General Feedback for Your IRA Career Essays

IRA-Career Essays

I'll pass back your IRA essays. Most of these showed an impressive amount of reflection and detail. Unfortunately, some of these were summaries or had many un-supported claims. This isn't a process essay, but those of you who got less than an 85 may revise for credit up to 85 points. Please have all revisions to me by March 26th. I am willing to discuss your papers with you during office hours or at another mutually agreed-upon time. Don't e-mail me an attachment and ask me to "look at this...and, you know, do stuff to it." It's more efficient and more informative to talk about your writing goals and ideas, so please see me if you'd like. I won't answer any questions immediately after this class about these essays, so hold off and come in to see me instead.

These were good essays, and the information below doesn't apply to all of you who need revision. I'll reiterate: you didn't need to agree with Cooper to get a good grade, but just agreeing with Cooper also wasn't enough to get a good grade. Cooper has limitations, and your contexts will be different from his main goal--to get products for lay orgeneral audiences (not semi- or highly technical audiences) to be easier to use. We know that the techno-utopia he envisions, while nice to consider, is fraught with exceptions: user knowledges or literacies, security, planned obsolescence, and questions about features. Remember, this class is more about question than answers. You'll have to determine (or convince someone) how to design or document based on your assumptions of the assumed audience--assumptions upon assumption! For instance, how do you determine whether or not to document or include a feature? Well, it depends on context. Cooper (or I or other technical writing professors) can't tell you the exact thing because contexts aren't universal. Instead, Cooper (and, I hope, I) guide you to think about what users needs based on their assumed goals. We'll try to practice that this semester--getting into the mind(set) of the assumed user.

Of course, there will be situations where you will know the users. Many of you won't be dealing with products or documents for general audiences. You will be producing systems or tutorials for audiences within your organization. Cooper (and most of the Technical Writing research I've seen) doesn't give us too much to consider for those more experienced users. We'll see what we can do this semester.

I expect 4000/5000-level writing in this class. Some guidelines for revision:

• Cite what you didn't come up with
• Rethink your arguments in relation to Cooper's ideas--you can't just paraphrase Cooper without pointing to his ideas. Also, summarizing isn't the same as making a point.
• Use personal experience as EVIDENCE
• Know the meanings of the following terms:
  • Tastes and convictions
  • opinions
  • Theories/Laws
  • Facts
• Make sure you accurately represent Cooper's ideas
• Don't bite off more than you can chew
  • You cannot possibly refute all of Cooper's ideas in a 5-page paper--be selective
  • Additionally, you can't just say "he's wrong" without explaining why you think that, but you have to have reasons, not assertions
• Thesis...what are you trying to communicate
  • Your central focus
  • Someone can say 'no' to that thesis, so you set out to prove it
• Reader-based vs writer-based prose
  • Don't make the reader guess--be accurate and concise
  • Reader-based prose is like user-centered design
• In-text citations...check out Purdue University's OWL for more details

The above list isn't meant to address all concerns, and you shouldn't think that your paper has all the above concerns. The list is just a representative one of main issues that came up. Don't forget, if you didn't sign an informed consent form and want to, I have copies over in my office.