Technical Communication EXAM

According to Chapter 5, which approach is best when writing for multiple audiences?

A modular approach

What type of sentence states, summarizes, or forecasts the main point of the paragraph?

A topic sentence

The engineering firm you work for is submitting a proposal to create an amphitheater at a state park. Proposals must be submitted in three-ring binders. You are in charge of assembling the binders. You decide to put section divider tabs and an index into each proposal binder. Which measure of excellence in technical communication does this decision reflect?

Accessibility

The following statement appears in a university's report to its board of regents: "Several other notable universities including Stanford and Harvard, are offering massive, open online classes, or MOOCs. It is imperative for Old State University to keep pace in the educational marketplace." What type of reasoning does the passage display?

Ad populum argument

Which of the following is involved in creating technical communication?

All of the above

Why should you use an audience profile sheet for a writing project?

All responses are correct

Which of these is an example of a workplace document?

All responses are correct.

Why is it important to plan your document before you start drafting it?

All responses are correct.

Which source reflects the highest degree of authority on the subject of shale-oil deposits in North America?

An article in a journal for geological research

Which source is least likely to be valuable when you have a question about new trends in the semiconductor industry?

An encyclopedia

What is an advance organizer?

Any text that indicates the background, purpose, scope, and organization of the discussion that follows it

Which of these guidelines will help you listen effectively?

Ask questions to clarify what the speaker said.

Sentences are often easier to understand an more emphatic if new information appears in which position?

At the end of the sentence

Chapter 4 offers several suggestions for conducting efficient meetings. Which of these is NOT a suggestion from the chapter?

Avoid a formal schedule and make sure each team member gets to say whatever is on his or her mind.

Which method of addressing opposing viewpoints is likely to be least effective?

Avoid discussing the opposing viewpoint.

How does culture affect the process of persuasion?

Both response are correct.

Which statement best explains how the concept of company branding is related to technical communication?

Branding is concerned with the image that a company presents to the world, and that image includes its documents

Susan was assigned to analyze the process her company uses to write proposals. She worked on her report for more than a month. Stacy in the marketing department and john in the finance department gave Susan a lot of information and had several meetings with her. Susan placed an acknowledgements section in her report, where she thanked Stacy and John. What standard best explains Susan's decision to provide acknowledgments?

Care

You are writing a report analyzing whether your company should hire a new vendor to provide data-warehousing services. You have found a white paper online that looks promising. How can you judge the degree to which the authors are unbiased?

Check to see if the authors work as industry-wide consultants or as contractors for specific vendors.

Chapter 1 identifies eight measures of excellence in technical communication. Which pair in the following list might seem contradictory?

Comprehensiveness and conciseness

According to Chapter 3, today's composition tools cannot help you do which of the following?

Convert text into infographics

A team of writers is just beginning a new documentation project. The client for the team's last project complained that the completed document kept switching from active to passive voice and that the design of the headings was not visually consistent. Which of the following is the team's best approach to avoiding such problems on the current project?

Create a style sheet.

Which of the following sentences has a strong verb?

Decades of deception by politicians have left the populace numb and apathetic.

Chapter 5 discusses certain variables that lead to differences among cultures. Which of these statements about cultural variables is true?

Different organizations within the same culture can vary greatly.

Which of these is a quality shown by a successful workplace communicator?

Displaying emotional intelligence

According to Chapter 2, saying that a recently fired employee was "offered an alternative career opportunity" would be an example of which of the following?

Euphemism

A commonsense argument is usually more persuasive that numerical data.

False

According to Chapter 4, one advantage of collaboration is that it can yield a more coherent document.

False

According to Chapter 4, the differences in behavior between two men or between two women are likely to be fewer and less pronounced that the differences between men and women in general.

False

According to Chapter 6, "How will China's rapid industrial development affect the global energy market over the next decade? is more likely to be a workplace research question than an academic research question.

False

According to Chapter 7, long, complex arguments can most often be organized according to one pattern.

False

According to Chapter 9, long headings can confuse and distract readers; therefore, you should strive to write short headings of no more than three or four words.

False

Classification is an organizational pattern in which a unit is divided into its components.

False

Communicating diplomatically involves a critical tone.

False

Employees rarely use social media and personal electronics to complete work tasks.

False

Graphics and design elements are relatively unimportant in communicating persuasively.

