Caution: Pressure Added

My job title is kind of interesting and ambiguous, to a certain extent. I consider myself to be a kind of freelance writer and editor for SEK-CAP. I have had minimal contact with my supervisor and the task was left open-ended.

Since legal writing is a serious matter, the document I revise will likely need to be revised once again by a licensed attorney. I only made the changes that I felt comfortable making. Without any background in legal writing, I felt cautious to make any executive decisions, but felt that I was sufficient in my work and completing my task, which was to update the Agency's by-laws to abide by the soon-to-be federal mandate for block grants made available to non-profit organizations.

To successfully and completely finish the job, one would have to be, in my opinion, a licensed attorney, which I am not. As an intern, however, I understand that my work will be gone over again and this was merely for experience. I feel like after law school I will have the appropriate qualifications to complete a task such as this with ease.

I have practiced both document design and technical editing, for the most part, during my internship. Before I really began, I edited the entire document and made the necessary changes to verb tense, clause agreement, etc. After making the changes and insertions that I felt comfortable with, I changed the layout of the document and inserted a Table of Contents at the beginning of the document, making it useful both as a hard copy and an online document by using hyperlinks on the headings.

In a sense, I thought I would have more supervision during my internship, but I understand the difficulty in finding an attorney willing to have a shadow. I had many questions about things like wording and whether or not to make a subheading for a new statute or to create a new heading altogether. It would have been nice to have someone in the same building to answer these questions, but again, I understand the difficulty that comes with that.

It was a great experience for me to work with a legal document that carries weight. One can edit and revise assignments all day and never feel pressure. When editing something that makes a difference and is used as a guideline, pressure is added in exponents. In many aspects, I didn't feel comfortable making some changes, but I can say that I did my best as of now. In three years, I feel my best work in this field will be much, much better.

Array of Genres

The field of Technical and Professional Writing is so large and so diverse that it seems logical and necessary to have genres and possibly even sub-genres. The difficulty does not come with grouping these different sections together, the difficulty come with limiting the works to merely one genre. Works in T/P Writing can morph and transform so much that one has the potential to classify under multiple genres. The genre of Technical and Professional Writing that I had the opportunity to work with during my internship was that of Legal Writing. I revised and updated the By-Laws for a local non-profit organization by the name of SEK-CAP. Since I would like to be an attorney one day, especially in the field of contract law, I thought this would fit well.

Legal Writing is unlike any writing that I have done before. It must be very concise, so that there is limited ambiguity in the statute or revision. However, within this precision, there must be an understood vagueness, so that one revision can be interpreted and understood to cover multiple circumstances, all the while leaving no loopholes or gray areas.

Other fields that I can see this type of writing in are only other legal documents. The field of law is diverse, and each section or field has a specific vocabulary. It is a form of art, just like any other type of writing, and just like anything else, it takes multiple failures and a lot of practice before ultimately finding success.

Post-Graduation as a Technical Writer

I have a very unique situation as a technical writer. I chose this major because I knew it would be a degree as a precursor to entering law school.

This June, I will be taking the LSAT, and during the fall semester I will be applying to various law schools. Currently, my top three law schools are Indiana University in Bloomington, University of Missouri, Columbia, and the the University of Missouri Kansas City.

To apply to any of these law schools, I have to fill out several applications, create a portfolio, draft a letter of intent, and collect letters of recommendation from several professors.

My skills as a technical writer will help me to stand out among my fellow applicants for law school in several ways. A few weeks ago, Pittsburg State was visited by an English major who was not working as an English major. Joi Tribble discussed how her training as English major made her a desirable employee because of her critical reading and writing skills. These same skills will be useful when taking the LSAT, and in law school.

Skills that I still need to develop would be all law-related, such as litigation, application of past cases, and torts.

Thanks to my internship at Krimson Kultuur, I have better understanding of business and business practices. It has also taught me that I am not interested in practicing business law. Krimson Kultuur has also increased my ability to work with, help, and converse with strangers in a professional setting.

Below, I have included links to apply to take the LSAT, and links to the three law schools I mentioned earlier as my top three choices. All three are self-explanatory in regards to applications.

• http://lsac.org/
• http://www.law.missouri.edu/
•  http://law.umkc.edu/
• http://www.law.indiana.edu/

From the Schoolroom to the Workroom

Job Description

For my internship, I was an assistant instructional designer. It was my responsibility to create an Adobe InDesign reference guide, five instructional modules—this included two modules for creating fliers, one for a printable form, one for an interactive PDF form, and one for a brochure— and a detailed scenario for the modules.

