Welcome to WRI 350

This page is where I'll post the basics of what we covered in class on a given day and anything I assigned for homework or that needs to be prepared for next class.

I'll stack the most recent class day's post above the rest of the posts in reverse chronological order so you shouldn't have to scroll around. Instructions, submission portals, and evaluation rubrics for major assignments can be found in our course Canvas shell.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me at jessamyn.birrer@oit.edu.

(Please do not email me just to tell me how dorky this website is. I haven't built a website since 1995, and I'm having to reteach myself html and learn css from scratch. It's almost impossible to do this and teach four writing-intensive courses at the same time. Thanks for your patience.)

6 January 2025

Week Seven: Friday

In Class Today: Testing documentation (focus on testing end-user documentation for the upcoming in-class testing of your drafts on Monday). Effective end-user guidance, collecting quantitative vs. qualitative data, and tester observations/data vs test subject's self-report. Hands-on usability testing practice in a mock high-stakes scenario. (REMINDER: Your Diagram Suite is due to the Canvas portal by the end of the day.)

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): Prepare a rough draft (printed or otherwise usable by a classmate during our user testing session on Monday). Read the very short online checklist, "What Makes Good End-User Guidance?" and use its concepts as a jumping off point for creating a plan and worksheet for running your in-class user testing on your instructions. Your plan/worksheet must include the following:

An introductory statement or two establishing the purpose of your end-user testing (why you are testing the instructions?).
A list of objectives the test will accomplish (what are you testing your instructions for?).
A description of participant tasks (what are you going to make your classmates do for the test?). This should include a list of questions you will ask during the test and in a post-test questionnaire.
A description of how you will collect, analyze, and evaluate data from the test (possibly including video recording your participants).
Note: You will be reporting on your data collection and your observations for your user test in the memo accompanying your final instructions assignment submission, so your goal here is to give yourself a useful worksheet tool for recording that information during the test.
If you wish to create a questionnaire or additional worksheet for testers to use on their own, be sure to bring a usable copy for them.

21 February 2025

Week Seven: Wednesday

In Class Today: Problem Statements for User Documentation/Instructions. Click here to post your sample problem statement. Review of best practices for instruction writing (Tasks, Steps, Tips, Liabilities). Organizing instructions: Tools-based approach and Task-based approach.

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): Read this page and connected pages/documents on Usability and User Testing and "Usability Testing: What Is It?". Optional: Read How to Write Test Documents & Why You Need Them (software-specific considerations for test documents). Work on rough draft of your User Documentation/Instructions for user testing on Monday (Feb. 24).

19 February 2025

Week Seven: Monday

In Class Today: Homework review: Problem Statements. Writing user documents to solve problems: User Instructions. Discussion of Instructions assignment. Analyzing existing instructions for best practices and worst pitfalls.

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): Read "How to Write Instructions for Busy, Grouchy People" (Note: This document in itself is almost a set of technical instructions: Consider what a hot mess it is in terms layout for reading by busy, grouchy students who've potentially been assigned to read it.) For a more detailed, rhetorical understanding of the instructions genre, please also read this brief online textbook chapter on Technical Instructions. Make a decision as to what you'd like to write your assigned instructions on, choose your teammates if working in a group, and write a problem statement establishing the need for your instructions (for our purposes for this assignment, the "root cause" of your problem must at least partially involve a lack of good instructions, and the "ideal outcome" should be achievable by the creation of your instructions as the solution to the problem).

17 February 2025

Week Six: Friday

In Class Today: Documentation Review: Self, Peer/Team, Technical, Stakeholder, Editorial, and Compliance review considerations. Peer review of Diagram Suite drafts. Click to access course slides on best practices for diagrams.

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): Revise and "polish" your Diagram Suite assignment and submit it to the appropriate portal in our Canvas course shell. Read "How to Write a Problem Statement" (ignore the incidental attempts to interest you in proprietary templates or etc.). Practice considering the elements of a problem statement by writing one about literally anything creating a challenge, issue, or pain point for you currently.

