PSTAT 109 Country in A Recession Assignment Essay Case Study

PSTAT 109 Country in A Recession Assignment

 

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PSTAT 109 Country in A Recession Assignment

 

PSTAT 109: Quiz 6

Winter 2014

Instructions: Please show all formulas and calculations in an organized fashion

 

for full credit.

Problem 1. In July 2001, 45% of Americans believed the country was in a recession even

 

 

though, technically, the economy had not shown two straight quarters of negative growth.

 

For a sample of 20 Americans, make the following calculations (assume each person’s belief

 

in recession is independent of the others):

 

1. Compute the probability that exactly 12 people believed the country was in a recession.

 

1. Compute the probability that at least one person believed the country was in a reces-

 

sion.

 

1. How many people would you expect to say the country was in a recession?

 

1. Compute the variance and standard deviation of the number of people who believed

 

the country was in a recession.

Problem 2. Let W denote a random variable that has a Poisson distribution with mean

 

= 2. Find

 

1. P(W = 2),

 

1. P(W  3), and

 

1. P(W  3jW  1).

 

Problem 3. The New York Times reported that the mean time to download the IRS home-

 

 

page is 0.8 seconds. Suppose that the download time is normally distributed with a standard

 

deviation of 0.2 seconds.

 

1. What is the probability that a download time is less than 1 second?

 

1. What is the probability that a download time is between 0.5 and 1.5 seconds?

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Week 4 Posting: Mechanism (Technical) and Process Description, and Instructions Take warning: this week’s posting is a long one… be prepared… J

In the Week 4 area of the Course Website (CW), you will see a file folder called Week 4 Files. It contains the files listed below, all of which you will need to examine and/or use while reading this Week 4 Posting file.

1. Mechanism Description Overview, a PowerPoint file discussed in the Mechanism (Technical) and Process Description segment below;
2. Mechanism and Process Description URLs, a PDF file containing links to relevant websites; 3. Paper Airplane Construction Sheet, a single-page PDF file that, in the Written Instructions segment of this

posting, you will be asked to print for use; 4. Paper Airplane Instructions, another single-page PDF file for use (in electronic or paper copy) with the

Paper Airplane Construction sheet; 5. Instructions, a PowerPoint file mentioned in the Written Instructions segment of this posting file; 6. Written Instructions URLs, a PDF file containing links to relevant websites; 7. Instructions-Samples, a PDF file referred to in the Written Instructions segment of this posting file; 8. Instructions-Odd and CYA, a PDF file showing a number of somewhat bizarre “instructions” found on

commercial products.

I would ask you to open and use these files in the order and fashion specified in this posting.

1. A) Mechanism (Technical) and Process Description While your textbook uses the term Mechanism Description, may communicators prefer the term Technical Description. For our purposes, we will consider the terms synonymous. Further, many authorities consider process description as a kind of “complement” to technical description. Nonetheless, the former term is usually applied to a description of “how something works”, while the latter is customarily considered a description of “what something looks like”. Regardless of how—or even whether—you choose to make the distinction, it is inevitable that you will be required to produce lucid and precise descriptions in the workplace.

The factors that will most influence the effectiveness of your description will be those that determine the efficacy of your other professional writing—they are the ones that I refer to as the CMAPP complementary attributes: accuracy, brevity, clarity, concision, accessibility, precision, and—perhaps above all—“keep it simple, stupid”.

You should also remember that you might need mechanism or process description for a piece of communication whose primary purpose is any of the four defined in the CMAPP model: descriptive, informative, instructive, or persuasive. For example, you might need a detailed mechanism description of a piece of equipment to help persuade a potential client to purchase your company’s product.

In a sense, it’s unimportant what you actually do in COMM 310 this week or even this semester. Probably quite significant, however, is what you learn to do and/or what habits you pick up; these should serve you over the next several decades of your working life.

In this light, I’d like to draw your particular attention to some of the slides in Mechanism Description Overview.pptx.

