Assignment task:
Part 1: Quick Start Guides
Write a quick start guide. This discussion topic is designed to help you become more familiar with what a quick start guide is and what its function is in technical writing.
To learn about quick start guides, please examine the three resources provided in Content in week 3:
What is a Quickstart Guide?
Quick Reference Guides Right Where You Need Them
Technical Writing Tips: The 80/20 Rule
You might also benefit from looking at the Sample Quick Start Guides in Learning Resources in week 3. While these quick start guides are longer than the one you will be writing, they present different strategies for incorporating text and images to accommodate their users.
Then answer the following questions. Your answers can be 2-3 sentences:
Most quick start guides are one page long. They have to be one page so that the user can look at them at a glance. What are some of the challenges to reducing a set of instructions of, for example, 3-4 pages into one page?
How does the 80/20 rule relate to the usefulness of quick start guides?
In your experience, when you purchase a product or a new piece of software, do you tend to use the user manual more, or do you tend to use the quick start guide more? Why?
Part 2: Preparing for WA4, the Report to the Supervisor
Please read the instructions for that assignment. Then answer the following questions:
You have just been hired as Assistant Manager at Work 'N Suds. Please write a one-paragraph (3-4 sentences) summary of the problems you see in the company, according to the scenario.
In UMGC's OneSearch interface, find one article on the concept of cross-training for employees in an organization. Keep in mind that some articles might spell the term with a hyphen (cross-training) and some might spell it without a hyphen (cross training). Provide the author(s) and title of the article.
From your search from task #2 above, select Resource Types, then select Articles, and then select Peer Reviewed (Scholarly) Journals.
Select one article in your search list and provide the author(s) and title of the article. If you do not see any hits, reword your search terms. If you still receive no hits after rewording your search terms, then indicate what search terms you used.
Select one of the other concepts mentioned in the writing assignment instructions (mandatory vacations, cyberscurity in video surveillance systems, handling of credit cards, or any other concept). Then, in UMGC's OneSearch interface, find one article on this concept. Provide the author(s) and title of the article.
This question involves listening to a part of the podcast, "Cyberbit Podcast Episode 1: The Unspoken Skill-Gap in the Cybersecurity Market," which features Mr. Adam Bricker, former co-founder of Carolina Cyber Center and Mr. Sharon Rosenman, Chief Marketing Officer at Cyberbit.
The segment of the podcast we will listen to is from the 48:00 mark to the 50:30 mark. In that segment, a participant asks a question about writing in the cybersecurity field. The following link takes you directly to that question and Mr. Bricker's response:
The Unspoken Skill-Gap in the Cybersecurity Market (YouTube)
Mr. Bricker describes the type of technical communication that individuals in the cybersecurity field need to be able to produce.
How does his description fit the scenario with Mark Carman and Work 'N Suds? In other words, who is the audience for writing assignment #4, and how does Mr. Bricker's explanation align with the scenario?