Personal Facts

Melissa Brown
Writing in the Design Profession

8 Principles For Good Writing

* Writing as you would talk
* Keep Sentences Short
* SHun Jargon or “Designer - Babble”
* Be specific
* Keep it simple
* Use the active form
* Don’t forget people
* Know what you want to say

Five Factors
* Style
- Sentence level features
- Informal, middle, formal, active and passive voice
* Purpose
- What the writing does
- inorm, presuade, Express, Entertain, Record
* Genres
- What the writing looks like, what it contains
- Formats, internal features, Exceptations of readers
* Audience
- Clients, co-workers, employers ( future and present), yourself
* Social Context
- Domains of writing
- General Context, Specific Context,
- GEography, environment and history are also important

Resources
* Surface Web
- “search engine math” or “Natural Language Searching”
- http://Scholar.Google.com
* Deep Web
- EBSCO
- Avery: Architectural Periodicals
- Academic Search Premier: General Database
- Greeen File: Multiple resources on environmental topics
- Inspec: Engineering and Technology Issues
- First Search: Arts and humanities, Economics, Geography
- Proquest: Database of newspapers
- Science Direct: Focuses of science and engineering
- Web of Science: Bibliographic database
Editing Tips
* For own paper
- Make sure contens logically organized
- Organization clealy expressed through graphics
- Words and sentences short and devoid of jargon
- Spelling, punctuation, abbreviations consistant
- Writing geared to the level of understanding of the audience’s
least informe reader
- Message intent clear
* Correcting someone elses paper
- Identify the text’s precise intent
- Read the text through once, avoid getting bogged down in
detail
- Reread the text and make any major changes to the structure
- Reread for detail and final corrections

Marketing letter
-Offer experience in the client’s project type
-Has an effective working procedure
-Can control project schedules
-Can Manage environmental concerns
-Is available
-Firmly interested in the job

Cover Letter
-What you are interested in, and why?
-Show enthusiasm working for the firm
-Special Qualifications
-Indicate readiness to travel
-Show confidence
-Ask for an interview

Resume
- Positions held and results achieved
- Publications
- Education
- Computer Savvy
- Travel
- Languages

Portfolio
-Marketing intent
- Tactics
- Focus
- Keep it brief
- Organize project descriptions in problem/sol
 Explanatory Memo
Melissa Brown
Writing in the Design Profession

Coming in to this semester I was very much unsure of what I would

expect from this class. I learned alot in the 16 weeks of this course, it was
rigorious and challenging. It made me think about way how to apply them
to my practice in away that everyone can understand what i am trying to
get across. Apparently, there was alot about my profession that I did not
know and this course helped me to understand it better. These are just a
few things that I need to remember.
I chose certain topics that I needed help with and would like to re-
member for the future.
The first topic i chose to discuss would be the 8 Principles of good
writing. Usually, when I write I just type and forget that the toughts in
my head might not be actual facts, sentences, or even make sense. These
basic guidelines are a great way to stay somewhat focused on the topic on
hand.
Next, would be the five factors of writing. I decided to write about
these much like the principles for good writing because when I write I do
not alwasy think about if it is informal or not, or if the audience can un-
derstand what I am talking about. These are very good things to remember
when writing because most likely I am not going to be writing for myself.
Resources is the next topic, although, I know how to look up book,
articles, and what not, I did it mostly through the library. Being able to
utilize the databases on the computer opened up a whole new world of re-
search for not just essays but use in my whole life.
Editting is a very essential part to the completion of a paper, it is very
important to make sure that you can edit your own paper along with some-
one elses paper too. That is why I have listed a few tips for editing both
tpes of papers.
We worked on a lot of different genres in this class but the few that
I really wanted to make sure I had were marketing letters, cover letters,
and resumes. This class really made me think about the important things
of what i have accomplished and would like to share with others. Writ-
ing about myself is not exactly the easiest thing for me to do so I needed
to make sure I will remember the basic facts that need to be included when
writing different genres like these. Also, this type of writing will be very
useful to me in the future.
I decided to leave out memos because I feel like I have them under con-
trol and that there are better sources of writing that I need to make sure
I remember.
Even though I need help with editing I figured to emit the paramedic
method of editing. Although the paramedic method is useful, it just was
not what i needed in the editing department. where as the tips that I pro-
vided will give me the help and understanding so that I can edit properly.
 The design and layout of this paper was probably my favorite part of
writing throughout this whole paper. I enjoyed going through everthing
that I have learned and trying to collaborate everything I wanted to put
in my facts sheet. I decided to use red as an accent color because red shows
confidence and passion. Even though I am not the best writer I do try and
have great passion for my learning and the things I am writing about even
if I do not always agree with what I am writing about.
I did learn alot this semester I throughally enjoyed the class, it was
very useful and this facts sheet will definitely stick with me while I am
writing.