NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY The Practical Experience of Technical Writing Or Everything You Wanted To Know About A Technical Writing Internship But Were Afraid To Ask A Report submitted to the University Honors Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Baccalaureate Degree with Upper Division Honors Department of English by Lynne M. Brooks DeKalb, lliinois December 1988 JOURNAL OF THESIS ABSTRACTS THESIS SUBMISSION FORM AUTHOR: Lynne M. Brooks The Practical Ex~erience of Technical Writing Or Everything You THESIS TITLE: To Know About A Technical Writing Internship But Were Afral.d To THES IS ADVI SOR: Drs. Miller and Pennel ADVI SOR 'S DEPT: Department of English DATE: August 2, 1988 HONORS PROGRAM: Upper Division Honors NAME OF COLLEGE: Northern Illinois University PAGE LENGTH: 21 BIBLIOGRAPHY (YES OR NO): yes ILLUSTRATED (YES OR NO): no COPIES AVAILABLE (HARD COPY, MICROFILM, DISKETTE) : hard copy SUBJECT HEADINGS: (CHOOSE FIVE KEY \\fORDS) Internship, technical, writing, experience, cooperative education ABSTRACT (100-200 words): This a er is a re ort on a technical writing internship during summer of 1988 in the Computing and Telecommunications Division at Argonne National Laboratory. It consists of five parts: introduction, narrative, analysis and evaluation, comment, and appendix. The introduction describes the setting for theinternship and how it related to the Laboratory as a whole. The narrative section consists of a daily journal the author kept from May 31 to August 1. The analysis and evaluation section discusses and criticizes the documents produced on the job. The report concludes with a comment on the value of internships for liberal arts students and samples of all the documents edited or wrote, as well as other relevant documents. For Office Use: THESIS NUMBER: JUL 2 9 1988 ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, Illinois 60439 312/972-4216 July 27, 1988 Dr. Glenn Meeter, Chainnan Department of English ~orthern illinois University DeKalb, illinois 60115 Dear Dr. Meeter: Lynne Brooks has completed her technical editing internship under my supervision at Argonne National Laboratory. Lynne has done an excellent job of editing (and occasionally writing) technical documentation for computer users. She has learned to edit on-line, to be aware of the need for consistency and precision in style and fonnat, to work congenially but forcefully with authors and reviewers, and to supervise documents through the various publication processes. She has successfully concluded a number of high-level edits. Her name will appear as editor on the title page of Using the Hydra Protocol Converter for IBM Full Screen Terminal Emulation at ANL (ANL/fM 457, Revision 1) and Quality Assurance Plan for the Computing and Telecommunications Division (ANL/fM 4nn). Lynne learns readily and works well both independently and in collaborative settings. She has an excellent ear for language and is aware of the importance of the audience. I have encouraged her to think in long range tenns of graduate work at one of the five or six schools offering premier programs in technical communication. While Lynne could serve successfully as a technical editor now, she would be well qualified with an advanced degree for a management position at a truly excellent salary. I / CMC:cad ct: Dr. Charles Pennel Dr. James Miller ,DrooMuiOll'MiUer' .. .. U.S. Department of Energy The University of Chicago I / .. Approved: Department of: Date: . · \NT£R~SHIP £ PORT . Argonne National Laboratory Computing and Telecommunications THE PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE OF TECHNICAL WRITING OR EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT A TECHNICAL WRITING INTERNSHIP BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK . Summer 1988 , . By Lynne M. Brooks . -i- . The Practical Experience of Technical Writing ANLffM ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to sincerely thank Drs. Gifford and Linda Caruthers and W. William Minor for their help and encouragement, and my coworkers at NIU for their endless patience and flexibility. I couldn't have done it without you. I also want to thank Jim Corey and M. Jimmie Killingsworth for writing "The Internship Report." This article served as a model for my own report. -ii- . Summer 1988 Preface PREFACE "There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author and the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1) tell him you have read one of his books, 2) tell him you have read all of his books, and 3) ask him to let you read the manuscript of his forthcoming book. No.1 admits you to his respect; No.2 admits you to his admiration, No. 3 carries you clear to his heart." Mark Twain When Mark Twain wrote the above in Puddinhead Wilson, he was clarifying the relationship between author and editor. In this case the author, of course, was Twain and the editor was William Dean Howells. Howells served as Twain's editor from the beginning of Twain's literary career. In his