Chapter 1. Critiquing a Draft Clearly and Diplomatically

1.1 Section Title

DOCUMENT ANALYSIS ACTIVITY

Critiquing a Draft Clearly and Diplomatically

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This is an excerpt from the methods section of a report about computer servers. In this section, the writer is explaining the tasks he performed in analyzing different servers. In a later section, he explains what he learned from the analysis. The comments in the balloons were inserted into the document by the author’s colleague.

The following questions ask you to think about techniques for critiquing.

This is a reproduction of a document with comments.

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Text	Comment on text
The first task of the on-site evaluations was to set up and configure each server. We noted the relative complexity of setting up each system to our network.	Huh? What exactly does this mean?
After we had the system configured, we performed a set of routine maintenance tasks: add a new memory module, swap a hard drive, swap a power supply, and perform system diagnostics.	Okay, good. Maybe we should explain why we chose these tests.
We recorded the time and relative difficulty of each task. Also, we tried to gather a qualitative feeling for how much effort would be involved in the day-to-day maintenance of the systems.	1. What kind of scale are you using? If we don’t explain it, it’s basically useless. 2. Same question as above.
After each system was set up, we completed the maintenance evaluations and began the benchmark testing. We ran the complete WinBench and NetBench test suites on each system. We chose several of the key factors from these tests for comparison.	Will readers know these are the right tests? Should we explain?