Helpful Hints and useful for the December 3rd tutorial:
A. Writing for the public is a specific type of writing. You are writing for the public, a general audience and not for a scholarly, academic or design focused or architectural audience. Following the University of Toronto’s University College
Writing advisor, “public writing aims to be accessible, even when it engages the
past.”1
1 Jerry Plotnick, University College Writing Centre, https:advice.writing.ca accessed March 1st, 2021. You will find this document in the assignments folder on the course Quercus site.
B. Think as specifically as possible about who your readers are. Where are you situated when writing: in Toronto or another part of Canada, in New Zealand, or in China, in a library, or shared dorm room, for example? Which newspaper or magazine or student publication or on-line forum are writing to? In other words, who is the reading audience and how familiar will they be with the contents you want to discuss? Consider what the audience may need to know, or might want to know about your topic to better understand the issue or issues at stake.
C. Following the advice from University College Writing Centre, “provide the context and be concrete” in giving examples or situating “your piece in terms of the real- world situation.” Is the real-world situation a cautionary to celebratory tale on media or surveillance or design, or a new building on campus or on the necessity of decolonizing the curriculum and unlearning assumptions within architectural
education?
D. Following the advice from the University College Writing Centre, it is often useful to begin with an anecdote. “While personal experience is generally discouraged as source material in academic essays, it can figure much more prominently in public writing.”
