A Long Road to Instructions

     When I first found out we had to write a set of instructions I thought it was going to be something along the lines of, "Write some instructions and turn them in next week." It is funny though because we received multiple instructions on how to write instructions. That is fine because I like learning the right or proper way to do things, at least the first time through, then figure out shortcuts later. I did find it interesting that that much had to go into writing a set of instructions though, like tailoring them to a specific audience and making sure to make them simple enough for the reader to comprehend.
     My uncle works for ESAB Welding Equipment, and I just remembered that is one of his jobs for that company. Every time new equipment comes out, someone has to "instruct" him how to use it, then he has to take what he knows about it and write a set of instructions to describe to the customer who buys the equipment how to use it. I guess now I can appreciate what he does a little bit more because, while it definitely seems a little boring and monotonous, I now realize what goes into each set of written instructions.

Thank You Aristotle...for the confusion

     Ok, I have put it off for about two weeks now, so I guess it is time to start blogging. I thought we had an interesting discussion about rhetoric the first week. Everything was easy enough to understand and I was getting a grasp on what rhetoric was until Aristotle came along. I just feel like it was fairly hard to understand students' chicken scratch and notes that were translated thousands of years later, especially when certain sections of that reading seemed to go in circles and repeat itself using the same phrases.

     One thing I did thoroughly enjoy was the few clips of "Thank You for Smoking" that we watched. I had heard it was funny, but had not actually seen it before. Seeing the clips from the movie somewhat motivated me to download it and watch it on the computer. Besides being pretty funny, it was interesting to see examples of rhetoric used throughout the length of the whole movie, used in a way that made it easy to pick out and understand.