Case 2 Definitions and Descriptions: Helping Your Readers Understand

Case 2

Definitions and Descriptions

Helping Your Readers Understand

The Situation

When Mary Ann Petit, a neighbor of yours and the founder of Bayside United Green Squad (BUGS), learned of your technical communication background, she asked you to help with her community group. BUGS is a nonprofit volunteer group that offers environmental programs designed to teach young people ages 10 to 16 about the connections between environmental issues and food. Using a community garden as a learning lab, BUGS volunteers provide local youth with hands-on science education on environmental issues affecting the local food they eat. To better reach their target audience, the board of directors has decided to enhance the BUGS Web site by including a blog.

Mary Ann explains that the success of BUGS has created not only a desire among program graduates to stay in touch, but also a demand for information on how young people can grow, harvest, prepare, and eat vegetables from their own backyard gardens. To address these demands, Mary Ann would like you to help start a blog to facilitate communication among young gardeners. By providing a mechanism for instructors and program graduates to comment on posts, Mary Ann hopes to build an online community.

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Figure false: FIGURE 2.1
Figure false: Bayside’s Community Garden

Although another volunteer will provide the technical skills to design the blog, Jenny Ukaegbu, the BUGS blogger, asks for your help writing some of the content for the initial blog posts, especially definitions and descriptions of gardening and blogging terms to help the group members understand how to effectively use and contribute to the blog. “In our first couple of blog posts,” Jenny explains, “we need to teach the young gardeners a little about blogging and get them excited about reading our blog and posting comments—and we also need to start teaching them about backyard gardening.”

Depending on the context, the blog posts will use parenthetical and sentence definitions as well as descriptions to help youth understand and succeed at blogging and gardening. Parenthetical definitions are placed directly in the text. When a simple word or phrase is not enough, the blog posts will feature pop-up sentence definitions for more formal clarification. Jenny shows you an example of two parenthetical definitions, one for post and one for blogroll, as well as a sentence definition for phytoremediation (Figure 2.2).

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Figure false: FIGURE 2.2
Figure false: Model Parenthetical and Sentence Definitions

The definition for post is enclosed in parentheses, and the definition for blogroll is enclosed in commas. Parenthetical definitions can also be introduced with a colon or a dash.

The item to be defined (phytoremediation) is placed in a group of similar items and then distinguished from them by stating the key distinction between the item being defined and the other items in the group.

The Challenge

Being able to learn new material quickly is an important job skill for technical communicators, who often work on new product lines or on projects involving the contributions of a variety of experts. Like many nonprofits, BUGS recruits volunteers with a variety of interests, including people with writing and technology skills to support the educational programs. Most BUGS volunteers commit to working at least 10 hours per month as program instructors or in the BUGS garden. As the first volunteer with a strong background in writing, you will spend most of your time helping improve the program materials and writing content for the Web site. Because you might not have much experience with gardening or blogging, your challenge is to research and learn new terminology and then clearly explain these terms to the young gardeners.

Your Job

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To download electronic copies of documents in this chapter, click here.

The success of this new interactive blog depends on the young gardeners’ understanding the definitions and descriptions. If they cannot understand a gardening term or a blog feature, they may give up on their backyard gardens or fail to make use of the blog. Your job is to analyze the site’s audience and purpose and then help the BUGS blogger explain backyard gardening and blogs. To prepare the blog for its launch, you may be asked to do the following:

Your instructor will tell you which of the tasks you are to complete.

You can view case documents at the bottom of each task below. To download copies of the documents that you can work with, click here.

Task 1 Analyze Parenthetical and Sentence Definitions

During a call, Jenny tells you, “Yesterday, I brainstormed a list of terms I think I will use in my early blog posts. I just sent you two emails with several definitions I wrote (Documents 2.3 and 2.4). I would like your feedback on whether the definitions are effectively written and appropriate for our BUGS audience before I use them in a post.” She adds, “Don’t be afraid to use the Internet to learn about any unfamiliar terms.” She then asks you to write an email in which you identify by letter the effective definitions, include revised versions of those that are flawed, and identify any terms that are not appropriate for the blog’s intended audience.

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Figure false: DOCUMENT 2.3
Figure false: Parenthetical Definitions
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Figure false: DOCUMENT 2.4
Figure false: Sentence Definitions

Task 2 Evaluate and Revise Descriptions

“I think some of the longer descriptions I plan to include miss their mark,” Jenny tells you, “but I’m unsure how to revise them. Could you take a look at four passages I’m having trouble with, identify the techniques I use, and then evaluate the effectiveness of these techniques? Please include revised passages.” She says she will attach the passages and her annotations to an email message (Documents 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, and 2.8), and she would like you to respond by email. When you evaluate the passages, Jenny wants you to consider carefully the blog’s audience and the organization’s purpose for posting the information on the blog.

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Figure false: DOCUMENT 2.5
Figure false: Object Description of Beneficial Insects
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Figure false: DOCUMENT 2.6
Figure false: Mechanism Description of Garden Tiller
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Figure false: DOCUMENT 2.7
Figure false: Process Description of Erosion Control
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Figure false: DOCUMENT 2.8
Figure false: Object Description of USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 8b

Task 3 Clarify Definitions with Graphics

While discussing some of the organization’s printed educational materials and planned blog posts with you, Jenny remarks, “I’m a little concerned about how wordy our blog might appear. Our young gardeners just won’t read dense text. I’m sure we could add some visual interest and reduce the text-heavy feel, but I’m just not sure where to do it.”

Because BUGS participants are just beginning to learn gardening terminology, Jenny explains that she would like to use graphics as well as text in some of the posts. She asks you to review Documents 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, and 2.8 and evaluate whether the proposed graphics would clarify and complement the text. If you decide that the proposed graphics are not suitable, or you determine that additional graphics would help, suggest alternatives. In an email to Jenny, describe how one or more graphics would help, and describe how to best integrate the graphics with the text. Remember that these graphics will be displayed online in a blog post.

Finally, Jenny would like to convert some of her blog posts to handouts for use with various BUGS programs. Select one of the descriptions in Documents 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, and 2.8, and design a one-page color handout suitable for printing and distribution at BUGS educational programs. You will likely need to further develop the description and locate suitable graphics.

Task 4 Write Definitions

A BUGS instructor, Terra Hughes, has identified several objects, mechanisms, and processes that young gardeners have asked to be defined. She has sent you an email (Document 2.9) asking you to write several sentence definitions and a few extended descriptions.

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Figure false: DOCUMENT 2.9
Figure false: Email with Gardening Terms to Be Defined

When You’re Finished

Reflecting on This Case In a 250- to 500-word response to your instructor, discuss (a) what you learned from this case, (b) how you could relate this case to work situations you will face in your chosen career, and, if applicable, (c) the ways in which this case compares to similar situations you have already faced at work. Your instructor will tell you whether your response should be submitted as a memo, an email, or a journal entry, or in a different format.

Moving beyond This Case Write a 500- to 1,000-word description of a piece of equipment or a process used in your field. Include appropriate graphics. On a separate sheet, briefly describe your audience and the purpose of the document in which your description would likely appear.