Required Qualifications

• Proficient knowledge in the use of Adobe InDesign and Microsoft Word
• Knowledge of Microsoft Style
• Knowledge of style guides for consistent
• Language
• Formatting
• Visual guides
• Technical editing and proofreading skills
• Completion of the Advanced Technical Writing and Document Design courses

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of Adode PhotoShop and Illustrat
• Have read Julie Dirksen’s Design for How People Learn 

New Abilities and Skills

           

New abilities and skills I have gained during this internship was how to create instructional documents. I have created instructions in the past; however, the modules I created during this internship are different because the modules are designed to instill long-term skills that can be applied to other projects in the Document Design course. As part of this internship, I read Julie Dirksen’s Design for How People Learn, which taught me how people organize information, use scenarios to add context and communicate the objective of the modules, scaffold the learning environment, and determine what skills are important for the students to learn. I was aware of some of the information Dirksen presented in her book, but there was also new knowledge that I gained. Susan Krantz, in her article A Newcomer Gains Power, states “Rhetorical expertise involves an awareness of the basic concerns of audience and purpose; successful strategies for invention (e.g., generating ideas by brainstorming, overcoming writer's block); and a facility with language, both written and oral, that allows the rhetor to use strategies for invention and organization to respond appropriately to the intended audience for an intended purpose.” I find this to be true because I had to find  new ways of communicating information to be utilized as learning tools.

Unused Skills

For my internship, I employed all of the skills I acquired during my experiences in the Technical/Professional Writing program. I was apprehensive when asked by Dr. McDaniel if I had any experience using PhotoShop or Illustrator. The experiences I have had with these programs were limited, as I had only used them once in a web development course I had taken; however, due to my limited knowledge, these programs were optional. If I continue to work in design, PhotoShop and Illustrator will become necessary skills for me to acquire.

Differences in Writing for the Classroom and Writing in an Internship

The style of writing I used in my internship varied greatly from the academic writing I did in my coursework. In academic writing, you are informing or persuading an audience by incorporating supporting arguments for your point-of-view. While I did incorporate some forms of rhetoric in my module design, they are purely information with no supporting arguments and I became the sole authoritative voice. This allowed me to have creative freedom with the instructional design and guide the students to achieve the outcome I envisioned. At first, I struggled with the transition from classroom writing to writing for application—and how to incorporate the classroom skills into this new setting. According to Chris Anson and Lee Forsberg, “While certain surface-level writing skills are ‘portable’ across diverse contexts, such skills are less important to making a success transition as a writer coping with the unfamiliar epistemological, social, and organizational characteristics of a new context.” I first had to understand who my audience is, what motivates them, and what would help them remember the skills I was offering. Once I understood these elements, I was able to create a style guide to incorporate visual guides and simple and consistent language.

Writing Context, Work Atmosphere, and Organizational Hierarchy

In her article Understanding the Writing Contexts in Organizations, Linda Driskill states “The ‘subject’ or ‘topic’ is not context-free, but situated, involved in what the members of the organization must know, feel, or believe in order to accomplish their goals.” This is true in the creation of the modules for this internship. These modules did not address all the abilities of InDesign, but established the basic knowledge of the program needed to create common documents—such as fliers, forms, and brochures. I did have creative freedom in the scenario and the outcome designs of the modules; however, the context of the module itself was limited. Its only goal was to instruct the student in the use of InDesign.

The work atmosphere for this internship was relaxed and I was able to work at my own pace. When I completed a module, I would meet with Dr. McDaniel—my internship supervisor—to discuss the module and establish plans for the next one. I was given creative freedom in the designs process; however, Dr. McDaniel and I created guidelines for skills acquired in the modules and this helped to maintain focus in the creation process.

Sources:

Anson, Chris and Forsberg, Lee Moving Beyond the Academic Community

Driskill, Linda  Understanding the Writing Contexts in Organizations

Kratz, Susan A Newcomer Gains Power

            

Genre In Technical and Professional Writing

The genre of instructional design is applicable to many areas of technical and professional writing. It can be used to create recipes, manuals, assignments, and many other tools in aiding an audience to complete a task. During my internship, I was assigned the task of creating five modules to aid the Document Design students in the use of Adobe InDesign and to develop a set of skills that can be utilized in other areas of the course. The primary elements I used in the creation of the modules were a scenario, applicable and practical designs, incorporation of visual and textual guides in the steps, and repetition of skills.