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The last line of Slide #2 is an abbreviated version of a quip that was popular when I was an undergraduate: Caution: be sure to put brain into gear before putting mouth into motion. It is a reminder to think before you act. Before you begin writing a description–or any other piece of technical communication, of course, determine who your audience is and what that audience already knows and wants and needs to know. Identify your primary purpose. Suppose you’re “describing” a particular HP DeskJet printer. Note that (in CMAPP terms) your “description” might be to support an instructive purpose: you want your audience to know how to use it or even how to repair it; your description might fit in with a persuasive purpose—to convince your audience to buy a Hewlett Packard rather than a Canon printer, for instance.

Obviously, you’ll have to decide how best to organize your description. Slide #3 lists a few of the most common organization patterns. In fact, they’re likely the same ones you learned in high-school for essay writing. Notice that to describe a golf course, you might pick a chronological organization pattern: start at the first hole and end at the 18th (or, perhaps, at the Clubhouse?); however, you might instead have chosen a geographical organization pattern: first, the overview of the course, then each fairway, then, each green, then the sand-traps, and so on.

Slides #4 and #5 distinguish different kinds of “precision”. Your context and your audience will determine what is “appropriately precise” and what will not work at the time. Spiral, for example, is in fact a two- dimensional concept, while helix refers to a three-dimensional shape. However, although telling a real-estate agent or a finishing carpenter that you want your house to have a “helical staircase” might be technically quite precise, it will be quite incorrect in its context and its audience. Analogously, if your friend, planning a week’s vacation in the Kelowna area in late July, asks you what the weather’s likely to be, you might quite appropriately offer the vague (but correct for the context and audience), “it gets extremely hot there in the summer… take a hat and lots of sun screen.” Your friend would likely be unhappy with a technically specific answer such as a recitation of the numbers in the figure below.

Figure 1: Kelowna temperatures (Source: http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/canada/climate2/Kelowna.html)

Conversely, if you were describing the manufacture of specific metal alloys, it would be both imprecise and incorrect to offer something like, “you’ve got to get the stuff really, really hot”; rather, you’d need something like, “the aluminum will melt when the temperature reaches 660º Celsius”, which is both precise and correct for its audience and context.

Week 4 Posting – Mechanism-Technical Description and Instructions.docx ©DIWIS 2014

http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/canada/climate2/Kelowna.html

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Note, too, that some “descriptors” can be considered “absolute” while others are “relative”. The points of the compass, for example, are absolute, while the directions left and right are relative—they depend on which way you are facing. Note, however, that the relative terms become “absolute” when they follow one of the absolute terms. For example, if I ask you to walk 50 metres North and then turn left, the “relative” term left has become an “absolute”: you will inevitably be walking West.

Is it always appropriate to use absolute terms such as the compass directions? You should consider what you know about your audience and, of course, the context. Consider, for example, my late sister, Anna, a highly intelligent, graduate-degree-holding, well-respected clinical therapist. However, she was one of the many people who, for whatever reason, could never “relate to” compass directions. (Perhaps that describes you or someone you know, too.) Furthermore, she was also one of those people who, regardless of very significant intellect and education, are somehow unable to quickly relate to the terms “left” and “right”. For the last several decades of her life, Anna lived in a West-coast American city, where I often drove to visit her. Since she didn’t like to drive, we usually took my car when we went out, and she would give me directions. Often, she would say something like, “you’ll be turning left at the next traffic light.” I would then start to move into the left-hand lane… and Anna would say, “No—the other left”, and point to her right. When she had time to “think about it”, she did, of course, understand left and right… but she had no instinctive “feel” for them.

Once more alluding to my sister, here is another illustration of how “vague” might be “appropriately precise”, depending on audience and context. Years ago, I lived near a neighbourhood called Ocean Park, part of the city of Surrey. The first time Anna and her husband were going to drive up to visit us, she had asked how to get to our house from the Canada/US border. Imagine how she would have reacted if I’d told her the following, for example. “Take the first exit and proceed West-bound for 8.3 kilometres; then turn North and proceed 0.7 km, to 49°2’18” N. latitude, 22°9’12” W. longitude.” Those directions (which I have, in fact, “falsified” here…) might be technically precise; but, even if she expected her husband to be driving (and his sense of direction was actually very good), would, rightly, have exasperated and annoyed her. She would have much preferred something like the “vague” but “appropriately precise” response of, “Take the first exit past the border and then take the lane marked 8th Avenue; stay on it for about 10 minutes, noting that it becomes Marine Drive, until you see a sign for 132nd Street on your right (there is no corner on your left); follow 132nd Street for just under two minutes, until you see our house on your right; you’ll see the two red rocking chairs on the front porch, just beside the driveway on which you’ll see my car.”

