Technical writing just look over what I have written My name

Technical writing. just look over what I have written

    My name is Tracy H. Smith. I was born in Apex, North Carolina on farm land the year of 1968. There was approximately 60 acres of farm land that was divided between four family members which were aunts, uncles, and grandparents which were on my mothers’ side.

    My grandparents grew tobacco on the farm but they had stopped farming before I was born. The main reason was that their children grew up and didn’t want to follow the same path as their parents. Both of my uncles went into a different path of working in tobacco. They worked in plants where they processed the tobacco and distributed the product to different locations. My mother became a nurse.

    During my child hood I went to the pond that we had and fished and swam as much as possible. I really enjoyed it. Of course, my mother didn’t ever know that I went swimming in the pond. If she were to find out, she would have never allowed me to go back. We had all sorts of fish in the bond which ranged from largemouth bass, blue gill, fresh water eel, catfish, and unfortunately snapping turtles. I would say that the snapping turtles would always steal my bait. The first largemouth bass that I caught was on a cane pole. I had a time trying to pull this mammoth in. My dad had to help me. I really don’t know if they make cane poles anymore.

    I do remember one time that I was swimming in the pond I felt something come across my back. I glanced over my shoulder and before I knew it a snake had slithered over my back and into the water. I was petrified. I got out of the water as fast as I could. I didn’t know what kind of snake it was and I wasn’t about to find out. Needless to say, that wasn’t the last time that I went swimming in the pond.

    Of the farmland, a certain portion of it was wooded where I went rabbit and squirrel hunting. I also had a dog that went with me. The breed of the dog was a boxer. He was an excellent hunting dog and a swimmer. I hunted and fished on the land until I was approximately 16 years of age until I received my driver’s license. I had places to go then so I thought.

    My first car was a Pontiac, Firebird. I thought I was “Smokey and The Bandit”. I learned my driving style from the show “The Dukes of Hazard” both of which were not too safe. I was young and didn’t think anything could happen to me. Fortunately nothing ever did. The way I drove the first few years I would have to say that I’m lucky to be alive or not seriously injured. I would have to say that there was hardly any traffic back in those days. For one instance, I can remember my dad let me drive on the road for about a mile when I was 9 years old. I also drove on the farm land to my grandparents’ house ever so often when I was 8 to 15 years old which was across the field.

    The high school I went to back in 1983 was Fuquay-Varina High. I took my school work seriously. I did, however, struggled from time to time on certain subjects such as Chemistry. I really enjoyed the class and the teacher. I just couldn’t grasp certain concepts at the time.

    I took Spanish for a foreign language for two years because that was one of the prerequisites you had to take in order to get in a college. My parents always told me that they wanted me to get a good education and that the best way to do that is to go to college. At that time I do believe I wanted to be an engineer or something pertaining to drafting because I really enjoyed taking a class in drafting when I was in High School.

    After High School, I was accepted to Mount Olive College. My path was clear so I thought. I found out very quickly that I couldn’t afford to go to college. I was so disappointed. I didn’t want to go to Wake Tech Community College though my parents tried to talk me into. My dreams were in smoke until my brother convinced me to join the United States Navy where I could receive the GI Bill so I joined in December 9, 1986.

    I went in wanting to learn how to work on jet engines which I did. I had basic in the Great Lakes which is in Chicago. After basic, I was transferred to Tennessee where I was taught how to work on jet engines and from there I went to Yokosuka, Japan to serve on the USS Midway CV-41 which is an aircraft carrier. I worked on certain jet engines such as the J-52, F-404, and the T-56. The J-52 engine went into an A6 Bomber. The F-404 engine went into an F-18 Hornet which was my favorite engine to work on. The T-56 went into an E2.

    Through the years I was on the USS Midway CV-41 we went to many different countries such as the Philippines, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Kenya, Australia, and of course Japan. I really did enjoy seeing all of the countries and meeting many different types of people form those countries not to mention some of my shipmates that were from different states.

