In Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing, we were assigned to write about the field of technical communication. No other instructions were given, not how to do it, not how the professor wanted it, not even how long it should be. This meant it’d be rather simple, just follow the standard MLA college format, right? Well, this assignment turned out to be one of the most interesting and enlightening writing experiences that I have ever partaken in and showed me how much I had yet to learn about being a writer.
Initially, what I had written looked like an academic paper. (And not even a good one, I might add) However, we told that was not what we were supposed to hand in and given no more information, we had been tasked to redo the assignment, again and again. What we were supposed to do was break out of this academic mentality we had been raised into and create something that looked like something someone might actually be interested in reading. By the fourth iteration, I was starting to understand what we needed to do. By the sixth and final iteration, it had evolved into something completely unrecognizable, for the better.
Below you will find 2 PDF’s. The first contains all six iterations of the assignment, which highlights how drastically different the paper became. The second contains only the final copy.
Below you will find 2 PDF’s, the first contains all six versions of the assignment. By scrolling through, it becomes very apparent how drastically the assignment evolved. The second PDF contains the final copy of the assignment in case you only want to see the finished product.
