-Looks neat and attractive
-Helps readers quickly find information
-Uses correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation
-Provides clear directions
-User testing in progress
A) Does the Introduction section do the following:
1. Explain what the how-to covers for an audience who might not fully understand the process under review.
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Yes. Whether the reader is a student who is studying microbiology, or just somebody who in interested in reading about how to construct a microbiology lab report, the article clearly indicates what the wikiHow article will cover.
2. Argue for why a casual viewer might be interested in this procedure
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Yes. The article immediately addresses that it will help the reader to effectively construct their microbiology lab report.
3. Indicate how easy/difficult the process is and/or what specialized knowledge is necessary/useful
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The ease/difficulty of the process is not clearly addressed in the introduction. The introduction does clearly indicate that the specialized knowledge necessary would be that of a student who is creating a lab report in a microbiology course.
B) Does the introduction apply the basic strategies and tone for 'serious' or 'lighthearted' instruction sets discussed in WikiHow's tutorial? If so, is it doing so effectively?
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I have read that for technical or medical field related articles, that the intro should get straight to the point and be no more than two or three sentences max. I personally felt that this introduction was great and very informative. However, according to the instruction set discussed, it may be considered a bit lengthy.
C) Does the introduction answers the "questions reader's asks"?
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This article explains what the instructions will help to do. It is indicated that before performing the experiment it is important to gain knowledge of the experiment. The materials and tools are listed. The only troubleshooting tip I found was the advice to do more research on the experiment if the manual does not give enough background information.
D) Does the superstructure seem complete, or is there a section that should be added?
- According to Anderson, the superstructure should contain the following:
- Introduction
- Description of the equipment
- List of materials and equipment needed.
- Directions.
- Troubleshooting
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The superstructure seems very close to complete. The one thing I noticed is that this wikiHow article does not contain a troubleshooting section. Other than that, all of the other sections are well done.
E) If applicable, comment on whether the description of equipment is clearly explaining equipment. Are there images? Should there be?
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The description of equipment could be expanded upon a bit more. Perhaps adding a photo of a laboratory research notebook and also pens, pencils, and colored pencils so that the reader can be prepared to make some colorful drawings of their observations in lab.
F) In the main section, the "Steps" or "Directions" section, does the author "Write Each Direction for Rapid Comprehension and Immediate Use" (see p. 582 and consider each of the four criteria)
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I think it may be beneficial to work on making the first sentence of each step brief and to the point. For example, Anderson says to use “Stop the engine.” instead of using “The operator should then stop the engine.” In part 4 of 4, for step 1, maybe start with “Construct your lab report.” and if necessary explain that this is done after they have conducted the experiment, took down any adjustments made to the experiment, and recorded the results. I noticed in the first 3 parts you mention to the readers that they will be taking notes in the experiment. So once they make it to part 4, they should begin construction. The steps listed in the construction of the lab report are great and I think they will be very helpful to anybody constructing a lab report in microbiology.
G) In the main section, the "Steps" or "Directions" section, does the author "Help Locate the Next Step Quickly" (see p. 582 and consider each of the four criteria)
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Yes. Each of the steps are numbered and one action is indicated in each step. Again, making the first sentence more brief and to the point may be help to prevent the reader from overlooking any of your steps.
H) Do the images or graphics enhance the:
(1) usefulness of the instruction set? How?
- The instruction set is very useful. The instructions are broken up into easy to follow steps, where each of the steps contain images to make the creating process clear and easy to follow.
(2) persuasiveness, and of the instruction set? How?
- The persuasiveness of the images could be improved upon. I think it might be good to include a photograph of your microbiology lab report book and your finished lab reports so that the reader has an idea of your finished product and what they can expect their lab report to look like after reading your instructions.
(3) content? How so?
- The images in the instruction set seem to follow a pattern with one image per step, which I think is a great way to present the writing of the lab report. Anderson says that a two column design may work well for instructions with one image per step. However, I think that your instruction set is nicely done, easy to follow, and with the limited formatting that wikiHow allows, I found that creating a two column design is difficult to achieve. Overall, I think the images for each step are great.