Slide #6 refers to nouns and adjectives that offer analogies, which can be very useful in description. However, you need to recall that cultural referents are going to have an important impact. For example, if you told your friends that you’d just gone to live on property in the still somewhat rural Aldergrove area about an hour East of Vancouver, and that your lot was “about the size of three football fields”, they’d likely understand sufficiently well—regardless of whether they were aware of the fact that, for most of the world, “football” refers to the game we call “soccer”, or that the American NFL football field is not the same size as the Canadian CFL field—or even what the precise dimensions of any of those fields would be.

If you tell a North American that something is about the size of a nickel, your description may be appropriate—unless, of course, your description is part of manufacturing specifications; even in casual conversation, however, that analogy will be as meaningless to most Europeans as “about the size of a Euro would be to most Canadians. Analogously, in my life, I don’t need to differentiate colour, tint, shade, and hue; nor do I need to correctly distinguish cyan, aquamarine, chromium, or tangerine. However, if you are dealing with a painter—whether one who practises interior design or one who creates art on canvas, those precise distinctions can become significant.

Slide #7 is a reminder of the issues you need to consider before you decided on visuals for mechanism or process description. Chapter 6 of your textbook (which becomes a required reading only for Week 9, but which you might want to at least glance at now) deals with these issues in more detail. For the moment, consider the following points:

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• Do you need visuals? Will they help your audience “see and understand” better? • If so, how many should you use? • Should you use a photo, a line drawing, a graph, a table, or something else? What should each of

those visuals depict? Should the visual be in colour? If you’re showing an electrical wiring diagram, for example, you need to recall that wiring is colour-coded; thus, black and white or grey scale could lead to dangerous misinterpretation. However, how are you planning to “publish” the description? If you’re going to need 6,000 paper copies, you might need to consider the very significant cost increase for colour printing.

• Where should you place each of the visuals? Should you have the text “wrap” around a visual, or should the visual be “by itself ”—on the left, in the centre, on the right?
• How big should it be? It needs to be small enough to fit where you’ve decided it should go; however, it needs to be large enough so that whatever details you think are necessary will remain legible for your audience at the time.
• And, should you use small scale or large scale? If you use small scale, your audience will be able to “locate” items within a larger “whole”, but not see detail; if you use large scale, the detail will be clear, but not the “location”. Again, you need to think about your audience and your context.

Slides #8 and #9 can be considered simple “review” of part of Chapter 8 of your textbook; however, you might want to have a look at the example (likely still available at the URL provided) at the bottom of #9.

Slide #10 is very much like what you’ll also see in your textbook. It represents the “beginning” of what is becoming an increasingly common type of description—one that is meant to be read and used on line. Thus, it makes use of hyperlinks. The problem in constructing such a description is deciding what links to create. Obviously, it’s technically easy to create links from every major component to every other major component and to every sub-component, and from every sub-component to every other sub-component, and from all of those to an introduction and to a summary, and between the introduction and the summary. However, doing so results in a kind of “navigation clutter” that would make it all but impossible for any audience to deal with your description usefully. Thus, the real difficulty lies in deciding what links to actually create within the on- line document. You might want to look at the two examples linked to on that slide. Both—though particularly the Wikipedia site—illustrate the potential “navigation” complexity of offering a plethora (look it up… J) of links, many of which are likely unnecessary in the context.

You might want to try constructing a brief description of the corkscrew in slide #11. You’re likely to find that it’s deceptively simple… and, in fact, such a description will be useful only if you’ve laid out a precise scenario first—whether you do so by means of a CMAPP analysis or any other tool that allows to know what you are doing, for whom, for what reason, and so forth. Incidentally, were you already familiar with the technical terms for all the parts of that corkscrew? Would your audience be? What would you have to explain? How would you construct that explanation, and are you ensuring that the level of technicality of that explanation is congruent with your audience’s?

