Contents
ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW
Write an original step-by-step instructions article that you will publish on wikiHow and also include in your Digital Composition Portfolio. This assignment will introduce you to some of the core principles of entering online discourse communities, becoming a rhetorically aware writer, and writing effectively in the genre of instructions. These skills will transfer to other projects in this class and beyond.
TOPICS
Keep these criteria in mind as you consider topics:
- The topic you select should be appropriate for the nature and purpose of the site and should easily fit into one of wikiHow’s 18 main categories or one of their subcategories. The topic must be one on which no wikiHow article currently exists.
- I strongly prefer for you to choose a topic from the community’s Requested Topics, so that you can be sure you’re responding to a genuine need in the community. If absolutely none of those topics appeals to you, you might try the “I want topic suggestions” box on the Write an Article page or the How to Find a Subject to Write About article.
- The topic should not promote activity that is illegal, borderline illegal, unethical, or dangerous. The topic also should not lead a reader to do something that most people would consider irresponsible, immature, or unprofessional. (Consider that your article will be associated with the University of Colorado, given that you’re writing it for a class.)
- The topic should lead you to produce an article that will go into a portfolio of your published writing that you can give to a future employer to demonstrate your skills.
- The topic must be one that a few of your fellow classmates will be able to actually user-test, so that they can give you feedback on how well the instructions work in a real-world scenario. That means you should choose topics that most college students will be able to complete (or you should check with the class to find out who might have the necessary special equipment or knowledge to complete your task.)
- The topic should be well-suited to the genre of step-by-step written instructions with screenshots or photos. In other words, it should walk readers through a series of steps in order to complete a specific task. For example, neither of these would be appropriate: a collection of tips or a food recipe that requires only that readers mix ingredients together without needing to follow any particular order. The steps should also be well suited to presentation via text and images. If the steps would be better illustrated with a screencast (recording of your computer screen) or a live video, then save that topic for a later assignment.
- The topic should have a moderate difficulty level. Don’t choose a topic that is so easy that most people could do it without needing to look up step-by-step instructions with photos or that would only take a person a few minutes to figure out. That sort of topic won’t produce the sort of substantive instructions article you’d be proud to have in a Digital Composition portfolio to show future employers. Also don’t choose a topic that is likely to already be covered in the place the person wanting to do the task would most likely look (like the recipe instructions on the back of a box of cake mix).
- The topic should also be moderately substantial in scope, by which I mean that if you were to print it out, it might span three to five pages, give or take. The number of steps you include depends on the nature of your task, so there is no required number, but most articles will probably have at least seven or eight steps (or more if the steps are divided into separate sets). Keep in mind that each action you want your reader to take should go in a new step, with the action expressed as the opening phrase of the step, so some steps might have very little information while others have a lot. It depends on your topic.
When you have an idea for a topic that meets the criteria above, try entering the topic in the “I know what I want to write about” box on the Write an Article page. Enter the topic in the form of an article title that follows the phrase How to…. After you submit your idea, the site will give you a list of articles that seem to be similar. Check out those articles to make sure they’re not too similar to what you want to write about.
If you create an article that is too similar to an existing article, wikiHow members will remove it. If you’re sure your topic will make a valuable contribution to the wikiHow goals, you can select “None of these are duplicates” and then click the Next button. (We’ll go over how to actually create the article in class.)
RHETORICAL SITUATION
As part of the process of choosing a topic, also consider what your rhetorical situation might be. Rhetorical situation includes your purpose, audience, and genre. The purpose of your instructions article is to guide members of your target audience through the steps needed to accomplish a specific task, but who exactly is included in your target audience depends on the nature of the task and the level of previous experience required.
Audience
You’ll need to define who belongs to your primary audience and how you can design your instructions so that this audience can find them and make effective use of them. You’ll also have a secondary audience made up of your classmates and instructor as well as the members of the wikiHow community.
Genre
The genre of the article is step-by-step instructions, which has a few relevant features to keep in mind. The most important feature is that the steps should be delivered in bulleted-list language rather than in lengthy paragraphs.
Each step should open with an action phrase that describes the action the reader should take. Action phrases start with verbs, such as: Launch your web browser or Slice the bread into 1/2″ pieces or something like that.