False

IF you don't know whether to write too, two, or to, you should trust the spell-checker to help you decide

False

In describing your company's product, you should not compare it with a competitor's product because the competitor will sue your company for misrepresentation.

False

Interviews are great for learning from your audience but not for learning about your audience.

False

It is always unethical to compare your company's product to a similar product by another company when trying to argue that your own company's product is superior.

False

It is often helpful to combine bases of classification or partition simultaneously when using that pattern to write a passage.

False

Nominalized verbs help you communicate clearly and concisely.

False

Proofreading should preceded the editing process.

False

Signposts are especially useful for readers of passages written according to the spatial pattern of organization

False

Subjects and verbs must agree in tense.

False

Templates are useful because they organize a document for you.

False

The tags that people use to categorize information they find on websites must by one-word descriptors without spaces or punctuation (such as "dallaszoo").

False

When critiquing the work of a team member, save a big compliment for the last comment in order to end on a positive note.

False

When working with a reader who is hostile to your subject or to your approach to the subject, you should first state your position, followed by your rational for that position.

False

You should choose the method of delivering your document after the document is complete.

False

What kind of transitional words are for example, for instance, and in other words?

Illustration words

The following statement appears in a proposal to install a large pond near an amphitheater: "Jones Company is an expert in pond preparation. We installed our first pond at Jameson Park earlier this year." What type of reasoning does the passage display?

Inadequate sampling

Your company has completed an audience analysis for the manual you are writing for users of a new accounting system. The manual will be given to the 750 employees in the company's accounting department. Some members of the audience are experienced accountants and others are not; some have MBA degrees and others have bachelor's or long-term employees; some are managers and some are bookkeepers. How might you best accommodate your audiences?

Include different sections for the different audiences

In the following excerpt, a writer tries to persuade his supervisor to respond to a government request of proposals (RFP) to build an unmanned surveillance plane for the military. Which aspects of the paragraph undercut the effectiveness of the passage?

It draws conclusions n the basis of an inadequate sample; It assumes what the writer is attempting to prove.

To what does a pronoun need to refer?

Its antecedent

Which of these guidelines is NOT likely to help your team work effectively and efficiently?

Let team members assign themselves tasks.

You work for a semiconductor manufacturer. You are writing a quarterly report on the activities within your section of the company. One of the people who will read your report is Lila Waltman, divisional vice president. You search online for information about her. Which piece of information is most likely to help you as you write the report?

Lila is an active member of the local chapter of IEEE, a professional society for the electronics industry.

Which of these sentences shows parallel structure?

Our current structure is saving us money and reducing our downtime.

Which of the following is NOT a category of constraints on your ability to be persuasive in a workplace document?

Partitional

Your company, Acme Co., is sponsoring a three-hour field day for children at a local park, featuring games, sports, and snacks. Parents must sign up their children online. Your company wants to take pictures of children at the event, but it needs parents' permission. Which option below best describes an ethical way to get parent's permission?

Place a checkbox on the online form that reads, "I agree to allow Acme Co. to take pictures of my child or children to record and promote field-day activities." Design the form so that this checkbox is not checked when the parent gets to that page.

According to Chapter 6, in which phase of the writing process is it best to conduct research?

Planning

What kinds of words are especially valuable for use in section headings and titles?

Precise words

In many cases, removing which type of phrase following a noun will make your writing more concise?

Prepositional phrase

A writer's company has just adopted a policy of tracking employee emails to determine which employee is leaking confidential information. Because the writer knows that this policy will be unpopular with company employees, which is the best strategy for announcing the policy to employees in a memorandum?

Present the reasoning behind the new policy and then state the policy.

Which of the following is an example of a coherence device?

Repeating key words.

You are writing the second edition of a user manual to be included with software sold to the general public. You want to reuse a portion of the introductory materials from the first edition but cannot determine who wrote that section or what the contractual conditions were. You know that your company has customarily required that freelance writers sign work-made-for-hire agreements. What should you do?

Rewrite the introductory materials yourself.

Chapter 4 offers six suggestions for participating in a videoconference. Which of these is NOT a suggestion from the chapter?

Speak louder than usual.

According to Chapter 1, most technical communication has six characteristics. One is that technical communication helps readers solve problems. Which of the following is another characteristic of technical communication?

Technical communication reflects and organization's goals and culture.

Which sentence below shows a comma splice?