Slide #12’s hockey rink illustrates unnecessary clutter in a visual, caused by not having identified what an audience needs/wants to know. For example, someone using the diagram to paint the lines on a new rink prior to laying down the ice, will need the specific dimensions, but will not really need to know either the names or the precise locations of the players’ benches—but would need to know whether the layout is for international or NHL play. Conversely, if you intended using the diagram to help teach eight-year-olds to play, you’d likely want the identifying terms such as blue line, goal crease, and so forth; however, those kids would have no need whatever for the precise dimensions. Finally, can you identify an audience and a context that would require everything in that diagram? (I’m not sure I can…)

The last slide provides links (valid at time of writing) to four sites that can provide a good deal of help. Don’t try to “re-invent the wheel”: make use of what others have developed and have made available to you.

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1. Written Instructions One way or another, you will need to create written instructions. For example, you may attend a seminar or information session, and then be asked to produce instructions for other employees to learn what you acquired; you may be asked to leave detailed instructions for another employee while you are away on vacation; even in your personal life, you may need to leave instructions for someone who is taking care of your home while you are away, or to take care of pets or children.

Look before you leap Perhaps the greatest difficulty with regard to effective written instructions is the fact that most people don’t read them carefully—or, at least, don’t implement them attentively.

Suppose, for example, you come into class to write a final exam worth 25% of your course grade. Your professor quickly reminds you of the standard exam conditions—no communicating with others, etc.—and stresses that everyone will have the same amount of time, but not a moment longer, and so forth. When finally given permission to begin, you turn over the exam paper, and, at the top, you see the following.

NAM E _____________________________ DAT E _____________________

INSTRUCTIONS

1. a) Print your name and today’s date in the space provided above. b) Answer all questions thoughtfully and honestly. This test is designed to measure various things.

Its results may well count as part of your course grade. c) Do not consult your textbook(s) or other sources while doing the test. d) Do not ask any questions of the instructor or proctor during the test. If you are unable to decide

how to answer a particular question, follow your initial reaction. e) Do each section and each question within each section in sequential order. Do not go back to any

question within a section or to previous section once you have moved on. f) Read through the entire test carefully before continuing. g) Unless otherwise instructed, write all your answers on this page.

If you are like most people, you will glance quickly—if at all—at the instructions, and then begin to answer the exam questions as quickly as you can. You will continue to do so, even if you begin to feel that some of them seem a tad bizarre—for example, when you reach the following.

6. Count the number of desks in this room, multiply that by the number of doors in the room, and add to that result, the number of students present.
7. Review your answer to question number 4. Now, indicate by Yes or No whether you would change it if you were permitted to do so.
8. Check your pulse by placing a finger on your carotid artery in your neck and counting how many beats you feel in 15 seconds and multiplying by four. Write that number as your answer.
9. Print your name in upper case block characters at the top of the other side of this page.
10. Estimate, in metres, the distance between the front of your desk and the blackboard; add to that figure, the number of students in the class, and write that total as your answer.

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However, like most of your fellows, you “slog on”… until you come to the last question:

35. Answer only Question 1. Ignore all other parts of this test. Look up for 3–4 seconds, and smile sheepishly to show you have understood. Pretend to continue to work so as not to disturb others who have not yet reached your embarrassed understanding.

Why would most students not have read question #35 without having attempted the intervening questions? They would likely have tried those questions primarily because of the effect of the proverb, “familiarity breeds contempt.” We say to ourselves: I’ve done this many times before; exams always say to read through carefully; there’s never any point; I’m in a hurry; I need to get going on the questions so I have time to finish… and so on. In other words, we are quite certain that we don’t need to really pay attention to the instructions, since we really do know what we’re doing… regardless of the context.

