Definition Writing and
Critiquing Assignment
JTC
300
Minh
Anh Nguyen
If
readers cannot comprehend or understand the information being presented or
published in papers or textbooks, they will lose interest in reading these
papers. Readers have to look up every
other word in the dictionary and they will not learn anything from these
sources. Therefore, writers must
consider this issue when they write any papers.
Writers should provide as much information or definition as possible to
help readers understand any technical terms or words that can potentially be
difficult. Three types of definitions commonly used in technical writing are: parenthetical
definitions, sentence definitions and extended definitions.
The
purpose of this assignment is to find all three types of definitions in my
resource material for my technical report. The topic of my technical report is how to perform software testing. I
found three types of definitions that related to my topic in “The Art of
Software Testing” textbook.
A
parenthetical definition is a short explanation of a word or phrase placed
inconspicuously in a sentence. Three examples of parenthetical definitions, which are copied directly from the
textbook:
1. An
inspection or walkthrough is an improvement over the older desk-checking
process (the process of a programmer reading his or her own program before
testing it). Inspections and walkthroughs are more effective, again because
people other than the program’s author are involved in the process.[23]
2. For
these reasons, we will discuss the process of non-computer based testing
(“human testing”), before we delve into the more traditional computer-based
testing techniques. [21]
3. Providing
that we are not analyzing an error found by an end user (that is, the error was
found by a test case), we should realize that something valuable has happened:
We have written a successful test case. Why was this test case successful? Can
we learn something from it that will result in additional successful test
cases, either for this program or for future programs? [175]
These examples
of parenthetical definitions
need no improvement because they are used to explain words that need clarification but are
not the main focus of the document. These parenthetical definitions are worded so that they quickly explain
a term and are placed in parentheses immediately following the word being
defined. The informal definitions are short phrase.
There
are times when a few words are not enough to explain a technical term. In this case, the sentence definition would be
used because it can provide the additional information needed to help increase
comprehension. Sentence definition is
more formal explanations or clarifications than parenthetical definition. It is
an explanation of a word using one sentence. Three examples of sentence definitions, which are copied directly from the
textbook:
1.
Testing is the process of executing a program with the intent of
finding errors. [6]
2.
A good test case is one that has a high
probability of detecting an as yet undiscovered error. [20]
3. Module
testing (or unit testing) is a process of testing the individual subprograms,
subroutines, or procedures in a program.[91]
These examples
of sentence definitions need no
improvement because they describe
principles of testing and words being defined.
Sentence definitions distinguish the terms being defined from other
words, and allow the readers to compare the words to terms they may already
know and help to improve comprehension.
In
technical writing, sometimes, a term is often very complex and important to the
document. As a result, it may need the entire paragraph or more to help explain
the term. This is when an extended definition is necessary. Extended definition is the use of a paragraph
or more to expand on a word that may be difficult to understand. It is usually starts with a sentence
definition, but then expands on the word by providing additional
sentences. Three
examples of extended definitions, which are copied directly from the
textbook:
1. In
a walkthrough, a group of developers—with three or four being an optimal
number—performs the review. Only one of the participants is the author of the
program. Therefore, the majority of program testing is conducted by people
other than the author, which follows the testing principle stating that an
individual is usually ineffective in testing his or her own program. An
inspection or walkthrough is an improvement over the older desk-checking
process (the process of a programmer reading his or her own program before
testing it). Inspections and walkthroughs are more effective, again because
people other than the program’s author are involved in the process. Another
advantage of walkthroughs, resulting in lower debugging (error-correction)
costs, is the fact that when an error is found it is usually precisely located
in the code. In addition, this process frequently exposes a batch of errors,
allowing the errors to be corrected later en masse. Computer-based testing, on
the other hand, normally exposes only a symptom of the error (the program does
not terminate or the program prints a meaningless result), and errors are
usually detected and corrected one by one. [23]
2. Module
testing is largely white-box oriented. One reason is that as you test larger
entities such as entire programs (which will be the case for subsequent testing
processes), white-box testing becomes less feasible. A second reason is that
the subsequent testing processes are oriented toward finding different types of
errors (for example, errors not necessarily associated with the program’s
logic, such as the program’s failing to meet its users’ requirements). Hence,
the test-case-design procedure for a module test is the following: Analyze the
module’s logic using one or more of the white-box methods, and then supplement
these test cases by applying black-box methods to the module’s specification.
[92]
3. Decision
coverage is a stronger criterion than statement coverage, but it still is
rather weak. For instance, there is only a 50 percent chance that we would
explore the path where X is not changed (i.e., only if we chose the former
alternative). If the second decision were in error (if it should have said
X<1 instead of X>1), the mistake would not be detected by the two test
cases in the previous example. A criterion that is sometimes stronger than
decision coverage is condition coverage. In this case, you write enough
test cases to ensure that each condition in a decision takes on all possible
outcomes at least once.[46]
These examples
of extended definitions need no
improvement because they are used
to define terms with a very detailed explanation using examples and visuals.
They provided answers to the following questions: 1. How does it work? 2. What does
it look like? 3. What does it do? 4. How it is used? 5. What is its origin and
background?
Technical
definition is a very detailed description of a term. Sometimes, when writing a
document writers have to use some terms that might be unknown to the audience,
but these terms are needed to understand the author's idea. The length of the
definition depends on the complexity of the technical term and the audience for
which is designed. Parenthetical
definition is used to define a simpler term with a short description enclosed
in parenthesis immediately after the term. Sentence definition is used to
define more complex terms in couple of sentences. The type of definition
writers choose for their papers will depend on the word being defined and the
overall purpose of the document.
References:
1. Myers, G., & Badgett, T. (2004).
The art of software testing (2nd ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley &
Sons.
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