William Whitehair reflects on technical communication skills learned in ENGL 2311. Rhetoric is identified as an important communication skill that was practiced through assignments like resumes and instructions. Collaboration was important for the group final project, where roles were assigned and challenges like budgets and usability tests were overcome through discussion. Cultural considerations are significant in business contexts due to globalization. Ethics are important both in technical documents like resumes and in general life conduct.

1. Reflections on Technical
Communication
William Whitehair
ENGL 2311

2. RHETORIC01
Table of Contents
02
CULTURALCONSIDERATIONS03
04 ETHICS
COLLABORATION

3. 3
What is technical communication?
. “Rhetoric, which is the use of language to
inform or persuade, is very important in
shaping public opinion. We are very easily
fooled by language and how it is used by
others.” by Ray Comfort
Rhetoric is one of the most important skills to have when it
comes to communication. In today’s age communications is done
through many different ways physically communicating with
somebody, through emails or any technical devices people can
use to communicate and last but not least the old fashion way
like letters in the mail. Although we have so many ways to get a
hold of people and communicate with them Rhetoric will never
change.
The definition of rhetoric is “the art of effective or
persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of
figures of speech and other compositional techniques”
essentially every time we are communicating with
somebody else we are trying to persuade them into
listening to what you have to say, making rhetoric one of
the most important styles of communications
Through our time in ENGL 2311, we have covered many
different uses of technical communication, which can and
will help us outside the classroom. Some of the examples
we have covered in ENGL 2311 that uses rhetoric are:
Resumes, Cover letters, memos, instructions, Thank you
letters, etc.
.
Introduction

4. 4
Rhetoric is used in every
conversation.
Every assignment in this class was meant for a specific
audience. My favorite examples of rhetoric in this class is
the usability test and the final project, my groups target
audience for our final project was students attending
college ages 18-26 that uses printing on campus. For our
usability test we had the same target audience as our final
project and our results were pretty promising.
A couple problems that my group ran into during our usability test
was first, Our instruction set had a couple miss spelling and our
steps were different colors which through off some of the users
while trying to read the instructions.
Secondly we left out 2 very easy steps but were the most
important at the end of the day and they were letting the students
know they have to log off once creating an account and also
letting the students know they need to bring their own paper in
order to get the free printing.
Our resolution was fixing the miss spellings and the colors of the
instructions to all be the same color and then adding the last two
steps that let the students know to bring their own paper and to
log off once the account was made.
Rhetoric
section 01

5. 5
The feedback we were able to get from the usability
test was then applied towards our final project.
Based on the nature of our project, which was to get
every student on campus to get free printing through
the WEPA machines, my group all decided that the
best way to communicate our project was through a
set of step by step instructions. We felt like we didn’t
need to do a video because the instruction was very
thorough. We realized that most students are visual
learners so we made pictures on our instructions that
walk them through how to create a WEPA account.
Technology is everywhere in todays age, especially in
communication. The technology we used in our
project was a digital camera, photo editing software
on the mac, Microsoft word, and power point, which
we used for our presentation.
Through the usability test and the final project we
really learned how to use technology to communicate
to our audience. This will really grow me as a
communicator in the real world which is a very
important and useful skill to have in todays age.
Rhetoric
section 01

6. 6
“Alone we are smart but together we
are brilliant
-Steve Anderson, Education
Collaboration is a very important tool to use and be able to function with. Almost every job
you will ever have has employees you must collaborate with in order to get the job done, if
you cant work with other people you are in a world of hurt. We all took personality tests
the first week of class to see who we are and who we would work best with in order to get
our final project complete. I was lucky enough to be put in a group with Tatyana Gains
and Dylan Bushlong, I felt like us three in a group could have conquered anything that
came our way, we worked together very well and all had a good understanding of what
was going on and what needed to be done in order to get the job done correctly.
When choosing what to do our project over, it took us about a minute to all agree on one
idea and once we made our choice we took it and ran with it and never looked back. We
chose our roles by just talking about it and see who wants what and who is better at that
specific role, my role was the team manager and the Budgeter and I was completely okay
with taking both of those roles. Once we got our roles figured out we talked about it and
helped each other out with each role by giving good ideas and good in site.
Agile Model
Planning
Design
Implementatio
n
Testing
Evaluation
*Model we used for our group projects
Collaboration
section 02

