Campbell Blog - Chapter 1

The title of chapter one from Nancy Campbell’s book is “What’s a Policy, What’s a Procedure.” I found this chapter interesting because the backbone of any organization is the policy and procedure. Without policies nobody in the organization will know the rules. The procedure will show more specifics on exactly how the organization goes about getting the work done.

After reading this chapter I could see where I could apply many of these rules such as ambiguity, unwritten rules, and level of detail to the Constitution and By-Laws of my fraternity. The Constitution is the policy, stating the rules and what we stand for. Our By-Laws are the procedures; i.e. how we handle everyday proceedings. I found the most important part of the chapter to be the “Overload Alert” from page seven. Campbell notes that there is “a danger in creating a policy or procedure for everything.” I totally agree on that and believe that some people in my fraternity jump the gun to get every last thing in writing. However, there needs to be a balance between written and unwritten rules. As long as the unwritten rules are being followed there is no reason to formally write everything down.

I hope this course can show me more ways to correctly word and interpret my fraternity’s documents to get more real world Technical Communication experience.

Jordan's Introduction

Hey everybody! My name is Jordan and I am a Management major and Technical Communication minor at Minnesota State University – Mankato. I grew up in Worthington, Minnesota which is a small town about ten miles from the Minnesota-Iowa border. I am starting my junior year at MSU – Mankato and have a total of two years left of my undergraduate classes. I am very involved on campus in Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. A lot of my technical communication experience has been in my fraternity and in my work experience. I am currently a student worker in the Office of Academic Affairs here on campus.

Welcome to the Engl 477 F2006 blog

We are blogging Barker and Campbell's textbooks this fall semester. The idea is to connect your own technical communication experience, whether it is professional, academic, or personal, with Barker and Campbell. So in the chapter in Barker on Writing to Teach-Tutorials, you might make connections with the on-the-job training you received or delivered in a job you have held. I look forward to an interesting blog discussion.