14 February 2025

Week Six: Wednesday

No class today in order to hold midterm check-in conferences. Check-ins will be held in our classroom; you need only attend for the window of time you've signed up for. If you've not yet signed up for an appointment (or can't remember when your appointment is), you can sign up/review the sign-up sheet here. Be prepared for a brief (five-minute) check-in on your plan for your diagram suite and your term-long Documentation Log as it stands right now. REMINDER: You are always more than welcome to come by my office hours or request an appointment to meet with me to talk over any of your work in the class (or relevant to the class) for an amount of time of your choosing either on campus or over Zoom; this is just a specific midterm check on your work.

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): Create a rough draft of your Diagram Suite for peer review this Friday. Please bring either hard copies or easily shareable links/access to digital copies.

12 February 2025

Week Six: Monday

In Class Today: Introduction to the Diagram Suite assignment (full assignment instructions available in our course Canvas portal). Introduction to uses of diagrams in technical documentation and best practices for UML diagrams and general technical data visualizations . In class practice on using diagrams to solve problems. Reminder to sign up for midterm conference appointment.

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): Sign up for and prepare for your brief (five-minute) midterm check-in appointment (have your plan for your diagram suite and your term-long Documentation Log ready to share). Create a rough draft of your Diagram Suite for peer review this Friday.

10 February 2025

Week Five: "Snow Week"

Outside of Class This Week: You should all have been working on your user-centered game, documentation, and accompanying elements for your Audience Invocation Project (AIP). I have extended the submission date for that assignment to this coming Monday, Feb. 10, to account for students who have been delayed or otherwise distracted by power outages and the winter storm. Because the university is still determining how to mitigate the loss of class days/contact hours, our remaining schedule is a little up in the air, so I'm going to refrain from assigning you work over this weekend in case I need to reimagine our course activities for the coming weeks.

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): Complete your AIPs and submit them to the assignment portal in our Canvas course shell. Sign up for a one-on-one conference appointment for this coming Wednesday. Catch up on your workload in other courses. Rest. Read/watch/listen to something that is meaningful and life-giving to you. We'll get back on track on Monday.

03 February-07 February 2025

Week Four, Wednesday & Friday

In Class Today: Game design as a way of practicing user-centered and task-oriented writing. Eight Kinds of Fun and Four Kinds of Players (recap from assigned homework reading from last class). Documentation for the Audience Invocation Project: Documenting for multiple audiences. Beginning of work on the AIP, with accompanying documentation, including solo designer/team vision worksheet, discussion, and selection of project theme.Reminder: There will be no class on Friday in order to give everyone time to work on their AIPs, get some rest, enact some civil disobedience, or etc. The homework listed below is due by Monday, February 3.

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): For your AIP (Audience Invocation Project): Choose a Theme (along with its Scope and Resolution) and create a one-sentence pitch, following the guidelines in pages 18-24 of Exeunt Press's "Make Your Own One-Page Role-Playing Game" (the assigned reading from last class). Sketch a layout and useful headings/sections for a User Persona for your AIP. Create a rough draft of your one-page rpg. Be sure to document the above tasks and any relevant data in your documentation log for this assignment (at a bare minimum, your project log by Monday should include information documenting your thought process and choices regarding in-class mechanics playtesting, theme, user persona creation, mechanics development (if inventing your own) or implementation (if using Darkshire or Cursed Princess mechanics), and layout, writing, and design. Bring a printed copy of your game draft (or version otherwise playable in class by other students) for user testing activities on Monday.

29 January 2025

Week Four, Monday

In Class Today: Brief review of co-cultures and the basics of user research, edge cases, and corner cases. Discussion of the Audience Invocation Project (see assignment page in Canvas for static instructions). In-class practice: Building User Personas (click here for practice template to make a copy of and use in class) and click here for the shared course doc where you can post your practice persona.

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): Read Exeunt Press's "Make Your Own One-Page Role-Playing Game". Think about co-cultures and subcultures to which you belong and which kinds of "Fun" (as defined in the linked reading), game mechanics, and themes appeal to you most (in preparation for making your own game starting next class period). Preview one-page rpg systems Cursed Sword (sample game here) and Oliver Darkshire (sample game here).

27 January 2025

Week Three, Friday

In Class Today: Overview of tips, tricks, and best practices for writing resumes and cover letters. Practice brainstorming skills/fragments and creating resume summaries. Preview of upcoming assignment on User Research, Personas, and Iterative document development.

