FINAL EXAM:ENGL 2311

December 5th, 2016

Griff Kimball

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Table of Contents

1 2 3

4 5 6

Rhetorical Situation

Writing Design

Collaboration Ethics and Culture

Applied Technology

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Rhetorical Situation In this class, we focused on our rhetoric and the

rhetorical situation in every unit.

Future employers, car owners, mobile app users, and Ford executives-- These include but a part of the various audiences we communicated with this semester. Since rhetoric is defined as “the study of making texts that effectively persuade an audience towards change,” (Ball, 2014, pg. 21) we strove to influence change– to obtain a job interview, persuade people to use our mobile app, and convince a major company to develop our prototype.

Understanding rhetorical situation is important to any discipline. As I plan to be a lawyer, I must learn to prepare cases and make arguments understanding who my audience is.

“The rhetorical situation is the set of circumstances in which an author creates a text. Authors have to pay attention to four factors: their intended audience, their purpose for communicating, the context in which their text will be read, and the genre they choose for their text if they want it to be effective communicators.” (Ball, 2014, p. 21).

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Rhetorical SituationIn our very first unit, we created classic paper resumes as well as visual resumes for potential employers. Identifying our audience and directing our rhetoric towards them was a vital part of creating a successful resume.

Visual resumes allowed us to show a little bit of ourselves to future employers by personal branding. They will be able to visualize us, get to know about our lives and skills, and hopefully extend interview invitations.

Who? Potential Employers. What? Visual Resume. Why? To brand ourselves personally, allow employers to see us on an individual level, and to do something to give us an extra edge over the competition.How? Through images, experiences, and informational elements from our resumes.

“How do you identify the rhetorical situation? Ask yourself who, what, when, where, why, and how.” -- Dr. Susan Rauch

Above: Paper ResumeBelow: Image from Visual Resume

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Writing Writing is essential in any English class, and ENGL 2311 is no

different.

Our paper resumes contained elements such as verb-first phrases and powerful language to create a strong sense of action. Instead of an objective statement, we utilized a career summary at the top of our resume to match the criteria listed in the job ad.

One of the unique challenges to technical writing is writing in instructional language, such as the directions in the car manual that we transformed into an application. In order for lengthy instructions to fit on a phone screen, our groups reworded directions to make them precise and concise.

We also wrote the script for our instructional video out in full.

Perhaps the most writing-intense projects, the usability testing report and proposal allowed us to write in a brief, professional style. This proved particularly difficult for me personally because of my background in music and philosophy, where normally I write with flowery language or argumentatively. I did get to be persuasive on the Unit 5 Proposal paper because the purpose was to get the Ford Motor Company to develop our app prototype, but the projects forced me to think about writing briefly, clearly, and with no “fluff.”

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Design

This semester emphasized the design of our technical communication. Each project was replete with choices in color, font, alignment, and much more. Using the Marvel app, we designed our own mobile application prototype for the 2013 Ford Focus. As you can see in the pictures below, it was no easy process. We had to include transitions, functions for different buttons, choices in text, spacing, and images. These skills are applicable in any field of study, especially as the technological world moves toward mobile applications as a mainstream way of communication. The design process also included how we formatted our Usability Testing Report and our Proposal to Ford Motor Company. In my work at Nicholas Financial, a financial planning office, I have already used some of the concepts such as concise language, page numbers, and block formatting. I plan to attend law school, and I am quite sure these skills will also apply to legal documents.

“The design process itself includes a wide range of design variables: color theory, iconography, imagery, branding, typography, spatial layout, interactivity, and aesthetics” (Baehr, 2015, pg. 169).

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Collaboration

Over half of the assignments this semester involved groups, giving us the opportunity to collaborate on a regular basis. We peer reviewed papers, captured and edited video, and performed usability testing together. Cooperation is used in every discipline all over the world. To succeed, you have to work with others.

A moment this semester that exhibits collaboration at its finest occurred when Dr. Rauch divided us into “hiring committees.” She allotted responsibility to read resumes extremely quickly and read cover letters from potential employees. After looking over the materials, our groups listed and ranked the highest potential candidates based on work experience, education, and professionalism in the documents presented to us. This event became one of my favorite moments of the semester as we collaborated together in a real world setting to make a unified decision. I cannot think of a better way to learn the application process than from the perspective of a hiring committee.

Throughout the semester, our groups kept a project management schedule in order to split responsibilities, give assignments, and meet deadlines.

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Ethics and Culture

To be an effective technical writer, one must take ethics and culture into consideration. Such topics were the focus of a couple of classes, including some reading that included good and bad examples of ethical practices in music streaming and mobile applications. As a future lawyer, these cases fascinated me, and I know ethics will be a part of my everyday future.

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Ethics and Culture ExamplesOne example of taking ethics and culture into consideration occurred during the re-writing of car manual directions in Unit 2. In the fueling section, this image of a turtle was supposed to communicate that the fuel pump should be removed slowly. While this may make sense to many of us, this image may not be effective or ethical communication cross-culturally. Our group decided not to include the turtle in our directions. Another example of being ethical in work happened in the very next unit, which included performing usability testing. We needed five volunteers to help test our app prototype for user problems or suggestions on how to improve our app. In order to fulfill our ethical responsibility, we asked each participant to sign a form stating that they agree to this testing and understand that they can withdraw at any time.

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Applied TechnologyWe used Marvel app to make our prototype, which we then subsequently used to perform usability testing. This app helped us to make our sketch ideas into reality, and it forced us to think about application design, transitions, and other factors while we were creating it. (Units 2 and 3)

We used Adobe Premiere Pro, a video editing software, to make our instructional video. Premiere Pro is an industry standard program, and Unit 4 allowed us to get familiar with the program, make edits, add transitions, and much more.

We used the lookback app during usability testing. Lookback takes a video of the phone screen while using the phone, so we can study how usability testers reacted to the scenarios and questions pertaining to our car manual app. (Unit 3)

Google docs became essential throughout the semester for our project management schedule, surveys, pre/post-survey questionnaires, and more. They allowed us to work with a format we are used to (such as Microsoft Word or Excel) with the added benefit of being able to share work easily between group members. I used Google docs before, but I plan to use it much more in my schooling and future profession because it is incredibly easy to use and could be utilized for just about anything.

Thank you!

Griff Kimball

ENGL 2311 Section 14

Dr. Susan Rauch

Fall 2016

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SourcesBaehr, C., & Cook, K. C. (2015). The Agile Communicator: Principles and

Practices in Technical Communication. USA: Kendall Hunt.

Ball, C. E. (2014). Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.

Source: Wikipedia