Technical Writing, Instructions Assignment

English 3107: Technical Writing for Engineering

Assignment: Instructions

Vital Statistics

Due Date: October 20, 2008.
Drafts Due : No drafts for this assignment.
Conferences: No conferences for this assignment.
Workshops: There will be various in-class workshops for this paper.
Length: about 1200 words.
Unusual Requirements: The instructions must be in the form of a web page, and be submitted both in print and electronic form. Post to the Internet for extra credit.
Questions?: Ask in class and get participation credit!

Every day, people consult the World Wide Web to find out how to do various tasks. Some of these tasks are very mundane, such as how to make bread. Others are more unusual, such as Maureen O' Brien's web site on how to write early Irish style poetry. About.com makes its advertising dollars by supplying instructions to people.

Write long instructions, in web page form, on how to do something that you do well. You must

Instruct your audience in a specific procedure that should be performed in a certain order. "Tips" style pages will not fulfill the assignment. The procedure needs to be somewhat complicated if you're going to make the length requirement.
Be an expert in the procedure.
Include all necessary warnings.
Abide by TSU Policies. Keep the ratings in the G-PG range, and forget the bomb-making manuals. And it would be politic to avoid writing "How to Find the Perfect Term Paper on the Internet" and "How to Cheat on Exams" sorts of pages.
Hand in a print-out (black and white is fine) and a digital copy (on CD-Rom, e-mailed, or posted to the Internet).

Other than these restrictions, feel free to pick something you enjoy and/or are expert in. Some possibilities:

A sports page (How to Shoot a Recurve Bow, How to Surf the Ocean).
A crafts page (How to Make Beeswax Candles).
A household page (How to Clean the Whole House in 3 Hours, How to Change a Carburator).
A game page (How to Get Past Raven in Diablo II).
A helpful, practical page (How to Find a Social Worker, How to Navigate the TSU Bursar's Office).

Your audience for this assignment is potentially real! Search engines have crawlers that go everywhere and find everything. They will find your page and include it in their archives. The next unsuspecting person who types in "Tennessee State University Social Work" will find your page entitled, "How to Apply to the TSU Social Work Major." That person will be looking for real, accurate information. Give it to them.

Warning!

You must write your own instructions! You may not copy instructions from other sources, including (but not limited to) cookbooks, self-help guides, web sites, do-it-yourself guides, and class handouts. Do your own work! I am well aware that many instructions are available on the Internet. I am conversant and adept with search engines, and I have access to web crawlers that check student work for plagiarized material.

Although Microsoft's Internet Explorer currently dominates the browser market, many folks use other browsers. You cannot know for sure what browser your audience will be using.

Make sure your page works and is readable both in Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. I may be checking your page in Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox, a combination of them, or all of them.

Due Date: October 20, 2008.

Back to the Work Page.

This assignment was orginally created for M. Wendy Hennequin's English 249s class, Fall 2001. Created July 21, 2001. Revised for English 3105 at Tennessee State University on February 17, 2008. Last update, October 3, 2008.