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> I have been asked to conduct an introductory course on technical writing.
> As part of the course, developers and programmers will be asked to do some
> assignments. I need suggestions for good assignments. I have a few ideas.
You don't say how much time is allowed for the course. If you have more than an
hour, you're very, very lucky. I'm going to assume that your "course" is
actually about an hour's presentation, in which you give something of an
overview of what technical writing is about. If that's the case, the important
thing is not to focus on the 'what' of technical writing but rather the 'why.'
Ask yourself what are the most important things we do as technical writers, and
you'll come up with some variation on explaining how something works to a
particular audience. And that requires two important elements: (1) defining the
audience, and (2) explaining a process. You could easily spend the entire hour
on how we go about defining an audience, but one easy way is to get your class
to define the audience for a user's guide. After the bedlam dies down once
people get into "animated discussions" about different types of users, you can
point out that resolving the disagreements over audience are part of a writer's
task for every single document. Just be sure that they recognize that the task
of audience definition includes what this user already knows, what he needs to
know, and how he approaches learning something new. (These will necessarily be
broad strokes, but you'll get the idea across.)
As for explaining a process, there's always the ol' peanut butter and jelly
sandwich idea. Actually, any simple process will work, but the important thing
is to get class participants to try describing a simple process, and then
demonstrate what happens when steps are left out or misstated. Be sure your
demonstration isn't done to embarrass anyone, just to illustrate the importance
of thoroughness.
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