Technical Communication

Assignment #1: Chapter 7, Exercise 1–

• Find the website of a company that makes a product used by professionals in your field. (Personal computers are a safe choice.) Locate three discussions on the site that use different organizational patterns. For example, there will probably be a passage devoted to ordering a product from the site (using a chronological pattern), a description of a product (using a partition pattern), and a passage describing why the company’s products are superior to those of its competitors (using a comparison-and-contrast argument). Print a copy of the passages you’ve identified.

Assignment #2: Chapter 7, Exercise 3–

• You are researching portable GPS systems for use in your company’s existing fleet of 35 delivery vans. You are considering such factors as ease of use, size of screen, number of points of interest, and Bluetooth compatibility. You conclude that the three leading models are quite similar in all but one way: price. One model costs about 30 percent less than the other two models. In organizing your discussion of the three models, should you use the whole-by-whole pattern or the part-by-part pattern? Why?

Assignment #3: Chapter 8, Exercise 3–

• For each of the following claims, write one paragraph identifying the logical flaw:
  • The election couldn’t have been fair—I don’t know anyone who voted for the winner.
  • It would be wrong to prosecute Allied for age discrimination; Allied has always been a great corporate neighbor.
  • The decrease in smoking can be attributed to increased restrictions on smoking in public.
  • Bill Jensen’s proposal to create an on-site day-care center is just the latest of his harebrained ideas.
  • Since the introduction of cola drinks at the start of the twentieth century, cancer has become the second-greatest killer in the United States. Cola drinks should be outlawed.
  • If mutual-fund guru Peter Lynch recommends this investment, I think we ought to buy it.
  • We should not go into the flash-memory market; we have always been a leading manufacturer of DRAM.
  • The other two hospitals in the city have implemented computerized patient record keeping; I think we need to do so, too.
  • Our Model X500 didn’t succeed because we failed to sell a sufficient number of units.
  • No research has ever established that Internet businesses can earn money; they will never succeed.