This is the post for the July 25, 2014 class meeting.

There are lots of resources to share today, and you’ll post several times in the forums and send me an email message. Let’s get to it.

Class Work for July 25

These are the tasks to complete for today’s work:

• Look at some resources for choosing and using graphics.
• Go over some information on instructions and definitions.
• Discuss some examples in the forums.
• Post details about your focus for Project 3.

Choosing and Using Graphics

You can find tips for adding graphics to your documents on the FAQ site. Most importantly, know that unless you take the photo yourself, you need to be sure that it’s okay to use it in your writing. In the workplace, you will frequently have staff who curate photo collections you can use if you need to illustrate a document. For our purposes, however, you have to think about issues like copyright and citing your sources.

Work through these FAQs for details and resources, including places to find images that you can use freely (as long as you credit your source):

• How does copyright work with images?
• How do I choose images for my projects?
• How can I tell if an image is protected by copyright?
• Where can I find graphics that I can use in my projects?
• How do I use images in my project?

Writing Instructions and Definitions

I pointed out the key information from the textbook in yesterday’s post. Today I have some slideshow presentations that review the information from the text and add some details that help you as you work on your project:

1. The Writing Instructions slideshow includes a List of Required Parts (all the things you need to include in your instructions). Check the last slide for Tips for Instructions (a list of things I sometimes see people struggle with).

2. The Writing Definitions slideshow focuses on sentence and paragraph definitions, which you are likely to use if you create a glossary. Most glossary entries will be no more than a sentence or two. You will also find information on glossary format. If you are creating a glossary, pay particular attention to slides 11–14.

Discussing Example Instructions and Definitions

You will post two forum replies today, one for instructions and one for glossaries, by midnight in your time zone on Sunday, 7/27:

• Review these instructions, and then go to the Discussing Instructions  topic in the forums to talk about what they do well and how they might be improved:
  1. Virginia Tech – ROLM 751 DIGITAL CBX, Faculty / Staff Telephone Quick Reference
  2. Employer’s Accident Report Instructions
  3. Instructions on how to pay the $3000 deposit
  4. Join Virginia Tech’s McNair Listserv
  5. PlantSimLab Basic Tutorial

• Review these glossaries (written by students), and then go to the Discussing Definitions topic in the forums to talk about what they do well and how they might be improved:
  • Distillation Glossary 1
  • Distillation Glossary 2
  • Engineering Glossary
  • Food Allergy Glossary
  • Nitrocellulose Glossary
  • Soccer Glossary

Proposing Your Focus for Project 3

Please send me an email that tells me about your decisions for Project 3. Please use the subject line “Project 3 Plans” so that I am sure to find and reply. Please do your best to send me this message by Saturday morning, so that I have time to reply before your rough drafts are due on Monday.

In your message please tell me the following:

• the focus for your project—What is the job title you will talk about? Will you talk about the job you have this summer or something else? Give me the details.
• the topic for your instructions (if you are aiming for a B or better). Give me enough information to understand. I want to be sure you haven’t chosen a topic that is too large for the assignment.
• any questions you have about the project. Note that if you ask a question I think others may be interested in, I’ll remove your personal information and add it to the Questions about Project 3 topic in the forum.

Your message can be relatively short. You might have a sentence or two for focus and the same for the topic for your instructions. You can say more, of course. Don’t worry over the message. Just send me the details.