Personal Facts Sheet

Writing for the Design Professions

Kevin Brooks, Spring 2010
Danielle Marie Gustafson

This document is a compilation of skills and references that I have learned throughout the semester
and have found very useful in not only my schoolwork but also in the other aspects of my life.

Writing Skills

At the beginning of the semester I though I already had a fairly good grasp on writing. Come
to find out, there were some very helpful pointers that I could use to improve my writing all around.

Kliments 8 Principles of Writing

1) Write as you would talk.
- Don’t try so hard to sound a certain way, be yourself.
2) Keep sentences short.
- Don’t ramble on and on, be quick and to the point.
3) Shun jargon or “designer babble”.
- Use more commonly known words to describe what you’re trying to say.
4) Be specific.
- Don’t, so to speak, beat around the bush, say what you want in the simplest,
most clear way possible.
5) Keep it simple.
- This goes along with keeping sentences short, to be quick and to the point use
shorter more widely known words such as, best instead of optimum or start
instead of initiate.
6) Use the active form.
- By using this form the reader will stay interested in what they’re reading.
7) Don’t forget people.
- Use people in writing. Whether it be referencing a person or simply using we
instead of a cold “it is intended”.
8) Know what you want to say.
- Have a basic idea of what you want to say written down in a simple sentence,
then try messing with different ways of saying it.

Documents

The following are some documents that I have learned to create and better throughout the
semester along with small tidbits about each of them specifically that I learned.
 Memos

- How to address the memo in the header. (To, From, Date, Subject- short and specific)
- How to address it, whether it be casual, semi formal, or formal.
- The first paragraph must be able to stand alone and sum up the contents of the memo.

Resume/Cover Letter/ Marketing Letter

- What to include and exclude, such as ACT scores and irrelevant past jobs.
- Make it catchy and prove that you are worth considering for potential positions.
- Gear it towards the potential employer you are applying to and their expectations.

Proposal

- Gear it towards the reader and who will be experiencing the proposal.
- Walk them through with words that create relevant images in their minds.
- Creating more documents formatted similarly, such as a Cover Letter, Annotated
Bibliography, etc.
- Repeat the main points throughout every document and push their importance in the
main proposal document.

Research/Referencing

One of the most valuable things that I learned during this course was the wide variety of
sources that are available to me for researching and more useful ways of documenting them.

Deep Web

- A more prestigious knowledgeable search engine.

Annotated Bibliography

- How to reference in APA format.

- How to create a summary and an abstract.

New Technology

This course opened me up to some new technologies I can use.

- Second Life
- Creative Commons
- Scribd
- Wordpress