revise a document/ technicalwriting

hints_3dprinting_assignment1.pdf

Document 9.2 | Dr. Juneja’s E-mail

Students—

Let’s concentrate for the moment on this general description of 3D printing. We’ll leave the discussion

of our class project for later.

The central challenge you will face in revising this draft is that it’s hard to read. It doesn’t hang together.

Let me pose a few questions for you to consider:

1. It has a title, but the title is too broad. What is it about 3D printing that you plan to discuss?

2. This piece is going to go on the Web. People prefer short chunks of information, not long paragraphs,

when they read online. Can you break up the text into smaller paragraphs? Add clear topic sentences?

3. Could you group the information by topic? One part is about the different technologies, one part is

about how industry is already using it, etc. Add headings to announce each topic? Keep in mind that our

readers are not necessarily engineers, and many of them have never heard of 3D printing.

4. Some of the paragraphs wander from one idea to another. One paragraph = one idea. Use topic

sentences. Transitions within the paragraph. Use lists where appropriate.

5. Some of the information is unclear to me. How are medical researchers creating tissue? Readers don’t

need a lot of details, but nothing you say in the description explains how you get from resins and ABS to

human tissue.

Let me see another draft, please. Do any research you need to fill in the holes. Keep it to 1,000 words.

But most of all, work on the structure.