informal instructional essay

We’ve been working with more informal instructional documents in your groups so far–now we want to get into something more “technical” in nature. This assignment will require you to create a set of instructions on how to use some sort of “technology” (or a “How-to” if you will). This genre of technical documents will require you to 1) describe a process, 2) write for an unfamiliar user, 2) use visuals to supplement the text, and 3) follow appropriate HATS and CRAP guidelines.

Your first step will be to choose the technology: what you choose is up to you! Some examples students have chosen in the past have included:

How-to use Photoshop

How to use InDesign

How to use Skype

How to create a simple web page using wordpress

The possibilities are vast, but this will require you clearing your instructions with me ahead of time (which I will post as a discussion topic). Seeing as each document will require different steps there can be no page or visual count, however this does NOT mean that you can just slap a bare minimum of content just to get it over with. Formatting is up to you, but I would suggest you follow the examples provided in Chapter 7 of your textbook.