English 421K, Technical Writing

This document in its current state is more reminiscent of a journal article than something used as a training guide. My first recommendation would be to analyze the audience. Not only should the scorpion guide be aimed at the faculty of the school, but also the students as well. The author clearly states on page 105 that "...Using...Education to reduce the fear of scorpions will help prevent unnecessary treatments." For this reason, I think that the document itself should be made into two forms. The first form would be for distribution to faculty.

The way that the design is set up now is very efficient; it makes the most of every bit of white space available. This works when needing to fit into a text book, but is not necessary that it be margin to margin for Lois Adler’s particular situation. For her purposes, it seems overwhelming and overly scientific. These are people that are used to a child’s environment, bright colors, cartoony pictures and over simplification. For balance, I may take the form out of columns, but keep it in full paragraphs.

Lois is concerned that those who need to read the document most might not read the document carefully enough to get the useful information from it. The most important section "Management Options" is buried deep into the document. I think it should be brought forward to fit right after "Identification and Biology". "Stings" should also be moved toward the end of the document so that it can be more consistant with the gray boxes. This document is crying out for color in at least the existing picture and boxes. However, sometimes all that is available is a black and white printer.

The target audiance for this revised document is the principals and costodians of the schools(who wanted to nuke the scorpians by spraying large amounts of pesticides). Lois and IPM seem to be against the idea of using pesticides on the scorpions and so that part of the original document should definitly be on the revised one. I'd place the "chemical controls" part first in the new document. I'd follow it with the rest of the "management options" and "detection and monitoring" then include the "avoiding scorpion stings" and "first-aid for scorpion stings" sections.

Lois should first off go though and highlight what she feels is the most important information that she wants everyone to know. Then Lois should utilize the bold feature and make her heading bold so that it breaks the sections and makes it easier to read. Also, pictures and or graphs could liven this report up and also make it easier to read and understand for those who don't read very well. There is a lot of unnecessary information for this situation that she needs to filter out as well.

Lois should read through the document and take notes of some of the most crucial information. She can leave out information that will not be useful in this situation. She should then group the notes she has taken into 4 or 5 sections, and arrange these sections in her own document. Putting the groups in different colored boxes will help keep sections separate and will attract the reader's attention. Bold headings for each section are also important. Since she will be working with an audience where some members cannot read very well, she will need to include plenty of informative pictures.

There is one of the best ways to make the documents more user friendly. I would put pictures and graphs on each page so that the reader can catch up on key issue even though he or she does not pay attention to the document much.

At first glance this article is very dense and bland. The headers are the same font and color and its all very boring. They should be a different color or bodly/italized so that they can be differentiated. The article is heavy through out and the text either needs to be broken up or spaced a little better. I personally don't like having two columns becuase I don't think it goes well with reading left to right and down. The pictures should definetly be in color and i think a few more pictures or diagrams would make the website a little more interesting and easier to look at.

There are several things that need to be done to make this document more accessible, attractive and interesting. I would start by making each section (Introduction, Identification and Biology, Stings, Detection and Monitoring, and Management Options) its own link on the web page. That way the important information would be separated and none of the text would get lost in the readers eye. I would then put pictures and easy to read graphs on each page so that even if the reader did not read the text, they would be able to understand the important information within it.