Part 1 :
One of the guidelines that I regularly use in my writing is beginning a segment by announcing my topic. It is always most effective if we begin with a topic sentence because it increases clarity and answers the question of the reader on what the paragraph is about. Even for the proposal that we wrote for the project in this class, our segment started with the purpose of the proposal. Another guideline that I always like to follow is "Move from most important to least important". This organization will help people scan for the item they are looking for more easily and quickly. It is also used to increase the persuasiveness of any form of communication when the reader reads the strongest and most convincing point first. This format is used in my resume. I have listed my education first and my skills and work experience follow the order of importance. Other guidelines from the book that I believe can result in effective communication are : "Consider the reader's cultural background while organizing" and "smooth the flow of thought from sentence to sentence." We should take cultural backgrounds into consideration because in other cultures they must be used to different patterns segments does not necessarily have to follow one idea. We should learn the reader's expectation first before communicating with them. It is also critical that there is a strong connection between every sentence in a paragraph. The use of transitional phrases and echo words can help in the smooth flow from a sentence to sentence. I will most likely use all the guidelines provided in this chapters in my further communications.
Part 2 :
Chapter 16 explained how certain design and graphic elements in a page will affect our readers. One of the guidelines that intrigued me is grouping related items visually. Since there are many visual people out there, in order to make a favorable impression, it is important to group closely related items together. This is related to how our brain processes information. Readers tend to interpret information grouped together as related. The guideline that I found the most useful is creating a grid that will serve as a visual framework for the page. We use this design in several documents such as essays, resumes, books, journals, reports, etc. When we use grid patterns cleverly, it can aid the usefulness and persuasiveness of the communication. This can also help us to fit different possibilities for the same page. Along with designing the elements of the page, it is also important to choose font type that will be easier for the readers to comprehend. I found it is interesting that people perceive different fonts based on their situations. Using different kinds of designs provided in this chapter will help the reader interested and focused. These guidelines will help the readers of our communication to emphasize on the significant contents and read efficiently.
I think I'm so used to writing prose that directly stating the topic in the first sentence seems a little weird. I agree that it is extremely important though, because it helps the reader quickly determine what the rest of the document will be about and if that particular section of information is relevant to what they need to know. Moving from most important to least important accomplishes a similar goal by providing the most important information first to hopefully prevent the user from skimming over it.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the design portion, we learned about some of these grouping techniques in a psychology course I took. Whenever I need to design a document, I find that columns and tables can be extremely useful for setting up layouts.