TRW Session: January 29th, 2014

Session initiated with a 10 minutes writing activity, in which we had to recall our previous lecture [28/1/14] and summarize on a sheet of paper. After ten minutes elapsed, we told our main points to the instructor and he noted them on whiteboard. Surprisingly, none of us knew what we were doing. It was evident that no one thought about the agenda of the writing activity. Either the ideas presented were distorted, or the points were too vague. While our points were being discussed, the instructor cleverly dealt with criticism, yet he sounded quite neutral. As if, he was not saying or implying anything upon us. Rather he was planting a seed in our minds, which had the ability to make us realize what we did wrong. I realized during the analysis that there was no vision, nor was there any conclusive approach. Almost all the students directed their mind and energy in completing the activity within a span of 10 minutes ignoring the real purpose behind that activity. It was supposed to be an article but rather we wrote it like an episode.

We simply failed to plan.

Summary of Last Class

Last lecture of Technical Report Writing was held on 28th of January. In the beginning of lecture, Sir Rauf gave the class a task to write an article about what happened or what we discussed in the last lecture. After writing, Sir Rauf highlighted the mistakes we made. The articles we wrote were inconclusive and there was no connection between points. In the middle of lecture, we discussed about the difference of mind set of a Businessman and a Scientist/Technical-person.  Then Sir Rauf taught us about writing an article precisely. He taught that when writing an article, keep three things in mind. First, for whom you are writing. Second, what is your objective. Third, your article must be conclusive. We also discussed about clarity, decomposition of article, composition of paragraph, sequence of content and discussed drill down in detail. In the last.  Sir gave as a task to write an article about what happened in this lecture. 

Summary on previous lecture...

In the beginning, we were asked to write a report on whatever was covered in our previous class. Everyone started writing but was unable to find a conclusion as the topics that were discussed in the previous class had no linkage with each other.

Then the teacher explained how to set our minds on a particular objective, how to write different types of reports, finding ways to make the report interesting for the audience.

In the end, a task was assigned to the students to check their understanding.

Today  was Technical report class. This subject  allow us to write three basic ways of writing.

1 ) Business writing.

2 ) Technical writing.

3 ) Academic writing.

Writing styles:

Clarity, Decomposition of articles, Sequence/flow of content.

Sir was teaching that first to deal with technical writing we first need to deal  what kind of audience we are dealing with. So to be sure what kind of person we dealing with if a person is a business men  then will have to use different way of writing or if someone is writing a story will think about for what age this story is and then will use words that being understand by them.

Second the Objective must be known by writer if someone is writing a story he must know what is the objective  of the story so that a person can proceed further if  he don’t know the objectives then it might be possible a person will start including further words which will not let them to end the story.

Third  whatever the person is writing it must be conclusive.

Article about yesterday class

Yesterday Technical Report Writing class sir give the all students task to write an article about previous lecture after that teach us how to write an article in which taught that how to take attention of the audience and also taught that first make all conclusion in writer mind and then write his article. Also a questioning section in which student ask some questions from sir related to the topic. Sir taught different techniques of writing an article in that way when anyone read our articles who feels like that watching movie or writing character moving front on him. In yesterday lecture also sir explains different between business writing and technical report writing with help of some examples. After some time take different opinion from students to that topic to check his mind what they are thinking. During lecture also talk about Pakistani behavior or attitude also doing some fun in class.

                First of all Sir Rauf asked us to write an article on what we have done in last class .
when all the students shared their strategies Sir correct our mistakes and
                 taught us the right way to write any technical report.
Firstly we should make bullets then create a mind set about what we should write or what we                       want to present infornt of the audience/readers.we should summerize our report.whenever we are                 writting any technical report firstly we should think about the audience that when the audience read                  our report they can make conclusion easily.
secondaly our objective should be clear and in last we must be conclusive . At the end when                          audience read our report they can see the whole picture in their mind.

