Chapter 7 "Planning and Drafting"
Week 2
Experienced writers take the time to investigate. They are concerned with their audience, they go lengths to make sure what they are presenting or writing is accessible, comprehensible and usable. Inexperienced writers forget about planing and their audience. Professionals use these 5 steps to ensure quality: Inventing and Exploring Planning and Organization Drafting and Designing Revising EditingChapter 7 has a focus on the previous items and also gives strategies to becoming an expert.
Inventing and exploring:
For any kind of project, document,or oral presentation, a considerable amount of time is spent in inventing and exploring. This step enables to take a tentative decision and discover the source of knowledge within yourself. During the inventing and exploring process we go through two different steps:
1. Problem solving process
2. Problem solving strategies.
While preparing a document, presentation or visual, exploring the materials and inventing an idea plays an important role. This furthermore allows dealing with the problems related to the document. Different problems may arise during the process, an effective problem solving process aid in working efficiently. Problems can be interfaced with the certain problem solving process which can be listed as:
· Identifying the problem
· Gathering the information
· Formulating alternative solutions
· Drawing with the similar past experience
· Selecting the best plan of action
· Getting started with the best solution
· Monitoring the outcome of the process
· Evaluating and determining the success of the problem solving process.
The successful problem solving strategies commonly used are Brainstorming, cause and effect, synectics and 5 Ws+H questions.
Brainstorming is one of the most commonly used methods of problem solving strategies, where one can suggest and test all the possible ideas.
Other side, cause and effect analysis looks for the cause of the problem and deals with the cause to solve the problems. Synectics is another strategy, often common collaboratively. Bringing together different ideas encourages effective problem solving.
Planning and Organizing
Project planning is successful to produce a good result which also manages time. You can assess to the list of things to be done and their deadlines. The most commonly used project management tools are Gantt charts and Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) chart, these charts track the project activities.
Considering Rhetorical Elements:
During planning, you need to make decisions about the various rhetorical elements. Some rhetorical elements are content, context, purpose, audience, organization visuals, document design, usability, language conventions. Each element affects the other, Change in one element influences the other elements. Ethics of the situation should be paid more attention during the planning process.
Assessing the logic
It’s important that the document should be logical, the problems in logic generally fall into following categories:
Using data from authorities
Presenting facts without drawing inferences
Drawing inferences
Establishing causal relationships
Using data from authorities:
Audience responds to the popular authorities, you will get a good positive response if the data collected is from the recognized authorities.
Presenting facts without drawing inferences:
The facts presented can mislead the audiences if it is incomplete, out of context, oversimplified, or distorted.Omitted or incomplete data:
The data that is omitted or accidental can mislead the audience. Missing of some information can lead to different result creating confusion.
Out of-context data:
Out of context data often being accurate can mislead the audience, because of the lack of the appropriate information.
Oversimplified or distorted data:
An oversimplified data can give a distorted view to the audience; it just focuses on the simple idea of the data ignoring the relevant details and other possible situations.
Drawing Inferences:
Using data to make generalizations, be careful to not make false conclusions
Hasty Generalizations:
Making a conclusion before using all information
Irrelevant Functions:
Criticizing something for not having characteristics you think it should have
Composition and Division:
Certain characteristics are falsely attributed to a whole, and vise verseEstablishing Casual Relationships:
Audience is mislead by poorly drawn conclusions.
· Condition Not a sufficient cause: A cause that can produce the effect on its own is the sufficient cause, a week cause-effect relationship misleads an audience.
· Variables Not Correlated: sometimes the variables used might not have a cause- effect relationship.
· Fallacy of post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc. : Fallacious logic, the first event must be the cause of the second, can undermine the integrity of the document.
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Drafting
After planning for the document, drafting is another important step,
different ways for drafting are:
· Sketching the important things and noting the key points during drafting and developing them
· Composing the entire design, working beginning till end
· Preparing an outline of the rough draft
Making online outline sketch as the framework
Selecting Person
Choosing which view point your information will be given is very important for success. First person (I, we) if you were involved, Second person (you) mostly for instruction, Third person (he, she, one, it, they) emphasize action, these are guidelines used to assist in your presentation.
Verb Mood Selection of appropriate verb mood is important during drafting. Mood allows audience to feel emotion of what is being presented. Inactive mood states facts or opinions Imperative mood expresses commands or gives direction Subjunctive mood expresses recommendations, wishes, conjectures, indirect requests, and statements of conditions.
