Technical Reports

October 28, 2018AdminUncategorized

Describing Assignment (3 points)

Course: Technical Reports Instructor:

OVERVIEW OF ASSIGNMENT

This assignment is designed to give students practice writing Descriptions. As students will be writing and submitting a final report towards the end of the semester, this assignment would be useful as a way of helping students polish their writing skills.

In this assignment, you will formally write descriptions of an IT System. The description should include both the Components Description (Object Description) and Process Description of the same system.

Before starting your homework keep the planning phase in your mind. It should include guideline steps for planning descriptions mentioned in chapter # 11.

Remember, techniques for organizing descriptions easily follow standard deductive order: begin with the main point and then give details. Organizing this way means ‘frontloading’ information which is vital descriptions clarity. In this homework, organize your descriptions keeping in mind this technique.

REQUIREMENTS

The requirements for the Describing assignment are:

It should be not more than 2 double-spaced pages. (At least 1 page long)
Include the evaluation criteria table on a separate page just after the title page
Provide a cover-page for your assignment in which you state clearly:

University and college names
the assignment title: “Describing”
the course name
your name and ID

It should address ALL of the following information related to Central Processing Units as presented in the following link: http://homepage.cs.uri.edu/faculty/wolfe/book/Readings/Reading04.htm

Introduction

Plan the introduction to your description carefully. Make sure it does all of the following things (but not necessarily in this order) that apply to your particular description:

Indicate the specific object about to be described.
Indicate what the audience needs in terms of knowledge and background to understand the description.
Provide a general description of the object.
Include an overview of the contents of the description.

If the thing you are describing is not likely to be familiar to most of your readers, consider adding some background before you plunge into the actual description. If you are about to describe a Filament-winding machine to non-technical or semi-technical, you’d better first discuss what in the world the thing is, what it does, who use it, for what, where and when.

Product Description (Components Description)

The main part of your description is the discussion of each part or characteristic. You must divide the thing you are describing into parts, or characteristics, or both. Parts are easy: for example, a wooden pencil has lead, a wooden barrel, an eraser, and a metal clip. Characteristics are describable aspects of a thing but are not parts: for example, the pencil has a certain weight, length, width, and so on.

Once you’ve divided the thing you are describing into parts, characteristics, or both, your next job is to describe each one. For mechanical things, it works well to start by defining the part, by explaining its function. After that, you describe the part from general to specific, following a deductive organization.

Process Description

Summarize the operation or process associated with the object you’re describing. For example, if you’ve just described a filament-winding machine, you could briefly explain how it works to produce the filament windings.

By contrast, the product description which focuses on an object representation in space, the process description examines the object’s actions over time. In general, break the whole process up into smaller stages (steps), and describe each stage in logical order.

EVALUATION CRITERIA:

Criteria	Description of requested information	Mark
Writing requirements	Includes all information listed in Requirements section.	/5
Writing style	Good English writing style without grammatical errors and correct punctuations. Use paragraphs; not bullets.	/10
Effective Introduction with appropriate Background	□ Includes a brief to the system’s technology, production and use. □ Includes necessary background information of the system and how it developed.	/10
Description of the Product (components) description	Deductive order that includes the following elements: □ A definition of the object, its purpose, and its importance. □ An overview of the object’s appearance (including size), major components, and relationship of the components to one another. □ A detailed description of each part of the object or mechanism, using specific terms and measurements.	/15
Process Description	Deductive order that includes the following elements: □ An explanation of the process and its importance. □ An ordered overview of the steps involved. □ A detailed step-by-step description of the process. □ Processes steps are explained according to a logical order.	/20
Total mark	Total of all marks	/60
Assignment mark	Total mark divided by 20.	/3