Each time you direct readers to take a new action, start a new step. If you need to tell readers what will happen after they follow a particular step, put that information at the end of the step rather than in a new step.
Visuals & Links
Use of screen shots, diagrams, or photos to help readers visualize each step. You might also include hyperlinks to resources that would help readers better understand more complex parts of the process.
REQUIRED COMPONENTS
Introduction
Establish the purpose and audience for your article to help readers decide if it will meet their needs. Briefly describe what the instructions will lead readers to accomplish and give readers a sample of the finished product, if applicable.
Also clarify what skills, materials, and other resources readers will need in order to follow your instructions. If you plan to include a list of required materials in the Things You’ll Need section, then you might refer to that in the intro given that the section appears below the steps.
Steps
As described above in the genre subsection, each step should start with an action phrase that describes the action the reader should take. The wikiHow system will automatically put these opening phrases in bold. An action phrase uses bullet-list style language (such as: Launch your web browser) instead of full sentences. When you describe a new action, start a new step. If the task requires more than ten steps, consider breaking it into separate sets of steps.
Be sure your first step starts early enough in the process that your readers can easily follow along, depending on their level of expertise. For example, if you’re targeting beginners and they will need to download and install a particular application first before they can do your task, then your steps should start by guiding them through that process.
Images
For the introduction and for as many steps as possible, include images (photo, screen shot, diagram, or other visual aid) that will help readers better understand how to complete the step. Use only images you created. Do not use images you found online unless you are certain they’re available under an appropriate Creative Commons license. Images should be in jpg or png format and no larger than around 200k and 600 pixels wide in full size. See this Help File: How do I resize images for the web?
Things You’ll Need
Make a list of the materials readers will need to have on hand to be able to follow your steps. Materials might include ingredients, electronic equipment, computer equipment, software, accounts, and so on.
OPTIONAL COMPONENTS
Tips
Offer a bulleted list of tips that help readers with various aspects of your instructions but that aren’t important enough to be included in the actual steps.
Warnings
Offer a bulleted list of warnings about potential problems that might occur as readers follow your steps and explain how to solve them.
WORKSHOP PROCESS
You will start working on your article in a Google Docs document, and you will read and comment on your classmates’ drafts using Google Docs’ review tools. This process will take several class periods. See the calendar entry for Thursday 2/10 for more information on how to post your full draft. See Part 4: Peer Reviews for information on the peer review process.
After you receive peer feedback, you may also bring your draft to me for feedback. When you’ve fully revised your article, you will then post it on wikiHow. That version will still be considered “in progress” and may receive additional feedback from your classmates or anyone else you invite to review the page, up until your Mid-Term Portfolio is due.
FINAL VERSION
You will submit a final version of your article with your Mid-Term Portfolio. If you decide to make further substantial revisions in the article after that, you may also include the revision in your Final Portfolio at the end of the semester.
To submit a “final version,” you will capture a PDF version of the article at the moment you stop working on it. That way you have a record of what your article looked like before anyone else in the wikiHow community edits it. You will post the PDF along with a rhetorical analysis and a link to the live page on wikiHow.com to your blog.
POSTING THE FINAL VERSION
- Publish the finished version of your instructions article on wikiHow.com. Copy or save the URL for your new article. Also save a digital copy of the article in PDF format (given that the article might be edited after you publish it).
- Create a new entry on your blog and give it the subject line: Final wikiHow Article (optional: also include the title of the article).
- In the body of the new entry, include a rhetorical analysis of your article. In the rhetorical analysis, explain the relevant characteristics of the specific target audience you had in mind when you wrote your instructions article, and describe some specific ways your article is designed to appeal to this audience. In other words, show that you’ve become more rhetorically aware, meaning that you’re able to compose a message with a specific audience and purpose in mind (rather than just “anyone who might be interested in my topic,” which is not an actual audience).
- Either before or after the rhetorical analysis, or even within it, type the title of your wikiHow article and make the title a hyperlink to the article URL.
- Attach or embed the PDF version of the article
- Assign the entry to this category: WRTG 2090 Mid-Term Portfolio
- Publish the entry to your blog and then click the “View post” link that appears on the top of the editing window for the entry.
- Copy the URL for the entry from your web browser’s location bar and paste it into the appropriate location on your Mid-Term Portfolio page on the Digital Students Portfolios Wiki.