Selecting Active or Passive Voice
An Active voice will make it easier understand what is going on. Active voice is mostly appropriate and makes things more interesting. Passive voice is for when the receiver is more important than the agent.
Using Plain Language
Plain language simplifies everything and eliminates language problems
Eliminates unnecessary or inappropriate formalisms
uses strong verbs
its direct
Even the government believes its a good idea and uses it whenever possible
Avoiding Density
This is where many good ideas are packed into a tiny paragraph and are unable to be fully understood. Ways to avoid this are:
Separate information into many sentences rather than few large ones.
Develop important points separately
Add examples and explanations to illustrate points
Use direction
Add transitions
Use headings and subheadings
Illustrate objects and concepts
Use visual devices
Individual and Collaborative Assignments
1 Track your writing process
2 Analyze your writing process
3 Create a rubric
4 Interview a professional
5 Look at the process of translation
6 Determine the appropriate voice 7 Explain active and passive voice
8 Revise an explanation to eliminate density
9 Revise using given-new structures
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21 comments:
i have personal experience in giving and listening to oral presentaions. i know how important it is to do your research on the topic and to make sure that you keep your audience in mind when you are either picking your topic to present, or picking the way you are going to present it. i have sat through alot of speeches that the person didnt think of the audience and it was absolutley horrible to endure them.
Planning and scheduling is one of the very most important things to learn in life. When dealing with writing planning and scheduling is a huge factor to obtain because your writing will be more fluent, and the quality will be much better for you and your audience. I like this chapter a lot because I can relate to it. During my time here at MSU I have had to read and write a lot of papers. At first I struggled because I was never much of a writer but after taking a couple classes I learned how to schedule and prepare myself more.
This is a very well written description of what you need to do when you first want to get your idea on to paper. I am really familiar with this because when I write my rough draft of a paper, I usually end up rewriting most of it when I go to revise it. In addition, I think when someone is going to do a presentation in front of a class it should be well thought out and a topic that most people can relate to or are interested in.
Having been in involved in several team work and individual projects as part of requirements for my major, I have noticed how planning and drafting plays an important role in producing project reports and oral presentations. Project planning manages time and also produces good results. I have used project management tools like gnatt charts to track the project activities which ensures that all activities are being accomplished in a timely manner. After planning your project, all the ideas can be drafted from the start to the end. Modifications can always be made to the initial plan and draft as you progress with the project, but this gives you a head start. Collaboration as were read in chapter 5 is also very important in producing technical documents.
While I am not personally that great at planning, I will agree that it is almost essential in completing large, complicated tasks efficiently and effectively. Knowing what you are to do and when when to have it done will also remove a lot of the stress sometimes found when a deadline draws near. Futhermore, I find drafting, like planning, to also be a very useful tool. I always go over all my work and revise until it doesn't look anything like the original. Not that there was anything wrong to begin with; just improving upon what is there. Nothing is perfect on the first run through.
i have had a little personal experience planning and drafting presentations in a few different classes. i have taken a few speech classes and in them we had to plan out our speeches and what we were going to say. planning out a schedule and then following it, without procrastinating, is something that is very important when you need to get a paper done or anything else in your life. if you keep putting something off its going to catch up to you sooner or later but it is good to work on them over time.
The issues in this chapter that caught my attention were the following:
Continual changes in the planning and writing process. I look at that as nothing but progressive editing and can relate to doing just that.
Confusion in subjunctive verb mood. Was vs. were.
What I see as possibly the most important issue of all. Ethics in writing. Taking responsibility for what one writes is, in my eyes a must-have for ANY writer. No? Ask Dan Rather.
Planning and drafting is the main point to watch in the writing.I know when i did my first homework in MNSU and reconized that i should do paper with planning way with effective things. I throught this topic as a important in the daily life of people. As a student i should follow the rules what i am doing with the help of this planning and drafting.In the study which we are having must have this things so we should manage it is proper way. In writing paper, we should familier with this idea and implement it. Then our writing will be best. well, it teach me more idea to write the paper.
It is very important to be organized and have a plan of action for a paper or a presentation. It's real easy to pick out someone who did not take the time to properly plan what they want to get across. It's especially important to consider your audience, as was mentioned in the summary. You need to know if they have a background in what you are talking about or if they are clueless to the subject. I found the part about mood selection interesting. A use of certain words can change the mood drastically. Using strong verbs isn’t something I usually think to do, but it could make your writing much more interesting.