The 728B polo shirt is our most popular model, it offers an unequaled blend of comfort and durability.

Which statement best compares the information found on a wiki with the information from an edited website?

The lack of editors on a wiki means that authors on the site may mix truth with friction.

An effective topic sentence will reflect which of the following?

The organizational structure of the document

You are writing a report advocating that your company increase its use of social media. Your manager has said several times that she does not like to mix social media and business. She has pointed out several social-media problems that other companies have created for themselves. Which purpose statement would be best for a report to your manager?

The purpose of this report is to demonstrate how the speed and flexibility of social media can help our company reach a growing audience of young adults with controlled, targeted messaging.

In which of these stages is the outline view of a document most likely to be helpful?

The revising stage

A heading eliminates the need for a transitional sentence such as "Let us now turn to the advantages of the mandatory enrollment process."

True

A periodical index contains lists of journal and magazine articles classified according to title, subject, and author.

True

Editing your documents is a way to show respect to your audience.

True

Fair-use guidelines apply to graphics just as they do to words.

True

Readers who can easily locate and understand important information in a document will be more likely to agree with its arguments.

True

Social media posts, such as tweets, can be examples of technical documents.

True

The general-to-specific pattern is effective for explaining the factors that led to a specific problem.

True

The point of learning about your audience is to use that information to tailor a document to fit the audience's needs.

True

To be effective, a code of conduct must stipulate penalties.

True

When exporting goods, U.S. companies can face ethical challenges that they do not face when selling goods in the United States.

True

When obtaining information on products and services from websites, discussion boards, and blogs, it is important not to assume that vendors' claims are accurate.

True

You may find that your network of associates, both inside and outside your organization, can help you through sticking points in many of the phases of a writing project.

True

Which of the changes listed below would make the following paragraph more coherent? As an undergraduate student, you can satisfy the university writing requirement and meet and important graduation requirement by scoring a 4 or 5 on either of the advanced placement English exams. You can also meet this requirement by receiving transfer credit for an approved college-level writing .........

Turn the paragraph into a list.

Chapter 1 states that technical communicators use design to increase readability and make their documents more effective. Which of the following is an example of a design feature?

Typography

Which of the following tactics will help your readers see and follow your organizational pattern?

Using section headings liberally

In one state, West County and East County share a border. The state capital is in East County. Many residents of West County (almost half of all adults in the county) commute to East County for work. East County has high levels of air pollution, and residents there must get their car exhaust systems tested every two years. Although West County has less air pollution than East, the pollution levels in West are rising. The state Department of Environmental Regulation orders that residents of West County must now get their car exhaust systems tested every two years as well. What moral standard best explains this decision by the Department of Environmental Regulation?

Utility

Which of the following is a run-on sentence?

Vote for Pedro he will represent you well.

Your manager has asked you to recommend which of two new types of digital camera to buy for your company's publications department. Which of the following is likely to be the best source of information for your report?

Website

Which of the following is NOT a guideline for using social media ethically and legally, according to Chapter 2?

Work efficiently by repurposing pieces of content you wrote for other workplace documents.

Which of these activities is NOT essential as you prepare to communicate technical information?

Writing

You work for a pharmaceuticals company. During your lunch breaks, you have become acquainted with one of the graphic artists at your company. He has just finished designing a logo for a new product, and the logo is now on your company's website. He mentions that he created the new design by downloading a logo that he found on an automaker's website and changing it a little. Which of the following statements is true?

Your company has probably violated the automaker's trademark.

When creating a technical document, you often have to make compromises. Which of these is an example of a compromise related to communication?

Your would prefer to create separate instruction sheets in English and Spanish, but you create one sheet giving instructions in both languages to save on printing costs.

Which of the options below is NOT one that Chapter 3 lists as a reason a writer should think during the planning stage about which is the best writing tool available?

because certain composition tools contain advanced editing technologies that cut down on the need to proofread

Which are the four categories of evidence to which people usually respond favorably?

examples, commonsense arguments, numerical data, and expert testimony

For a report on the nutritional value of fast food, a writer has decided to organize her information by assigning fast-food items to categories. Which of the following sets of categories is flawed?

main dishes; side dishes; drinks; desserts

What level of formality does technical communication usually require?

moderately formal to highly formal

Which organizational pattern often occurs in a comparison-and-contrast discussion?

whole-by-whole