to get his opinion about my writing. I
think a group member is not only someone that helps you to understand
assignment better, but also someone that can influence and make your writing better
by stating his constructive criticism on your work. Therefore, it is always
better to have someone else’s opinion besides your own.
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