I think that this is a very important aspect in life. If you try to do something without planning or thinking it through, the product may not be as successful as you thought. Many people totally skip the aspect of planning and organizing and if people would start adding planning and organization into their lives they might find that it helps tremendously. Also, when dealing with speeches it pays to actually think of who your audience will be and whether or not your topic will be interesting to them.
I agree that is important to plan before starting a project, or to do a rough draft before a paper. But I have to say that I am guilty of sometimes planning too much and sometimes that translates in to not getting the assignment done on time. Another thing is that sometimes I think out the paper/project to much in my head before I actually get started and then when I do start there are a lot of things I forget about.
Planning and drafting for a presentation is crucial in making any performance work and capable of getting your point across. The people who wrote this blog did a very good job of explaining the steps to do so. By sketching and drafting out your presentation, it allows for changes and you to tweak the presentation until you think it’s perfect. Also, by creating a rubric for the group, it makes each team member work to their fullest potential in order to make the project as best as it can be. The group did a good job writing and explaining this blog.
Planning and drafting is time consuming work. An experienced writer takes time for his article or presentation so that it can be easily accessed, understood and can be used productively. For planning and drafting, there is bound of set of rules. It’s like developing an algorithm to accomplish a certain task. Brainstorm could be a better creativity technique, a method to generate ideas to solve a problem. Sketching out the important things, checking grammar, phrases, style and making outline for a rough draft are the elements of drafting.
The whole summary is well divided into two parts – planning and drafting with reasonable sub components. Gantt charts and Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) chart is not well described in the summary. But the summary seems well defined and adequate information is provided so that a reader could understand.
As a whole this summary is two thumbs up!
In today’s business world we have to prepare all kinds of documents, the planning and drafting can be come difficult at times. With a step by step process and different ways of thinking about ways to solve problems, your collaborative group can use a method that works best for you. As you write documents we need to revise so that they are not wordy or drag on. With all of your technical documents there is a lot of research, organization, and audience to consider. When I am writing bid documents and estimate for my company I have to consider who the audience and what information they will need to make a decision. At times certain audiences need more information than others.
Planning and organizing remains a crucial skill, whether as a student or as a worker. Since technical communications are the future, it is important to be familiar with the necessary computer softwares to publish or create data. Like stated, inventing and exploring are important skills in planning and organizing. Sometimes creativity is necessary to develop a plan that has many complicated variables
I am familiar with the sense on how you need to prepare for a presentation. Whether it has been giving a speech in front of classmates or talking to friends almost everyone has done this at some point. Not only does it seem to help you figure out the points you need to say it sends the message out clearer. They showed a good step by step process so you are able to take on the process and break it down as much as possible. These were good steps in helping me and others figure out how to set up for a bigger presentation.
Planning and drafting is something that we all have been doing since we have been taking English classes. It is important if you wish to communicate on certain level with people that you must do your homework and actual have knowledgeable information and not just b.s. about some random thing. It can be broken down like a science experiment. You observe something, study it, break it down, and then act on it because then you will at least have a basis to which your draft holds merit.
I like the synopsis outlined here showing how authors prepare themselves and their material for writing. I agree that the inventing of ideas stage is important, along side with the organization of those ideas to be able to make a great paper. However, the drafting aspect in my eyes is the most crucial part for a well written piece, if you are unsure of your own main points how can you convey them to your own readers? Plotting out your intended route would also make the actual creation of the paper easier, having a clear view of where you’re going.
The chapter 7 summary gives good ideas on how to plan, organize and put together a project. There were a lor of good points of view in the drafting section. I think a lot of people have trouble with this part of their projects. I am glad they included topic. It is a very detailed summary and would definately help somone write a better paper of prepare themselves better for a project.
I thought that the chapter was covered pretty well. It is hard to know just how deep to go in any specific area. In my opinion, planning, organizing and prewriting are very important but so is a document that flows and looks professional.
As a college student I aware that it is very important to take the time to investigate the audience that you are going to be presenting to before you start writing your presentation. I think that the book did a good job of lying out the steps for ensuring that you do a good job of investigating, after all the point of giving speeches and presentations is to give people information in a formal and entertaining manner.
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