Here’s a quick “reality check”. Every year in this country, people are injured, people are maimed, and people die—because they didn’t follow instructions attentively. Most of the time, such readily preventable accidents occur when danger is an inherent part of the activities—working with high-tension electrical equipment or with heavy machinery, logging, construction, mining, and so forth. So, although your own situation may not include these kinds of occupational hazards, you would likely want the person taking care of your home or your pet or your child to read and follow your instructions carefully.

This might be a good time to look through David McMurray’s Online Technical Writing: Instructions page at https://www.prismnet.com/~hcexres/textbook/instrux.html. Take a few minutes to do so.

A Little Experiment Before you do anything else, open and print both of the one-page files, Paper Airplane Construction Sheet and Paper Airplane Instructions.

Now, how long do you think it should take you to fold a paper airplane? Do you think that three minutes should be sufficient? Allowing yourself no more than three minutes, follow the Paper Airplane Instructions to create a paper airplane from the Paper Airplane Construction Sheet.

If you’re like most people in most of the classes I’ve shown this to, you’ll probably give up in frustration without being able to complete the task—even if, like many of them, you refuse to stop after your three minutes… J So, let’s look at what might have happened.

Let me tell you where this “experiment” comes from. It’s simply one of the templates available in Microsoft Publisher 2010. If you have the program, open it, and, under More Templates, click on Paper Folding Projects, and then, under Office.com Templates, choose Paper airplane (Stubby design). You’ll see that you can generate both the construction sheet I used (though I replaced its “decal” with the UCW logo) and the instruction sheet. Here are some observations.

Who created these instructions? We can probably assume a Microsoft employee—let’s call that person Fred. Was Fred deliberately trying to create bad, frustrating instructions? Likely the opposite: he wanted to provide something that users would find fun, and that would enhance their enjoyment of the program. Did Fred know how to create that Stubby? I’m convince he did. In fact, I don’t think you can create usable instructions if you don’t know how to “do it” yourself. Did Fred test his instructions? I believe that, as a bright, conscientious employee, he did. But, I think he probably tested them by trying them himself. And, of course, they worked for him… in large part, because he already knew how to do it. He should have asked someone who did not know how to create the Stubby to test them. We need to remember that instructions are supposed to be for someone who needs them, who does not already know how to effect the task. And Fred seemed to forget that.

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https://www.prismnet.com/%7Ehcexres/textbook/instrux.html

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Let me tell you another (true) story. My father, with whom I had been close friends for many years was almost 95 when he died. A well-educated professional (who had, by the way, known a fellow you might have heard of, by the name of Albert Einstein… but that’s another story…), he had been a civil engineer for most of his life. However, he had never learned to type, and had never sat at a computer monitor—although, he had employees who of course did use computers in the office. One day, he decided that he’d like to learn enough about computers to decide if he really wanted to learn to actually use one. So, unsurprisingly, he asked me to help him. Less than an hour into our little “training session”, we were both becoming frustrated and angry, and decided we didn’t want to prejudice the friendship, despite his not having learned anything. So, I asked my wife—a nurse of many years’ experience—if she would spend a bit of time with him. (Note that Bettie had always disliked computers and had never become proficient; rather, she often asked me how to do this or that. To my occasional query of, “Why don’t you just learn to use the software?” her standard response was, “I don’t need to; you live here.”) She and my father were also good friends, and they got together for his “lesson”. After a couple of hours, he had learned enough to decide that he had no further interest. They both remained pleased with the experience.

So, why was the “class” so unsuccessful for my father and me, but effective for him and Bettie—apart, perhaps, from her being a nicer human being than I? Fundamentally, it was her level of expertise was close to his, while I could no longer put myself in the position of someone who knew nothing at all. In a sense, I was like Fred, trying to create the paper airplane instructions.

Note that sometimes, your audience cannot follow instructions because they “know too much”, and sometimes because they “know too little”. Let me illustrate.

Suppose I give you the following numbers: 3, 5, 7. Your instruction is to provide the next number in the series. If you are familiar only with standard arithmetic series, you’ll have no trouble giving 9 as the next number. However, if you are familiar with prime numbers, you can’t follow the instruction: you don’t know whether the next number would be 9 or 11. In fact, you “know too much”.

