J. McKenzie Hansen
Organization
For this section, I decided to choose my Genre Analysis Report written for Technical Writing and SELECT Program’s Style Manual I created for Technical Editing. Both projects demonstrate my organizational skills when writing.
The Genre Analysis Report was a project that would help me analyze a specific type of writing in my field. I chose to write about curriculum development because it is my main job as Executive Director of SELECT Programs (the non-profit that I started that provides professional and technology skill workshops to students ages 10-17). The Genre Analysis Report was to be written like a technical report and needed to include a literature review and analysis of sample curriculum, an interview with a professional, and a site inspection.
I organized my Genre Analysis Report with headings to break up the content. I also included a table of contents so that my reader could find information faster. The audience for this assignment is my future self, but I know other readers who are interested in curriculum development would benefit from this project and would appreciate the headings and organization of the document.
The style manual project was the final project for technical editing. I worked with two graduate students on the project, but I was assigned the group leader because our client was SELECT Programs. Not only is our style manual visually appealing, it is very organized. The manual includes information about the style manual, a table of contents, section dividers, large font, headings, and tables and figures. The manual was written for SELECT Programs staff, volunteers, and students so that the organization would remain consistent regardless of your role in the organization.
Before taking these classes, I had only written academic papers, which some included headings to break up the information. However, these assignments forced me to think about organization of documents in a different way. These are documents that include valuable information and people will actually use these documents on a day-to-day basis, specifically the style manual.
As I was writing each document, I kept my audience in mind and asked myself questions while writing and revising. Some of these questions included, “Do my page numbers match my table of contents?” “Did I provide the correct information for this heading?” “If I was looking for (x), would I look here or here first?”. Asking myself these questions helped me think about the gaps in my documents’ organization. The outlines and peer feedback I received for both projects also helped me in organizing these documents.
Looking back at my projects, I do not believe that there are any changes I would make to these documents in regards to organization. I believe both projects are very well organized, highlight the correct information in each category, and are easy to navigate through.