Amy Elizabeth Wiseman
awisema1@emich.edu

Is this making sense to everybody?

In past classes I have taken here at Eastern Michigan University, technical writing simply involved contructing documents--memos, reports, formal letters, etc. We were taught format and style. We were always given a specific context that supposedly taught us how to construct the appropriate document.

However, 424 proved to be a completely different experience. We were taught that the most basic of documents can vary wildly from context to context. Before, we had been taught different genres of documents. Now it was up to us to learn how to apply those genres contextually to serve varying purposes. Rather than everyone in the class being given the same imagined s ituation, we were asked to apply what we were learning to scenarios we faced every day, be it at school, work, or home.

The result was learning how much the context indeed impacts the document. There is no such thing as "just" a memo or "just" a report. Not only do situations vary, but format and style can vary from workplace to workplace as well. Documents, although falling into specific genres, have to be tailored appropriately to the context in which they are to be used. Part of technical communication is exploring your context thoroughly and then constructing a working document. A document fails to be useful when generalized. In order to construct a usable document, you must know the goals, the audience, and the purpose.

I'm not implying that learning this was easy. I never could have imagined that any memo I wrote would elicit 8.5 minutes of audio feedback. We waded through writings that were geared toward academics, not toward students. And we struggled every class period to grasp what we had always assumed to be the obvious.

But in the end, we all got it. It doesn't matter how we got it. Whether we related more to White Sands or to the Karate Kid, the outcome was ultimately the same. We learned that there's more to technical writing than just a stock list of documents all with common format.

Contextualize THAT.

Contextualizing the TIM & PDM

Hi, my name is Amy. I wear ugly pants.
The purpose of the team introduction memo was to (duh) introduce ourselves to our "team." We were supposed to put what we thought were important and necessary details in to this memo; however, we were not told what those important and necessary details were. I stuck with the basics at first: name, major, minor, writing experience (I thought I remembered this from my first go at ENGL 424 last winter.) I wasn't even sure that these were the important details; they just seemed like the kind of things your teacher makes you say when they make you do those lame "go around the room and introduce yourself" things. I mean, seriously, how many of us really came to class to make friends and form a "team"?

Surprisingly enough, however, we did become a team. A team that together had to figure out what the hell we were supposed to be doing with these assignments. In this way, our writing really did become a social activity. We were all in it together. (I wonder if I had actually read my team's introduction memos if I would have wanted to be on a team with them after all.)

Through this excersize I learned that simply listing the obvious is not the same thing as writing a good introduction. I also learned about fomatting a memo. This is all outlined in my PDM. I never would have thought to use subheadings or to break my memo in to sections. For one thing, I never intended my introduction to be that long. I also learned that everyone has their own way of formatting and that there is no "universal standard" of memo writing. The audio feedback and hearing parts of memo read out loud also helped me realize which parts sounded interesting and inforamtive and which parts sounded lame.

The Creative Rhetoric Scenario: Dot dot dot...

Me talk pretty one day

For my creative rhetoric scenario, I centered on my job: working in the Earle Restaurant in downtown Ann Arbor. Although the Earle is considered "fine dining", I would not consider many of our employees fine rhetoricians. I focused on my manager, Jeff. Jeff, although a perfectly competent manager in many respects, does not have the most firm command of the English language. I based my creative rhetoric scenario on an actual conversation that I had with him regarding punctuation. You never actually think that one day you may have to tell someone that "..." is not the same thing as spelling out "PERIOD! PERIOD! PERIOD!"

Finding out Chris was a liar

I remember our first rhetoric discussion as if it were yesterday: Chris telling us how he was trying to break up a girl and her boyfriend by fiegning sympathy. We then began discussing how we talk to the people around us and how we manipulate the situation. Manipulation in this sense is not necessarily a negative term; we simply use our phrasing to steer the situation in a certain direction. Rhetoric is one of those words we've all heard but had not ever really considered or discussed. We have all heard of rhetorical questions, but outside of that reference, how many of us actually talk about rhetoric? Yet this discussion actually made sense. Whether or not it was ethical, Chris was commanding his own rhetoric, and clearly outlined exactly how we all use rhetoric every day. Applying a discussion of rhetoric to my conversation about punctuation with my boss was only natural.

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The Airbag Letter Case: Get me some freakin' hot tea

Writing and editing a form letter

This was a project that I found most interesting, mainly because I was able to identify with it and apply it to my internships. I am often writing press releases or thank you letters or other documents that go out to many people, but need to seem somewhat personalized. I have also had to learn to say "no" in a positive way at both internships.

The interesting thing about doing this project was that the majority of the people requesting the on/off switch really weren't eligible for it. However, the letter needed to be written in a way that didn't say "you're wrong" but rather said "have you considered all of these options and is there any other way we can help you?"

Playing the roles

Probably the most beneficial part of this assigment was being assigned roles and reading the letter as different characters. Obviously, none of us really would have qualified as we are to turn off our airbags. But a mother with small children or a small grandmother may have very different reasons for wanting theirs off. By giving us different characters, we were able to see how the same document had to cater to varying audiences--no easy feat! Recieving the feedback from characters who both would and would not qualify was also helpful. This assignment really showed the danger of a generalized document and made me think a lot more about the documents I send out en masse at my internships.

The Context & Genre Analysis Project: I may hate children, but, man, do I love documents!

Wishing I never had to see kids ever again....

I did my largest assignment, the CGA, on my internship at the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Michigan. People ask me "Amy, if you hate kids, how can you work for the Make-A-Wish Foundation?" The answer to this is simple. I never see the damn kids. I only see documents, because I work for the Media Director. I prefer it this way, and because I am an intern, it works out, but I know that if this were my real job I would have to deal with kids at some point. I begged off everything that invloved personal contact this whole semester, but I am thinnking that when I actually search for employment, I should probably look for foundations that deal with things I like. Like cats. Or dogs. Or pretty much anything but children. But now I am off topic. Let me get back to...

Documents here, there, and everywhere
I chose the Make-A-Wish Foundation as the basis for this assignment because, although not as entertaining as The Earle and my dot dot dot boss, I deal with a vast amount of documents, some of which fall in to very specific genres: the press release, the media list, the personal letter, the appeal, etc. We had just studied how the context makes all the difference in writing a document, and it is true. Yes, in classes I was taught how to write a memo and a press release and a report. Let me tell you, however, the first memo I ever received in an office setting looked nothing like the first memo I wrote in English 324. The press releases I wrote in Journalism 312 and 314 were written from information given directly to me. There was no research, or finding--or writing--quotes. It was simply listing the facts. In real life, it is rarely so simple. There is no such thing as a general document. I have to admit, I wasn't completely following the context and genre thing until I started applying it directly to this assignment and thinking about the genres of documents that I deal with.


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