Now consider this series: 6, 9, 12, 16, 25, 33, 41. Again, your instruction is to give the next number. Are you having trouble? I’ll help: it’s 49. Now, what’s the next one? Still having trouble? It’s 57. What are the last two? Most of you, I think, won’t be able to give the correct answers—63 and 70—because you “don’t know enough”. In this case, you don’t know the context. Open a web browser to Google Maps, and look for Oak Street in Vancouver. Oak is a main street running North/South. From North to South, it is intersected by major East/West streets: 6th Avenue, Broadway (which is 9th Avenue), 12th Avenue, 16th Avenue, King Edward (which is 25th), 33rd Avenue, 41st Avenue, 49th Avenue, 57th Avenue, Park Drive (which is 63rd Avenue), and 70th Avenue—the last main intersection before the Oak Street Bridge into Richmond. Now, put aside your annoyance, and remember: when you provide instructions, you should think about (the CMAPP ideas of) what your audience already knows, along with what they need/want to know.

Now…let’s return to Fred’s Stubby instructions, and identify a few more of the issues that made them difficult to follow.

Glancing very quickly at that page, how many visuals are there in the top third of the page? Some people’s first reaction is “six”; some people’s is “seven”. How could that happen with such a small number? We tend to see two “kinds” of visuals there: a group of six on the left, and a “different” seventh on the right. We also presume that the six refer to “building” the plane, while the seventh shows the “finished product”—and it shows the plan “in flight”, an assumption engendered by our almost unconscious notice of the four diagonal lines to its lower left. And yet, Fred has not told us any of this.

Rather, we need to postpone our automatic attempt to deal with the visuals, and look to his text. There, we see his heading, THE PLANE, which we intuit to be the instructions for building the item. Apparently, there are seven instructions there. But, note that I (and you, likely) had to “count the bullets”. If Fred had numbered them instead, we would have all but instantaneously known that the list contained seven items. And, that’s what he should have done: used a numbered list rather than a bulleted list. Doing so would have made later reference much easier.

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Well, his first instruction is fairly straightforward, providing we presume (and we don’t “know” because we need these instructions…) that all the lines on the page are “fold lines”.

What is his second instruction? In fact, it contains five separate instructions:

1) fold forward 2) crease 3) open back up 4) fold back 5) reopen

It shouldn’t. Unless all but impossible, we should have one instruction per instruction. It is always easier for an audience to deal with several short instructions than with one long, “composite” one.

His third now tells us to “pull and tuck the folds together as shown in the first two drawings.” Apparently, we had no use for any of the visuals that we saw before beginning his instructions, but we now need the first two. But, which two—are we to use the first two in the top row of three, or the two in the first column of two? We don’t know; but, why didn’t he number the visuals, as he definitely should have done?

Let’s suppose we do manage to complete his five “non-numbered” items. We’ve finished, haven’t we? Well, wait: now we see three more visuals—also unnumbered. Further, these are large scale, and so we can’t tell where they would be located on the small-scale visuals at the top of the page. And now, we see another heading, THE ADJUSTABLE FLAPS. Fred seems to assume that everyone wanting to have fun with Microsoft Publisher’s paper airplanes will know what flaps are, where they will be on the Stubby, and why they need to be adjustable. Did you know those things? And what instructions—again, not numbered—does he give? First is to “Cut on sides”. Ah… So, he assumed we knew that we were going to need scissors. How so? And then, he instructs us to “Fold up to make the plane rise… fold down to make the plane drop.” But, wait: according to the first set of instructions, we’ve already thrown the plane. And, would we be expected to “fold” the flaps while the Stubby is flying?

And, now he cautions us that, depending on the printer we used—presumably for the construction sheet, we may not even have those flaps. Remember: the instructions were supposed to be for someone who does not yet know how to create the Stubby.

Yet, now we see another set of large scale visuals, followed by the heading, THE STICK-UP TAIL When we read the supposed instructions for this segment, we might ask which “two angled fold lines”, and what is the “top”, here? Finally, we see one more set of unexplained, large-scale visuals, followed by THE FASTENING CLIP. And now, we might ask:

1) Why would we need to fasten anything on a single sheet of paper? 2) Where is this “clip” on the plane? 3) How were we to know that we’d need scissors? 4) Does it matter to which side we fold it? 5) What about the fact that we had already thrown the completed plane?