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): Read the following short articles: What Is User Research?; "Co-Cultures and Value Framing: Know Your Users; and "How to Define a User Persona". Review assignment page for the upcoming Audience Invocation Project. If you have chosen to submit a personal resume for feedback, please review the instructions and submit that to the appropriate Canvas portal as close to the due date as you are able. You can click here to download the "Action Verbs to Describe Your Skills" handout referenced in class.

24 January 2025

Week Three, Wednesday

In Class Today: Analyzing workplace culture through analyzing written documents. Style, tone, and inclusive language in technical and professional writing. Collaborative editing activity: See how many problems you can identify in this Completely Awful Memo (set up and context covered in class). Revising technical and professional writing.

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): Read up on Applying for Jobs. If you can, find one concrete thing you can do or propose that would help you establish or enhance the kind of "culture" you'd like to see in your classroom, workplace, living environment, or other group. If that feels overwhelming, instead make time to read or rest in a way that supports your well-being for at least thirty minutes.

22 January 2025

Week Two, Friday

In Class Today: In-class practice using the game One Night Werewolf to practice reading other people and to observe classroom culture and affect in a constrained setting.

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): Catch up on your reading in this class (Why Workplace Culture Matters, Task-Oriented Writing, and Inclusive Writing) and otherwise practice good work-life balance by taking a break from this class (with the exception of your documentation log).

17 January 2025

Week Two, Wednesday

In Class Today: In-class practice with technical writing style, organization, and page layout and design (aka revising the deeply flawedHR benefits newsletter. (For our activity, please make a copy of the document to use rather than directly tinkering with the original here so things don't go kaflooey.) You can link to (or paste) your final "fixed" version of your document here.

Homework (What to Do before Our Next Class): Please read Why Workplace Culture Matters, ideally before class this Friday. Complete these two (relatively short) readings on Task-Oriented Writing and Inclusive Writing by this coming Monday.

15 January 2025

Week Two, Monday

In Class Today: Review of best practices for professional correspondence and memo writing. Collective feedback on Memo of Introduction assignment. ESP, the Seven Cs, and best practices for page layout and design. Analysis of a multiple-audience newsletter. If time: Begin planning revision of the newsletter (please make a copy of the document to use so things don't go kaflooey).
What You Should Do Before Next Class: Review Document Design if you haven't already (in general: catch up on assigned readings from week one). If you choose to, revise your Memo of Introduction by next class.

13 January 2025

Week One, Friday

In Class Today: Presentation of emails, documentation, and style choices for Make My Day/Ruin My Life activity. The Seven Cs of Tech Writing. Revision for style, tone, and clarity. Peer review of Memos of Introduction.

What You Should Do Before Next Class: Please read or skim all the topics in this online chapter reading on Document Design. Your Memo of Introduction is technically due today (Friday) by midnight; however, if you have ideas for major revision after peer review time in class today, you may submit it any time before next class.

10 January 2025

Week One, Wednesday

In Class Today: Professional communication and correspondence. Working with style guides. Collaborative writing activity on purpose, tone, and maintaining goodwill in professional writing and documentation. Review of the assignment sheet for the Memo of Introduction.

What You Should Do Before Next Class: Read this very brief Audience in Technical & Professional Genres. Read/review Technical Writing One (from Google) and ESP in Technical writing (from me). Complete a rough draft of your Memo of Introduction assignment and bring a printed copy to class Friday. (Reminder: All assignment instructions are available in their respective submission portals in Canvas.) Optional bonus reading: Peruse Steve Grunwell's "I'd Like to Write the World Some Docs."

08 January 2025

Week One, Monday

In Class Today: Tech Writing "crash course" on basics to remember from 227. Task-oriented writing/"Getting Something Done." Writing with strong ESP (Efficiency, Sufficiency, and Proficiency). The "ABC"s of formatting for technical and professional writing. KISS. CYA. Overview of course syllabus and core assignments for the term. Best practices for documentation. If time: Discussion of Memo of Introduction assignment.

What You Should Do Before Next Class: Read "How to Email Your Professor" and read/skim this excerpt from The Pocket Guide to Technical Writing, paying special attention to the sections on "ABC" format and Page Design (and anything that doesn't sound familiar from your previous studies in 227).