The first unit of this course introduced what technical communication is and what kind of writing is expected according to its purpose and audience. I especially learned a lot from writing emails to perspective team members by considering clear organization and a friendly tone. The definitions assignment further expanded my knowledge of different types of definitions, and what to keep in mind when the writing is directed to non-technical readers.
I focused on Object-oriented Programming (OOP) as the term for the definitions assignment. Writing the first draft was more difficult than I thought, as I had to take into account how comprehensible my writing is to a reader who has little or no knowledge of computer science or programming. This led me to think more carefully on what expansion strategies to choose. I believed it would make most sense to use comparison to both explain what OOP is and imply its significance (e.g. compared to previous programming paradigms, OOP is more applicable in the real world). By adding a structure and example to the expanded definition, I intended to further exemplify how OOP works.
The peer reviewing process was very helpful for two reasons: first, it allowed me to read my teammate’s work and compare it to my own. My peer review partner, Samantha Krieg, wrote about the degree of freedom, a concept that is important in structural analysis and in the engineering field. I could see that the expanded definition was very detailed and had the appropriate visual components, making it easier for me to understand an unfamiliar concept. Second, I was able to read critically and offer suggestions as a non-technical reader. Again, this made me think about my own assignment and helped me in the self-editing process.
Along with Samantha’s peer review, I re-read my assignment to see which parts needed revision. As Samantha had pointed out, many sentences could have been shortened and written more concisely. It reminded me that I should assume that my audience are busy people and I should limit filler words or phrases that do not have much meaning. I also learned that some jargon or technical terms I had written without parenthetical definitions could have confused non-technical readers. I fixed a few citation errors and added a reading situation in the introduction to give more context to the definition of OOP and its significance.