According to Carolyn Miller, “…if genre represents action, it must involve situation and motive, because human action, whether symbolic or otherwise, is interpretable only against a context of situation and through the attributing of motives.” By incorporating a scenario into the modules, it gives the students context and motive to apply to the modules, otherwise the modules are only a series of steps with no purpose. This will help in their retention of the skills applied during the modules. In addition, the applicable and practical designs are documents—such as fliers, forms, and brochures—that apply to the scenario. The use of visual guides in the modules helps to break up the text and aids in the learning process. Incorporating visual guides aids the visual learner to complete the steps. The modules also build upon each other, with each new module introducing new skills while incorporating skills from the previous module. This repetition will also aid in the retention process.

In their article Rhetorical Genre Studies, Anis Bawarshi and Mary Jo Reiff state “…genres are dynamic because as their conditions of use change—for example because of changes in material conditions, changes in community membership, changes in technology, changes in disciplinary purposes, and values…—genres must change along with them or risk becoming obsolete.” Since genres are dynamic, they can adapt to any situation. Other professional context, outside of an academic setting, which would use instructional design, would be instruction manuals. Like the modules I have created, instruction manuals are systematic guides to guide the user in completing the task. The context would be the scenario in which the manual would apply—for instance, putting together a set of bookshelves. In addition to context, the manuals contain visual/textual guides and a repetition of skills. This combination of elements is what creates an effective document that the user can learn from.

Sources: 

Bawarshi, Anis and Reiff, Mary Jo Rhetorical Genre Studies

Miller, Carolyn Genre as a Social Action

Training for the Future

Contributions to my qualifications

My internship has contributed to my qualifications as a technical writer by giving me lots of “real world” experience. I have been able to practice creating documents for other users, including instructional documents, created promotional materials such as a flyer, gained experience editing, as well as valuable experience for any type of job in communicating with others. I was able to practice communicating in different forms and with different people to accomplish tasks from communicating back and forth with authors about their documents to communicating and collaborating with my supervisor for the internship to set goals and timelines for tasks to be accomplished. Though all the other experience I have gained during this internship is important and valuable to me as a I go out in search of a position after graduation, having the proven ability and experience of strong communication skills and the ability to work individually or as a member of a group is a very big plus to have on my resume.

Other skills and abilities I may need to develop are likely going to include becoming more comfortable with graphic software, especially the most popular ones like Photoshop and InDesign. Though I already have a working knowledge of these programs, I would like to be even better versed in using them and knowing what they are capable of. Most of any other qualifications I will need seem to be company-specific in most of the job postings I have seen; for example, I saw a job posting for a technical writer at Garmin, but they specifically needed someone with knowledge of aviation and aviation mechanics to write instructional manuals for their aviation GPS units. Several positions for technical writers I have seen are similar in the requirements for highly specific knowledge of a certain field. Regardless of how specific the information is, all technical writers need to be able to write in a manner that makes the material accessible and user-friendly. In order to do this, future employees will need to listen to the way people communicate and interpret language in order to fit into a corporate environment (Southard 85).

Job #1

The first job I researched was a proposal writer for Perceptive Software (a Lexmark company).

Specific job duties will include:

•       Writing – Provide responses to RFP requirements based on product knowledge, research and knowledge of the prospect gained via the RFP or from the sales team.

•       Editing – Edit other writers’ work for content, tone, accuracy, key messages and win themes.

•       Proofreading – Proofread outgoing RFPs and collateral as needed to eliminate typos, grammatical errors and formatting issues.

•       Research – Possess an understanding of technical topics and be able to independently research and comprehend technologies to provide accurate and thoughtful RFP responses.

•       Project Management – Work closely with proposal managers, proposal writers, knowledge managers and account executives among others, to ensure all content is delivered accurately and on time. Manage the resources needed to guarantee compelling deliverables.

This job requires, at a minimum, the following skills:

•       Possessing a high degree of comfort writing about, reading about and discussing technical subjects relating to software and hardware, such as client/server technology, TCP/IP communications, browsers, electronic file formats, storage media, operating systems and hardware platforms.

•       Effectively narrating how enterprise technology products are used so that future customers will clearly understand the scope of solutions Perceptive Software provides and the positive impact those solutions will have on their business.

•       Writing quickly, accurately and concisely, and developing messaging for the most critical aspects of each piece.