Remember that one of the most common problems with instructions is that they may work well for someone who already knows “how to do it” and needs simply a “reminder”, but they are not clear enough or practical enough for the person who really needs them—the person who has never learned to do it.

Do you think that Fred might have succeeded better if he had been familiar with the chapters you’ve already read in your textbook?

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In Conclusion I’d now like you to have a look through the five slides in the Instructions.pptx file. They are simply a very quick review of some of the main points covered on pages 106–108 of Chapter 8 of your text. However, you’ll find additional information—and slightly different points of view—in the web items offered through the links in the Written Instructions URLs file. I suggest you read them, too.

Please examine the four sets of instructions found in Instructions-Samples. They are scans of instructions for items I have owned.

1) The Black & Decker electric power drill pages illustrate some of the same problems we saw with Fred’s Stubby instructions. This time, though, you can be confused in both English and French. Since I do happen to speak French, I noticed that those instructions are no better than their English counterparts; and, it is at times quite apparent that the instructions were written first in English, and then translated—not always particularly well, and certainly without considering whether the French- speaking audience would be using European French, Quebec French, or one of the other varieties of the language used around the world in which Black & Decker wishes to sell.

2) The Alexor home alarm system cover page shows what happens when poorly printed sheets of relatively flimsy paper are then copied. The Access Code Programming page was, to me, a source of great frustration, and I eventually called the alarm company’s “tech support”; even their technician didn’t quite understand the instructions on that page; and, it turned out that some of its instructions referred to an earlier version of the alarm panel.

3) The four Your Pocket Guide page-panels for the MP3 player were not much of a delight to use. First, the actual size of each panel was approximately 4″×2″, which meant that the print was miniscule; second, the quality of the reproduction was quite poor; third, some of the language use clearly evidenced bad translation for an original; and, finally, some of the instructions simply did not work on the player that the instructions accompanied.

4) By stark contrast, the eight-page Hamilton Beach Toastsation booklet demonstrates that good instructions can be created. Your only likely problem with them will be that the PDF file you have will not, in fact, produce real toasted bagels.

Finally, you should view the Instructions-Odd and CYA slides. They offer examples of some of the more bizarre instructions or warnings that are put on commercial items. In many cases, those cautions likely appear in deference to the CYA Principle. (On the very “off chance” you didn’t know: CYA = Cover Your Ass.) The implication, of course, is that the manufacturer believed that someone, somewhere, was going to be foolish (read “stupid”) enough to do what they were explicitly warning against. (Sadly, the company was likely correct…) Thus, they felt the need to print their “disclaimer”.

That’s it for this week. I hope you’ll post questions and comments in the Week 4 Forum.

And, don’t forget that your Article Review assigment should be in my Inbox by 6:00pm on Tuesday, April 29.

Cheers.

Dave

Week 4 Posting – Mechanism-Technical Description and Instructions.docx ©DIWIS 2014

