Mechanism and Process Description Project

The purpose of description is not simply to help your audience understand what something is or does (which is the province of definition), but to help them see - literally - how something functions. For example: every patent submitted to the US Patent and Trademark Office must include a claim which "... describes the invention in a written explanation absent visual aids by pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as the invention." Descriptions use visual detail, both in pictures and in words, to describe both the physical object or process and how it works.

For this assignment, you will choose an object or a process with which you are reasonably familiar and describe it to an audience who has a need for this kind of document. If you are choosing a process, the process must be one that is not accomplished through direct human action (that would be instructions). In other words, you can describe how blood circulates; you cannot describe how to make a free throw. You may choose something from your chosen major/profession, or you may choose something from a hobby or interest. Examples might be a camera, a hard drive, the human heart, the metabolic process, or a television. Whatever you choose to write about, you will need to find an audience for whom this description has relevance and purpose.

Rhetorical Situation

Your description should answer the following questions:

• What is it?
• What does it do?
• What does it look like?
• What is it made of (physical objects only)?
• How does it work?
• How has it been put together?
• Why should your reader use it?

You will not necessarily answer these questions in an orderly manner, but each of them should be addressed during the course of the description.

Document Expectations

Your description will be at least 3 pages and have the following elements:

• Sense of the overall object or process, including why it is significant for the audience
• Clear explanation of each part's function
• Details appropriate to the audience's interest and level of knowledge
• Clear and appropriate organization, which will likely be one of the following types:
  • Spatial organization, when you want readers to visualize the mechanism or process as a static object (e.g., house interior, document, disk box)
  • Functional organization, when you want the reader to see a mechanism or a process in action (e.g., camera, smoke detector)
  • Chronological organization, when you want the reader to see a mechanism or a process according to how it was put together (e.g., tent, piece of furniture)
  • Combination of the above

Resources

Definition of description

http://www.io.com/~hcexres/tcm1603/acchtml/desc.html

http://www.howstuffworks.com/

http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/

Sample Descriptions:

http://www3.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/dispomim.cgi?id=261600

http://ed-thelen.org/bab/bab_tech.html

http://astron.berkeley.edu/~plambeck/technical.html

Deadlines

Sept 15 Introduction to Project 2. Project 1 Due.

Sep 20 Sample Descriptions. Brainstorm towards your description. Read Miller in PWR.

Sep 22 Practicing Description. What is description? Notes

Sep 27 Bring to class five copies of your initial description. Minimum 500 words. Read Spilka in PWR.

Sep 29 Class Cancelled. Read Regli in PWR.

Oct 4 Visual Aids, Pictures, Diagrams. Read Kostelnick in PWR. Notes

Oct 6 Bring five copies of your document draft to class. Workshop.

Oct 7 Midsemester. Project 2 and Portfolios due by 6pm.