•       Leading cross-functional teams and around potential obstacles to get the details necessary to ensure completeness and accuracy of all response content.

•       Taking an assignment from start to finish, getting help as needed, and delivering back to the proposal project manager and account executive a close-to-completed work that needs only minor editorial comment.

Additional duties as required.

Training Unit:

The training unit for this position would include writing grant proposals, possibly learning the most effective ways to research topics and other companies, and  practice writing in a narrative style.

Job #2

The second job I researched was a technical writing position at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Major Responsibilities: 

•       Tracks and maintains business use cases, procedures, process maps, plans, and related documentation to ensure timely review, revision, and posting in the Sharepoint site.

•       Perform or coordinate, as necessary, the technical editing of business use cases, procedures, process maps, and any other required documentation to help ensure clear, concise, accurate, and grammatically correct documents.

•       Create and update existing job aids and website content as needed.

•       Maintain a consistent look and feel throughout all documentation.

•       Copy, edit and proofread all content.

•       Assure information and approvals are archived for future needs and reference.

•       Work cooperatively with key team members, clients and vendors.

•       Exceptional communication and organizational skills.

•       Ability to manage multiple projects in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.

•       Extensive knowledge of Microsoft Office products.

•       Experience with Sharepoint or the ability to learn how to effectively use it. 

•       Proven ability to build consensus and work effectively within a cross-departmental team.

Training Unit:

The training unit for this position would include learning what Sharepoint is and how to use it, as well as extensive study of business use cases, procedures, process maps, and any other required documentation.

Job #3

The third job I researched was as a technical writer for the Norland Group.

‪Responsibilities include:

•       accumulating technical data and documentation, and presenting written assembly instructions.

•       ‪Interact with engineering, management and production personnel to obtain accurate data and information for document content.

•       ‪Strong technical knowledge in the given field with a good grasp of technical terminology.

•       ‪Organize technical data to provide easily understood instructions to the user.

‪

Required Skills:

•       ‪Framemaker software– working knowledge

•       ‪Photoshop software – working knowledge

•       ‪Industrial process familiarity

•       ‪Process knowledge/awareness

•       ‪ECN system

Training Unit:

The training unit for this job would include learning how to use Framemaker software as well as Photoshop software. I would also need to familiarize myself with what the company does and what exactly they mean by “industrial process familiarity.” I would also need to learn what an ECN system is and how it operates. This is a position that seems to have job-specific knowledge and jargon I would need to learn.

Sources

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. “Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age.”

Soplinsky, Emily. “Survival Skills for Communicators within Organizations.”

Southard, Sherry G. “Interacting Successfully in Corporate Culture.” 

An Anthology for Krimson Kultuur

• Store Manager at Krimson Kultuur
• Responsibilities 
• Open and close store as needed
• Create volunteer schedule
• Manage volunteers
• Order product
• Inventory of products
• Create displays/sets for products
• Manage SQUARE 
• Manage social media
• Manage website through Weebly
• Required qualifications
• Website skills
• People skills
• Communication skills

The writing in this internship differs from regular class writing for several reasons. Mainly, this writing is not graded. It is on a need-to-need basis, and you are your own editor. The computer context is marginal, as the only real computer work needed is email and the management of the Weebly-based website. Everything else in the store ran by an iPad that is connected to the SQUARE register system.

In regards to hierarchy, particularly with Susan Katz's essay in mind, the hierarchy is confusing in Krimson Kultuur, because a lead intern was never put in place, nor were other leaders named except for the two faculty members who were involved in the store development, Suzanne Hurt and Dr. Lynn Murray. The work atmosphere is very casual, with little to no supervision. The writing is minimal and always professional.

To those who are taking my position, they should know that since the store is ran by the business club Enactus, club politics will effect your workplace, schedules are often disorganized, and wires are frequently crossed because you are working for other students who are learning just like you. It's also important to do research! Research the vendors in the store, meet the local artists, and be able to answer questions that customers may have. Any retail experience you have will enhance your success in the internship, because not only do you write for Krimson Kultuur, you will spend at least two hundred hours in the store working with customers and other volunteers.

Bibliography:

Anson, Chris M. "Moving Beyond the Academic Community: Transitional Stages in Professional Writing". Written Communication. 1990. Print.

Driskell, Linda. Understanding the Writing in Organizations. Print.  

 Katz, Susan. "A Newcomer Gains Power". Journal of Business Communication. 1998. Print.