Our general question for this assignment is this: What is technical writing? To answer this question, we turn to a series of narratives collected in Savage, Sullivan, and Dragga, Writing a Professional Life. Narratives are stories, and as you may imagine, not every story teller tells the same tale. So we'll find a variety of responses to our question, as well we should since many different types of work fall into the large category called "technical writing."

Your job is to read at least eight different narratives and to report back to the class and to me about your findings. Examine carefully the two tables of contents. The first divides the readings into three parts:" Inititiation Stories," "The Process," and "Life on and off the Job." The second table of contents organizes the essays by topic, e.g., collaboration and teamwork, consulting and contracting. Read the tables of contents carefully and peruse the readings lightly before choosing your eight selections. In essence, you'll be refining the broader question we began with (what is technical writing?) and zero-ing in on what YOU want to know about technical writing.

So now you've read the essays. How and what will you write? You're aiming for about four pages. Your audience is us--your classmates and your instructor. Your purpose is similar to the purpose we defined for the speaker reports except that not everyone has read the essays that you have read. So you'll want to say which essays you read and why you picked these out, what you found out about technical writing, and which essays or which parts of an essay were most useful. Then you'll talk about whether or not the projects described sound interesting to you and why or why not. What skills and knowledge would you need to land any of the technical writing positions discussed and what sort of academic or practical training would help you succeed at one of these jobs? What indeed is technical writing? Please consider these questions as hueristics, as prompts that take you in promising directions. You do NOT have to respond to all of these questions or to any of them. But you do need to respond generally to the question "what is technical writing?" according to the authors you read.

Summary of requirements: