This document summarizes Lauren Head's learning in her English technical writing course. She learned that technical writing aims to inform a specific audience for a specific purpose in a concise manner. Key lessons included understanding rhetoric, effective writing and design, ethics, and cultural considerations. She practiced rhetorical analysis, transforming manuals into apps, and addressing ethics challenges. Lauren worked collaboratively on projects like an instructional guide and usability test. Overall, she gained skills in tailoring resumes and using apps like Marvel that she can apply professionally.

1. UNIT 6: FINAL
REFLECTION
Lauren Head
English 2311-38 Susan Rauch

2. Introduction to Technical Writing
• Information for a specific audience for a specific purpose
• Usually instructions or guidelines
• Short and sweet

3. Technical Writing is Everywhere
• Examples:
• Resumes
• Cover
Letters
• Car
Manuals
• Email
• Proposals

4. Learning Objectives
•Rhetoric
•Writing
•Design
•Ethics
•Cultural Considerations
•Applied Technology

5. Rhetoric
• The study of making texts that effectively persuade an audience toward
change

6. Rhetorical Situation
• Set of circumstances in which an author creates a text.
• Key parts:
• Audience
• Purpose
• Context
• Genre
It is important to get key parts right s you can communicate
effectively  the process is called Rhetorical Analysis.

7. Rhetorical Analysis
• For example: I learned you
should craft your resume and
cover letter after the job ad
that you are applying for so
you can showcase how your
skills match with what the
company is looking for.

8. Writing
• While working on our Instructional Guide, I learned how to transform a section of a
real life training manual into an app by making it more concise, simple, and adding
visuals.
• I learn best when I have examples to go off of. It was beneficial for me to see what has
been successful in the past and practice makes perfect so being able to revise our work
was very helpful.

9. Design
• The design aspect is my downfall. I can
look at something and see mistakes in
design but I’m not technologically savvy
enough to fix them successfully.
• For example: my visual resume wasn’t
very creative. One of the main reasons
for using Slide doc is to spruce up the
presentation and read like a digital book.
My visual resume very much resembled a
power point version of my resume with
bulleted information instead of visually
presenting the same information with
personality.

10. Ethics
• Sometimes unethical things in the
work place will come up and it is
our job to do the right thing. It will
most likely be difficult so it is
important to follow the right steps
to be successful.
Steps:
• Plant seeds of change
• Use facts and reason instead of
accusation
• Be open to others’ views

11. Cultural Considerations
• One of my favorite examples of cultural considerations was the Target
ad.

12. Cultural Considerations
• Being an advertising major, I really enjoyed the ad (previous slide.) That is
a hug “no-no.” I really am surprised that I had not seen this on social
media before this class. I’d also really like to know the thought process
that went behind the word choice for this ad. You can never 100% satisfy
every customer or consumer but there are definitely ways to not offend
everyone out there.

13. Collaborations: EAP
• Since I work at the Rec I was able to
be the liaison between my group
and my supervisor. I always finished
my work in a timely manner and
tried to be as flexible as possible
when we needed to work on our
project outside of the classroom. I
also utilized the time given in class
so our outside work time was
minimal. I am one who wants to get
things done so I was able to push
other team members that needed a
little more motivation to complete
tasks.

14. Collaborations
• Our team really came together when we had to perform the usability test
at the Rec. Since I work there it was easy for us to get staff to take the
pre/post surveys as well as using the app.
• With every group no one is perfect and everyone is different but I don’t
think it got in the way too much with this particular group.
*REMEMBER: everyone works differently  Big Picture

15. Applied Technology
Twitter was used for ethics, Marvel was used for our instructional
guide project, and Google docs was used throughout the
semester but mostly for our instructional project. Google docs is
great for group work  everyone can work on the document at
the same time and it allows people to work on stuff together but
apart.

16. Conclusions
• This report focuses on different assignments that were done throughout
the semester and what I learned in the process of each assignment. A
couple of things that I will use in real life are: tailoring my resume to the
job posting that I am applying for and the Marvel app.

17. Sources
• Duarte, Nancy. "Slidedocs." Duarte. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2017.
• Anderson, Paul V. Technical communication: a reader-centered
approach. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018. Print.
• Johnson-Sheehan, Richard. Writing proposals. New York:
Pearson/Longman, 2008. Print.