    After I got out the service, I wanted to go straight to college and use my GI Bill that I had acquired. The funny thing is that I went to Wake Tech Community College where I did not use the GI Bill at all because it seemed at the time that there was a lot of red tape and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of getting. I chose to get an Associates in Business Administration and I would just work part time in order to pay my way through.

    I went to Wake Tech for about two years. I was two classes away from getting my degree until I come down with something called mononucleosis (Mono). I had to drop my classes for that quarter. During that time I was also dating my wife to be. That disease drained me completely. I was out of work for one month. When I fully recovered I got married thinking that I would go back and finish getting my degree. Years went by. I had two kids and I was thinking that there was no way that I could go back with the responsibilities that I had.

    I worked at a place called Russell Carroll Mfg. at the time. This company built certain items for This End Up Furniture Company and ended up building library furniture for certain schools. I was a lead man at the time ending up being a supervisor for one department. I eventually quit this job to go work for Carolina Builders which was a completely different animal. The built stairs for homes that would range from a box, open, and even a curve stair that went in million dollar homes. I switched jobs because the benefits were a lot better than what I had. My main focus was to take care of my family.

    I was at Carolina builders or Stock Building Supply for 12 years. The name was changed due to there was another company named Carolina Builders and they had to change their name. Stock Building supply was growing fast. I would have to say too fast. The housing market at that time was booming. Stock Building Supply were buying smaller companies across the states. I do believe Stock Building Supply grew too fast and not thinking that the housing market would eventually slow down which it did.

    When the housing market crashed people were let go all over the states. Stores were closing. My store in Raleigh closed. We moved to Wilson, NC where that store eventually closed as well. To this day, I really don’t know how many people were laid off. There were a lot of people that were affected by the housing market crash.

  I went back to my old job where I was supervisor over my original department and made into a manager of that department. During this time my wife convinced me to go back to school. I started back to Wake Tech. The unfortunate thing is the two classes I had to take to finish turn into 12 classes. I had been out for so long that the classes that I had taken were obsolete. I was so discouraged. My wife convinced me to go anyway so I did. She then convinced me to go after my Bachelor’s degree at Barton because her mother had went there when it was Atlantic Christian and my cousin had went there as well. Both, my mother-in-law and cousin went for their nursing degree.

    I’m in process now of getting my Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. I lack one class from finishing.

    Recently my boss offered me a position in accounting. He wants me to take over his sister’s position in the near future. By him telling me this, I thought I would need more education so I will be prepared for such a position so I talked to my advisor who is Ron Eggers about going after my MBA and if it would be beneficial. Upon talking to Ron Eggers and well as Dr. Corbett I made started my MBA earlier than I thought I could with this program called MBA 3 + 2.

    As of right now the skies the limit. I had no idea that over the years that I would be going after my Master’s Degree and that I would eventually have a position working in accounting.

Solution

The write-up is good with a chronologically well put flow of your starting days of struggle to your successful progress gradually to finally to the date where you are standing at this point of time. However, some suggestions, to make your content sound more technically sound:

·          You could brief your initial few paragraphs, especially your pond swimming experience because although your experience is indeed very engaging however, from the point of view of a technical content, this sounds little more ‘Literature’ style than a formal way of expressing your thoughts.

·          Moreover, you could also brief your overall initial growing up days, like reducing what your grandparents or uncles were into, by compressing it to just one or two lines at the most, concentrating more upon your struggling days of studying with a learning aspect to it in the subsequent time.

·          You have vividly described your learning from various sources such as from farming or swimming, driving style from a show, etc. Although the description is thorough, keeping it brief would only help your relevant readers to reach till the end on time otherwise it becomes too much of a stretch for a technical writing article.

·          From taking your lessons to Spanish to going for your high school days, the paragraphs are well described. Paragraphs thenceforth are rather of more concern because that is where your professional background comes into the radar. My suggestion here would be that to keep the overall content from here more specific rather than a lengthier content because the reader might miss upon the essential points and landmarks of your career by losing themselves into the words.

Overall, the suggestion would be to keep your writing concise and to the point to make it more relevant to the Technical parties. However, if your writing is meant only for a general public, then I must appreciate, after going through your write-up, no particular change is desirable, if it is aimed for a layman audience.