Peer Collaboration Evaluation Forms: submit AFTER completing final revisions

Mon, 04/27/2009 - 19:29 — TracyC

As mentioned within the project pages for the White Paper and Technical Marketing projects, each individual group member will complete a peer collaborative evaluation form for each of the two group projects.  Within these forms, you will provide complete, and candid, assessments of the work you contributed for each project, as well as the work that each of your fellow group members did.  I will take these evaulations into consideration when assigning individual grades to group projects -- so please comment not only on those students who didn't contribute as

Technical Marketing Project: peer review assignments, and peer review guidelines

Wed, 04/22/2009 - 08:48 — TracyC

Here are the peer review assignments for the Technical Marketing Project:

Tracy's blog 14: production and technical marketing documents

Mon, 04/20/2009 - 10:08 — TracyC

Today's activities focus on production of technical marketing documents. As you might have gathered, there’s considerably more involved with production of a technical marketing document that simply creating the document and printing it.  Remember, professional presentation of a hard-copy technical marketing document is key to successful completion of this project because this is the form in which your target audiences will see the document. 

Tracy's blog 13: document design, revisited

Mon, 04/06/2009 - 13:03 — TracyC

Since you're now working on your technical marketing documents -- I hope! -- it's a good time for us to revisit this week's readings on document design.  Technical marketing documents are produced with specific attention paid to document design.  Writers and designers make a series of key decisions related to presentation of the product and manufacturer, communication to target audiences, availability of resources used to produce the document, and the document's point of distribution.

Document design:  the basics

Tracy's blog 12: visuals and technical marketing documents

Fri, 04/03/2009 - 13:03 — TracyC

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, images function in pretty much the same way as does text -- to communicate information to a target audience in ways that reflect the topic, the immediate writing situation, and the company/organization sponsoring the document.

The easiest way to address images in relation to technical marketing documents is to address each type of visual that a technical marketing document might contain:

Tracy's blog 11: writing styles and technical marketing documents

Wed, 04/01/2009 - 16:03 — TracyC

Not surprisingly, language is one of the most important issues to account for when creating technical marketing literature.  First, it's important to keep in mind the genre itself -- technical marketing.  Although technically-oriented information, such as descriptions, definitions, and product specifications are necessary to convey certain product characteristics, it's just as important -- and, depending on the product, manufacturer, and target audience, even more critical -- to use marketing-style language to entice readers to become customers, as well as to enhance the overall i

Tracy's blog 10: technical marketing research

Sat, 03/28/2009 - 12:04 — TracyC

Writers and designers of technical marketing documents need to do a great deal more than merely advertise a product/manufacturer, attract an audience, and present technical specifications.

These documents and their creators must strike a balance between communication, information, rhetoric, and research

Technical Marketing Project: team assignments

Wed, 03/25/2009 - 06:53 — TracyC

Here are the team placements for the Technical Marketing Project.  Please contact the others on your team via email right away, so you can begin planning for this project.  To access teammates' email addresses, click on the Members link and locate each team member's username and real name.

NOTE:  While I was able to place most of you with your first-choice categories, there are a few who have been placed with second-choice categories.

Team 1

  • Frick
  • Lombard
  • Lynn
  • Meikle

Team 2

IMPORTANT: White Paper Project alternate peer review activity, and my apologies

Sat, 03/14/2009 - 10:03 — TracyC

Due to an unexpected death in the family (and the long-distance funeral planning that has gone with it), I haven't checked the course website in a couple days.  I've just noticed that some group members were unable to find their assigned group's white paper draft.  And I apologize for not providing this information until now!

Here are the locations of each group's draft:

White Paper Project: peer review assignments and directions

Wed, 03/11/2009 - 11:38 — TracyC

Here are the peer review group assignments for today's peer review session for Draft 2 of the White Paper Project:

  • Open source finance and open source profitability
  • Firefox and OpenOffice

I would like each individual group member to post feedback as a Comment on the writers' deliverables post.  To find the writers' story post, you may need to click on the numbers at the bottom of the home page.

Here are the items I would like you to address in your peer review:

Major details