Miles to go before I sleep

I've learned so much from this course over the last seven weeks. Looking back over my notepad containing the principles of technical writing using the digital tools available, and yet to be imagined, I'm amazed at the volume of reference material I've accumulated, starting with the top ten requirements to be: focused, credible, active, precise, aware, organized, correct, creative, positive, and error-free. The purpose of technical communication is to produce documents that: inform, instruct, and persuade.

Then there was the identification of persona, discourse community, responsive design, principles of user experience, and the importance of accessibility. The creation of my own website and adding multimodal interactive content has resulted in potential applications in the real world now that I'm back working part-time after retirement. And all of that just scratches the surface.

Aristotle has been credited with the saying, "The more you know, the more you know that you don't know." What he actually said is much more complex, but that's the gist of it. The more I delved into the coding involved in LitWiki and Wikipedia citations, links, and backlinks, the more I realized how little I know about how to do it correctly and with ease. Robert Frost and the title of this article along with the photo of the long road came to mind.

I've been able to contribute to the course project, but not to the extent I envisioned up to this point. It takes me too long to get the coding correct for citations, even with the Wikipedia cheat sheet. Seeing how much some of my classmates have accomplished further convinces me that over the next few days, it's a challenge I intend to, if not conquer, at least beat soundly.