book, My Mark Twain, Howells also wrote about Twain's reactions to editorial comment: "At that time I had become editor of the Atlantic Monthly, and I had allegiances belonging to the conduct of what was and still remains the most scrupulously cultivated of our periodicals. When Clemens began to write for it he came willingly under its rules, for with all his willfulness there never was a more biddable man in things you could show him a reason for. He never made the least of that trouble which so abounds for -the hapless editor from narrower-minded contributors. If you wanted a thing changed, very good, he changed it; if you suggested that a word or sentence or a paragraph had better be struck out, very good he struck it out. His proof-sheets came back each a veritable 'mush of concessions,' as Emerson says." . Since I am an English major currently interning as a technical writer in a highly technical, scientific environment, I felt it appropriate to begin this paper with a literary reference. After all, technical writers have been around since 5th Century B.C. We claim colleagues like Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and DaVinci. However, technical writing only emerged as a viable profession during World War 11.1 Today, the burgeoning field of technical writing and editing has become for many closet English majors a way to express their love of and interest in language and literature; and, yes, it also answers the eternal question of, what do you do with an English major (besides starve) if you don't teach? Thanks largely to the explosion of computer technology, technical writers are in demand. I was extremely fortunate to be offered a technical writing internship in the Computing and Telecommunications Division of Argonne National Laboratory, a major research institution, during the summer of 1988. This paper is a report on that internship and consists of five parts: introduction, narrative, analysis and evaluation, comment, and appendix.2 The introduction describes the setting for my internship and how it related to the Laboratory as a whole. The narrative section consists of a daily journal I kept from May 31 to August 1. The analysis and evaluation section discusses and criticizes the documents I produced on the job. The report concludes with a comment on the value of internships for liberal arts students and samples of all the documents I edited or wrote, as well as other relevant documents. 1 Senf, Carol A. "Technical Writing As A Career." The Technical Writing Teacher, Vol. XIV, No. I, Winter 1987. p 2. 2 Corey,Jim and M. Jimmie Killingsworth. "The Internship Report." The Technical Writing Teacher, Vol. XIV, No.2, Spring 1987, pp . 133-141. -Hi- . The Practical Experience of Technical Writing ANLrrM . -iv- . Summer 1988 Contents CONTENTS Acknowledgments ii Preface . Hi Chapter 1: Into the Woods 1 Chapter 2: TellIt Like It Is . 3 Chapter 3: AsI SeeIt . 15 The Student Research Participation Program at Argonne 15 Computing and Telecommunications User Services Section 15 The Writing and Editing System . 16 TheDocuments . 16 . Chapter 3--The Vax Document (see Appendix B) 16 ANLffM 457 (see Appendix C) ......... 16 Quality Assurance Plan for Computing and Telecommunications (see Appendix D) 17 Notes for Cray X-MP Class (see Appendix E) .. 17 ArgonneComputingNewsletter(seeAppendixF) . 17 Chapter 4: Catch-22 . 19 Benefits of Cooperative Education and Internship Programs 20 Consequences of the Internship Experience. 20 Bibliography 21 . -v- . Summer 1988 Into the Woods CHAPTER 1 INTO THE WOODS In spring of 1986 I enrolled in a course called Introduction to Technical Report Writing at our local community college. I took the course primarily to fulfill the requirements for an associates degree and because I felt it would help me in my job as assistant cashier and loan officer at a local bank. Little did I realize that I was about to change the direction of my life. In my final semester at Kishwaukee College, I left the bank to become a full-time student. In December 1988, I will graduate from Northern Illinois University with a B.A. in English and begin my search for a position in technical writing. All of these changes are the direct result of the technical writing class and the professor who taught it, Dr. Linda Caruthers. Both Linda and her husband, Cliff, are technical writers. Linda freelances and serves as consultant for various firms while working as a full-time instructor at Kishwaukee College. Giff works as senior computing publications editor at Argonne National Laboratory. It was through Giff and Linda that I learned about Argonne's Student Research Participation Program. A part of the Department of Energy's (DOE) commitment to development and research is the Student Research Participation (SRP) Program. The DOE sponsors the program through the UniversitylDOE Laboratory Cooperative (Lab-Coop) Program. These SRPs provide lOavaluable learning opportunity as well as practical experience, under excellent conditions, for work in the student's chosen .