Week 4 Posting: Mechanism (Technical) and Process Description, and Instructions

1. A) Mechanism (Technical) and Process Description
2. Written Instructions

Look before you leap

A Little Experiment

In Conclusion

RUBRIC QUALITY OF RESPONSE NO RESPONSE POOR / UNSATISFACTORY SATISFACTORY GOOD EXCELLENT Content (worth a maximum of 50% of the total points) Zero points:  Student failed to submit the final paper. 20 points out of 50:  The essay illustrates poor understanding of the relevant material by failing to address or incorrectly addressing the relevant content; failing to identify or inaccurately explaining/defining key concepts/ideas; ignoring or incorrectly explaining key points/claims and the reasoning behind them; and/or incorrectly or inappropriately using terminology; and elements of the response are lacking. 30 points out of 50:  The essay illustrates a rudimentary understanding of the relevant material by mentioning but not full explaining the relevant content; identifying some of the key concepts/ideas though failing to fully or accurately explain many of them; using terminology, though sometimes inaccurately or inappropriately; and/or incorporating some key claims/points but failing to explain the reasoning behind them or doing so inaccurately.  Elements of the required response may also be lacking. 40 points out of 50:  The essay illustrates solid understanding of the relevant material by correctly addressing most of the relevant content; identifying and explaining most of the key concepts/ideas; using correct terminology; explaining the reasoning behind most of the key points/claims; and/or where necessary or useful, substantiating some points with accurate examples.  The answer is complete. 50 points:  The essay illustrates exemplary understanding of the relevant material by thoroughly and correctly addressing the relevant content; identifying and explaining all of the key concepts/ideas; using correct terminology explaining the reasoning behind key points/claims and substantiating, as necessary/useful, points with several accurate and illuminating examples.  No aspects of the required answer are missing. Use of Sources (worth a maximum of 20% of the total points). Zero points:  Student failed to include citations and/or references. Or the student failed to submit a final paper. 5 out 20 points:  Sources are seldom cited to support statements and/or format of citations are not recognizable as APA 6th Edition format. There are major errors in the formation of the references and citations. And/or there is a major reliance on highly questionable. The Student fails to provide an adequate synthesis of research collected for the paper. 10 out 20 points:  References to scholarly sources are occasionally given; many statements seem unsubstantiated.  Frequent errors in APA 6th Edition format, leaving the reader confused about the source of the information. There are significant errors of the formation in the references and citations. And/or there is a significant use of highly questionable sources. 15 out 20 points:  Credible Scholarly sources are used effectively support claims and are, for the most part, clear and fairly represented.  APA 6th Edition is used with only a few minor errors.  There are minor errors in reference and/or citations. And/or there is some use of questionable sources. 20 points:  Credible scholarly sources are used to give compelling evidence to support claims and are clearly and fairly represented.  APA 6th Edition format is used accurately and consistently. The student uses above the maximum required references in the development of the assignment. Grammar (worth maximum of 20% of total points) Zero points:  Student failed to submit the final paper. 5 points out of 20:  The paper does not communicate ideas/points clearly due to inappropriate use of terminology and vague language; thoughts and sentences are disjointed or incomprehensible; organization lacking; and/or numerous grammatical, spelling/punctuation errors  10 points out 20:  The paper is often unclear and difficult to follow due to some inappropriate terminology and/or vague language; ideas may be fragmented, wandering and/or repetitive; poor organization; and/or some grammatical, spelling, punctuation errors 15 points out of 20:  The paper is mostly clear as a result of appropriate use of terminology and minimal vagueness; no tangents and no repetition; fairly good organization; almost perfect grammar, spelling, punctuation, and word usage. 20 points:  The paper is clear, concise, and a pleasure to read as a result of appropriate and precise use of terminology; total coherence of thoughts and presentation and logical organization; and the essay is error free. Structure of the Paper (worth 10% of total points) Zero points:  Student failed to submit the final paper. 3 points out of 10: Student needs to develop better formatting skills. The paper omits significant structural elements required for and APA 6th edition paper. Formatting of the paper has major flaws. The paper does not conform to APA 6th edition requirements whatsoever. 5 points out of 10: Appearance of final paper demonstrates the student’s limited ability to format the paper. There are significant errors in formatting and/or the total omission of major components of an APA 6th edition paper. They can include the omission of the cover page, abstract, and page numbers. Additionally the page has major formatting issues with spacing or paragraph formation. Font size might not conform to size requirements.  The student also significantly writes too large or too short of and paper 7 points out of 10: Research paper presents an above-average use of formatting skills. The paper has slight errors within the paper. This can include small errors or omissions with the cover page, abstract, page number, and headers. There could be also slight formatting issues with the document spacing or the font Additionally the paper might slightly exceed or undershoot the specific number of required written pages for the assignment. 10 points: Student provides a high-caliber, formatted paper. This includes an APA 6th edition cover page, abstract, page number, headers and is double spaced in 12’ Times Roman Font. Additionally, the paper conforms to the specific number of required written pages and neither goes over or under the specified length of the paper.
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