smu assignment of Bsc IT 2nd sem technical communication theory

                                                [SPRING 2015] ASSIGNMENT

PROGRAM	BSc IT
SEMESTER	SECOND
SUBJECT CODE & NAME	BT0071, Technical Communication-Theory

Q. NO. 1. What is Audience Analysis? Explain its significance in Technical Communication.

Ans.  Audience analysis is a task that is often performed by technical writers in a project’s early stages. It consists of assessing the audience to make sure the audience to make sure the information provided to them is at the appropriate level. It is the process of examining information about your listeners. That analysis helps you to adapt your message so that your listeners will respond as you wish.

In every conversation you adapt your message to your audience. For example, if you went to a party the night before, you would explain the party differently to your friends and family. To your best friend you might say, “We partied all night and there were tones of people there.” To your mother you might say,”Oh, I had fun with my friends.” In each of these situations, you are adapting your message to your listening audience.

Its significance in technical communication are the following:

·         Background-knowledge, experience, and training:  one of your most important concerns is just how much knowledge, experience, or training you can expect in your readers. If you expect some of your readers to lack certain background, do you automatically supply it in your document?

·         Needs and interest: to plan your document, you need to know what about your audience is going to expect from that document. Imagine how readers will want to use your document; what will they demand from it. Imagine you’re under contract to write a background report on global warming for a national real estate association – what do they want to read about; and, equally important, what do they not want to read about?

·          Other demographic characteristics: and of course there are many other characteristic about your reader that might have an influence on how you should design and write your document- for example, age groups, type of residence, area of residence, sex, political preference, and so on.

Audience analysis can get complicated by at least two other factors mixed audience types for one document, wide variability within audience, and unknown audiences.

·         More than one audience: You’re likely to find that your report is for some than one audience. For example, it may be seen by technical people and administrative people. What to do? You can either write all the sections so that all the audience of your document can understand them. Or you can write each section strictly for the audience that would be interested in it, then use headings and section introductions to alert your audience about where to go and what to stay out of it in your report.

·         Wide variability in an audience: you may realize that, although you have an audience that fits only one category, there is a wide variability in its background. This is a though one- if you write to the lowest common denominator of reader, you’re likely to end up with a cumbersome, tedious book-like things that will turn off the majority of readers. But if you don’t write to that lowest level, you lose that segment of your readers.

Q. NO. 2. Explain the role of technical editor. Differentiate between micro and macro editing.

Ans. A technical document, to be effective, requires not only a good writer, but also a good editor. The chief duties of a technical editor are realized when the section of a technical document are submitted to him. The main duties that are performs includes:

Improving text material: the editor determines how appropriate the content and organization are for the purpose and audience. He is instrumental in making the verbose material into concise and clear. In holding this he should be cautions because he needs to retain the tone and words used by the write.

Examining the graphics for appropriateness and balance: he also helps in the task of selecting, naming and numbering of the graphics as well as placing them in suitable context.

Identifying sections that need fuller development: check each section for logic and completeness of evidence to support claims.

Correcting errors, if any, of spelling, grammars, and style.

Differentiation between micro and macro editing:

Macro editing: you need to check the content of the material, how it has been organized and its logic unit to ensure that it addresses its subject and audience, thereby serving the purpose for which it is written. Main issues such as clear matter or purposes statements, fluids, or easy-to-follow organization of the contents, a thorough summary and introduction and accurate as well as complete content are favored in macros editing. You should be familiar with the type of document, its subject matter, the company producing the document in order to edit the document effectively at a macro level.

Micro editing: it is also called copy editing or line editing. This involves necessary revisions to individual sentences or graphics. It is the close editing of the text. In other words, here the editing is done word by word and line by line to come out with a well written document that is sound in expression, correct in grammar, consistent with company standards. The editor checks the complexity level to make sure that the text in the document is presented at an appropriate level to match the complexity level of the readers. The editor also has to check for the correctness; he has to fine tune the document to ensure its consistency with standards and correctness in sentence structure, spelling and punctuation.

Q. NO. 3. Explain the various phase involved in System Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

Ans. System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) relates to models or methodologies that people use to develop systems, generally computer systems. To manage this, a number of system development life cycle models have been created: waterfall, fountain, and spiral, build and fix, rapid prototype, incremental, and synchronize and stabilize. In the academic sense, SDLC can be used to refer to various models. Anyhow, technical documentation is crucial regardless of the type of model chosen or devised for any application, and is usually done in parallel with the development process. 

The image below is the classic Waterfall model methodology, which is the first SDLC method and it describes the various phases involved in development.

                                             

                                                                         SDLC PHASES

·         Feasibility: The feasibility study is used to determine if the project should get the go-ahead. If the project is to proceed, the feasibility study will produced a project plan and budget estimates for the future stages of development.

·         Requirement Analysis and Design: Analysis gathers the requirements for the system. This stage includes a detailed study of the business needs of the organization. Options for changing the business process may be considered. Design focuses on high level design like, what programs are needed and how are they going to interact low level design and data design. During these phases, the software’s overall structure is defined. Analysis and design are very crucial in the whole development cycle.

·         Implementation: in the phase, the design are translated into code. Computer programs are written using a conventional programming language or an application generator. Programming tools like Compilers, Interpreters, and Debuggers are used to generate the code. Different high level programming languages like C, C++. Pascal, Java are used for coding. With respect to the type of application, the right programming language is chosen.

·         Testing: in the phase the system is tested. Normally programs are written as a series of individual models, these subject to separates and detailed test. The system is then tested as a whole. The separate modules are brought together and tested as a complete system. The system is tested to ensure that interface between modules work, the system works on the intended platform and with the expected volumes of data and that the system does what the user requires.

·         Maintenance: Inevitably the system will need maintenance. Software will definitely undergo change once it is delivered to the customer. There are many reasons for the change. Change could happen because of some unexpected input values into the system. In addition, the changes in the system could directly affect the software operation. The software should be developed to accommodate changes that could happen during the post implementation period.