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> Please, not the peanut butter sandwich exercise!
> The original poster has a room full of engineers waiting to learn about
> real technical writing from a real technical writer. In the first ten
> minutes, the class is at their most alert, positive and receptive. Here
> comes the first exercise that the instructor has chosen to demonstrate
> important things about technical communication.
One exercise I've used in the above situation with great success, is
to ask the participants to define/explain the concept of left and
right.
Although it seems simple enough, it gets them thinking. The amount of
time spent in thinking of how to explain and articulate the concept
compared to the amount of text that finally makes it to paper often
helps to illustrate what goes into techni8cal writing.
I use this at the beginning of a workshop on technical writing for
engineers, to help them shed the idea that writing is merely about
stringing words together.
In terms of placing the subsequent training in perspective, this
exercise works far better than an hour of anecdotal introduction.
-eddy
NOTE: The intent of this exercise is not to break the ice among
participants, as other exercises have suggested before in this thread.
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