Chapters 6 & 7 Readings

Chapter 6: Conducting Reader-Centered Research
This chapter was all about how to conduct research that is aimed at the reader. It was an interesting approach. Instead of just finding information for what you want to do for a project, you are intentionally researching for your audience. This distinction is especially evident when comparing research done for a work project versus a school project. For school, you will research about a topic that will be useful to you sometime in the future. On the job, you will research about a topic that will be practical and helpful to others, right now. This chapter also went into detail about the intellectual property law. According to this law, you cannot use anything that is created by someone else without compensating them or attributing the work to them. These laws are stricter for business usage compared to academic usage.

Chapter 7: Drafting Paragraphs, Sections, and Chapters
This chapter began instruction on how to actually construct a paragraph of written work. It stressed the importance of organization, topic sentences, headings, and other means to make your point as clear to your reader as possible. The passage about doing laundry that was used to show the importance of providing the topic of a passage at the beginning was really interesting. After reading the paragraph a second time, it made complete sense. The first time, I couldn't even read it, it was all nonsense. I also liked the suggestion to use topic sentences, forecasting statements, transitions, and echo words. These techniques all help to show your reader exactly what you are trying to get across and helps to eliminate breaks in communication. I think that passages with these types of techniques are much easier to read. I am a big fan of headings and believe they are very helpful in improving both the visual and contextual design of writing.