Our Technical Report and Writing classes are being taken by Sir Rauf Shams. In the last class we had a two hours session.

At the very first, he gave us an activity to write a summary on what had happened in last class.

After couple of minutes, he asked us to re-call the strategies of what were using while writing on the paper.

After all the students have shared their strategies, after this activity sir Rauf was not satisfied with the students he teaught us that what are the good approach to write a content.

He taught us that while writing or telling a story we should be very much clear about our audience, our objective though he also taught us how to be conclusive while delivering our messages to someone.

Then, he again gave us the activity to write the summary of last 50 minutes.

After the students were done with the class work, Sir gave us some key points to test the writing skills of our fellow mates.

We, the students point out each other's mistakes and carried on with the flow.

The Sir cleared us the point that how to drill down the audience into your content. Then he gave us to write a blog regarding the summary of the whole scenario that had happened in the last two hours, as an assignment.

although he want us to read and comment on every student's blog.

number of comments will decide which blog is the best.

Summary of the last class

Summary for last class of Technical report writing                                                                                 

In the last class the teacher give the students a task. The students were asked to write about the topics which were discussed in the previous class. The idea was to make the students understand the behavior of technical writing; how it should be, and how it should not be. Apparently the students could not meet the precise needs of technical writing for which the lecture went on. The teacher told the students about three paradigms of writing: 1.)Business writing  2.)Technical writing  3.)research writing and explained the difference between research writers and business writers and the mind set they have while writing. Although there were different discussions on different topics but the main idea of the lecture was understanding the true means of technical writing. Three major points were told about  how a writer should plan his writing. They are as follows:

1) The first and the foremost thing which a writer should think about is the kind of readers he is addressing to.

2) Secondly, the writer should be clear about what he has to write, he should be aware of his objective.

3)  And most importantly the writer should be conclusive. All of his arguments must lead to a conclusion. They should not only be based on facts but also should have a conclusion in the end.

At the end the teacher listed a few points on writing style and strategic elements for technical writing.

The last lecture was about:

The main points of meeting the requirement of technical report writing. The lecturer assigned us a task to write an article about the discussion of the previous lecture. All of us wrote the articles but the major need of that article was neglected due to lack of information about how to write a particular article. Some of the things which should be kept in mind are:

1. Targeting the Audience:-  How the audience think about our objective of writing that particular article and what is their expectation from that article.

2. Objective:- What you want to tell? Is your point of view clear?  It should be clear to the audience that what is the objective of writing that article.

3. Conclusion:- Your conclusion will help the reader to link different points and find a common way about different things in your article.

The instructor also used drill down approach. He also explained the technique used by the businessmen to target the needs of the buyers. He also told us about the mindset of different people about a particular thing. The lecture ended with the discussion of technical report writing techniques. 

A brief summary of our last class.

The whole conversation in our class was about having a clear cut understanding about the three major points to meet the requirement of a technical report writing.The teacher has discussed about the mindset of the different people and the businessman's marketing strategy to sell their products.

The class began with the task to write an article about what we had discussed in our previous class. Unfortunately,everyone of us have started writing without keeping in mind the right mentality. A brief discussion was started about the techniques of professional writers. Questions has been raised and the teacher's responses were proved to be helpful to us to get an idea about how we could attain professionalism in articles.

The teacher has described these three points of consideration for a technical report writing:

1. Objective:

Your objective should be clear and specific.

2. Audience:

Target those audience who can take actions to fulfill your objectives. It requires

thinking about how they think about your objectives.

3. Conclusiveness:

Revolve around the objectives and think globally. Creating links in your article to help the reader to redirect the information.

Observation and having an in-depth knowledge about the wants and needs of the people can help the businessman to sell their products. Drill down approach was used by him to explain us its importance about how we could move from our main information to a detailed data by focusing on something specific. The class ended after discussing the strategic elements and writing approaches of technical report writing.