Hidden Costs of Sports and Physical Activities

Hidden Costs of Sports and Physical Activities

Memo

After completing a previous paper on Hidden Costs of Sports and Physical Activities, it was necessary to revise and edit it to make it reader-centered and precise. The purpose of this memo is to highlight the writing processes, including how I applied basic text formatting and document design skills learned in class. The memo covers four main topics, which include:

• Rhetorical situation
• Writing processes and choices
• Progress towards course goals
• Challenges

Rhetoric Situation

Before undertaking this assignment, I thought that people write assignments for the sake of doing it. However, as I was revising and designing my document, I realized that the rhetorical situation plays a significant role in how we draft documents. Apart from the original message, I had to bear other things in mind, for example, the audience and purpose of the document. From the onset, I had to establish the purpose of the writing, which in turn informed the structure of the edited copy.

When editing and designing the revised document, I realized that any form of writing should focus beyond our knowledge, biases, and past experiences. Hence, I had to consider my audience to craft a message that would effectively communicate precisely to them. Although I did not have to change the message, I had to change the structure of some sentences to communicate with the target audience effectively. Finally, I had to consider the context, primarily regarding current events in the sporting sector. All these rhetorical situations informed all the changes I made on the original document.

Writing Processes and Choices

There were many areas that needed editing in the original document. Firstly, most paragraphs were long, making them complicated to understand. In some cases, different ideas were clustered in one paragraph. I had to separate the ideas so as to have short, understandable, and coherent paragraphs. I also had to revise the topic sentences to ensure that the reader knows what each paragraph addresses when he or she reads the first sentence. By re-organizing the paragraphs, the final document was more appealing.

Besides, the original document was organized in an essay form, making it hard to capture its content easily. For example, it was hard to tell what each paragraph talks about without reading it. The introduction was long and looked more like the body. After shortening the paragraphs, I had to introduce sub-headings to grab the reader’s attention as well as guide them down the document. I also had to put all the headings and sub-headings in bold to ensure that they are easily visible. At some point, I had to use bullets and numbers to outline some points clearly. An eye-capturing paper ensures that the reader stops and reads every section.

Progress towards Course Goals

As I worked on this assignment, I was able to apply most of the skills I learned in this course. For example, I was able to analyze the rhetorical situation of the document and use the findings to restructure the paper. Understanding the factors that inform our writing enabled me to edit and redesign the document, coming up with a final draft that was coherent and understandable. I was also able to report my own learning progress by writing this memo.

The assignment also gave me a chance to apply technical editing skills to an existing word document. For example, I was able to separate paragraphs and put uniform line spacing. Furthermore, I was able to divide the text into different sections by putting sub-headings. In some instances, I had to outline some points using bullets and numbers to emphasize the key information in the text. Finally, I managed to put and format page numbers accordingly.

Challenges

Editing an existing document is a challenging task. For example, it is hard to break a long paragraph into multiple short paragraphs. In some cases, you have to write everything afresh. Moreover, some paragraphs do not have topic sentences, while others have more than one idea, making it hard to put sub-headings. In other instances, it was puzzling to restructure ambiguous sentences to make the document reader-centered.

Applying technical editing skills was also not easy as I had thought. For example, I did not know where to align the headings and sub-headings. Additionally, I was not sure whether to use sentence case or title case when formatting the heading and sub-headings. It was also hard to indent the paragraphs without using the tab. Although it was easy to insert the page numbers, I forgot to format the font and the typeface. After inserting the bullets and numbers, I also did not know how to progress to the subsequent text. However, I managed the challenges through trial and error.

Conclusion

As you can see in this memo, editing an existing document is both fun and challenging. The good part is the chance to apply what one has learned in class. Writing a memo, on the other hand, allows one analyze the rhetorical situation as well as elaborate the writing processes and choices. However, restructuring some ideas and formatting the paper is quite challenging. In case of any question or further explanation on factors that inform any type of writing, feel free to contact me.