7. 7
Conflict makes us better.
Challenges our team faced:
• figuring out the budget because of the specific idea we
had.
•Having trouble figuring out the best way to do the usability
test.
• At times, team members had different ideas on how they
wanted things done.
Challenges solved:
•The way we figured out the budget was by just getting the
flat costs and than deducting that from the amount of paper
the university spends on paper. Dylan gave me that idea
and I used it because it made sense.
•The way we figured out the usability test was by all talking
about it and than choosing one together. We used
Tatyana’s idea because it fit our project the best,
•The way we fixed this was by all talking together and
figuring out what was the easiest and would make the most
sense at the end of the day. We used Dylan’s cause it
made the most sense.
•Some team members had really great ideas, but the
reality is that not all of them were practical. So, we had to
Collaboration
section 02

8. 8
“Those seeking to identify common cultural values across
Latinos with diverse backgrounds face a difficult task”
Elizabeth Fraga,
Friends and family are the important things in life because those
are the ones you can go to in times of need. Figuring out where
you came from and why you are who you are today are very
important when it comes to finding your true meaning
I think when we did the cultural ladder in class activity when we went around and
picked the 4 things that make you who you are today was a very eye opening
activity. I think it really made me understand how I am who I am today and it all
comes from my family and the activities we do together. I really enjoyed that activity
because now I know how I became what I am today and it makes me happy and
strive to become more like my parents because they are the ones who raised me
and are the ones who are successful in our big family.
Cultural Considerations
section 03

9. 9
Cultural consideration is bigger in our world than it has ever been
because we are becoming a much more technological culture.
Businesses now are going over seas more and more to do business
and need to be considerate of the culture they are doing business in. If
business men or women go over seas and have no idea how to treat
their associates than they are not going to want to be apart of that
company and find a better company that will treat them with the respect
they deserve.
All over the world people meet and greet differently, in one country a
kiss on the cheek is looked down upon but in another country if you
don’t greet that way it’s a sign of disrespect, so people need to
understand where they are going and respect those peoples
accordingly.
.
Cultural Considerations
section 03

10. 10
Ethics makes us who we are today
Ethics is an unspoken
code of conduct which
infiltrates our lives.
Ethics was covered the most in
section 1 where we created
resumes, cover letters, and thank
you notes. When building my
resume I noticed how easy it was
to get off topic.
The goal of a resume is to grab
the attention of the employer you
are pursuing and make him
interested in your set of skills so
he/she will hire you.
. It is so easy to add unnecessary
words or leave out important eye
catching words that could really
hurt you. After building a mock
resume and than getting
feedback and making a legit
survey I realized how important it
is to really brag about your
strengths and leave out your
weaknesses
The concept of ethics extends
beyond writing resumes. Living
an honest ethical life is what my
parents have been teaching me
my whole life, having standards
and rules to hold you accountable
are some of the most important
standards to live by and will really
pay off if you hold to these rules.
Having morals is something I
pride myself on and nobody can
tell you to follow your morals or
not its all up to you. Living by
these rules will help you get
through college and furthermore
your entire life.
Ethics
section 04

11. Citation Page
Ray Comfort.(n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. RetrievedJuly 7, 2016, from BrainyQuote.com
Fraga, Elizabeth. "Cultural Consideration." America PsychologicalAssociation. N.p., Jan. 2005. Web. 07 July
2016.

12. For more info, please
contact me at:
ww.whitehair@ttu.edu
Thank
You