English 421: Technical Writing

The ship building project was a good intro to show what it takes for a group project to work well.  There needs to be some assemblance of order to be able to get it done right and on time.  We started well by finding a way to get all of the instructions together in the right order to start building the ship.  The building process began with a group assembling the hull of the ship, and another two groups building the masts.

Building the pirate ship is a good exercise and it is especially fun to do in an english class.  It is also a good exercise because it has a purpose behind it.  It was interesting to see how everyone decided to go about building the model.  It seemed like everyone wanted to do the same thing.  Put the instructions together, put them in an order that made sense, and construct the model.  This is very relevant to the process that we use to write in class.  We kind of throw everything together, organize it, and then post our writing.  It is also relevant to h

Building that pirate ship was a great analogy towards writing in a group environment. I think that as well as demonstrating many of the principals of; seeing the big picture first before you iron out the details, of how to effectively break off the work so that maximum efficiency is achieved. It was also a great team building exercise I think it got everyone in the class talking and working together to discuss how to get this task accomplished. It showed how some people stand up and start delegating and others listen to delegations and participate and help in their own way.

 After experiencing both face to face and online peer reviews, I definitely prefer face to face reviewing.  Face to face just seems to allow many more lines of communication.  Compared to online, which eliminates tone of voice and body language.  These two items could be critical in reviewing because it allows you to have a much better grasp about what the person actually thinks about your paper.

Both methods have pro's and con's, however I personally prefer face to face simply because of the reasons listed above.

The main difference in responding face to face and responding online is that you can explain yourself better.  When you respond online, it is sometimes hard to let the reader know exactly what you mean.  When face to face, you can explain yourself better and they can ask you to clarify what you wrote.  In the cover letter that I reviewed, there was one part that I was having trouble explaining how to fix.  Since it was face to face, I just wrote down what I meant and then explained it to them.  This worked much more effectively than if I were to respond online.&nbsp

With busy schedules and the technology of today, sometimes it is just easier to do things online.  Responding online versus responding in person has is benefits and draw backs.  The benefit of it is that there is no time conflicts and it is just easier to do.  The person responding can take their time and formulate a good response in order to get the most benefit of it.  One major drawback is that it is hard to make responses seem genuine.  Without the benefit of hearing the person responding and hearing the inflection of their voice, or the gestures they make, some