Assignment+3

Assignment 3: Wiki Review
Due October 16, 2009

I used Redish’s suggestions from Chapter 13 of “Letting go of the Words” to follow a review process for my wiki.

1. Meet with reviewer before start project

 * Decide on roles and responsibilities
 * Help with the big picture
 * Copyedit
 * Offer design suggestions
 * Create a schedule for drafts
 * Look at class projects after they are due but before final revisions of the wiki are due.
 * October 29, 2009
 * November 9, 2009
 * Discuss plans for content
 * I plan to complete and post class assignments

2. Help Reviewers understand good web writing

 * Explain purpose of writing this page
 * To practice skills learned from Redish
 * Obtain a class grade
 * Who is my audience and their characteristics?
 * Professor
 * Classmates
 * What are they coming to the web site to do?
 * Grade assignment (professor)
 * Compare, get ideas (classmates)

3. Have someone focus on the big picture (during the review)
Questions asked by the reviewer:
 * What are you trying to achieve?
 * I want to achieve a good grade
 * Who are your audiences?
 * My professor and potentially classmates
 * How will people use what you writing? What are they coming to your web site to do?
 * Grade my assignment, get ideas

4. My reviewer commented on how well I have done the following:

 * Made my key message obvious
 * She said my key message is obvious
 * Organized my messages for the audience
 * She said I am organized
 * Shown my organization through the headings
 * Headings organize my material
 * Written sentences that will make sense to my audience and are easy to read
 * Make sense to my potential audience and easy to read
 * Design aspects
 * My reviewer discussed the default image I had on my site. It does not represent what I am trying to achieve. She suggested some potential images
 * Computer
 * Pen
 * Spider web

5. Let reviewer know what I did and did not do

 * Keep a summary of changes from each round
 * Provide summary of changes from previous round before next review

Reflection
I hope that my review process does not look like a wall of words. Redish says that "people are much less likely to even try to read a page with too little active space than a well-spaced page. (139). I am not pleased with the formatting of my process but my wiki allows limited formatting. I took Redish's ideas from pages 338-343 to create an organized process for wiki review. I met with Kelly Schrank via Skype. I found the process to be helpful especially for the image on my site but it would have been more beneficial if there were more material on my site to edit. I closely followed Redish's suggestions for this review.
 * Meet with reviewer before start project (340)
 * Help Reviewers understand good web writing (341)
 * Have someone focus on the big picture (338)
 * Let reviewer know what you did and did not do (343)

Updated
As part of the review process, I met with Kelly Schrank via Skype for a total of three reviews. I found it helpful to conduct follow-up reviews after more content was on the site. I enjoyed working with Kelly. She often noticed things I did not and she had many good suggestions about how to improve my wiki.