Household Item Opinion. HELP!!!?

Question

I'm taking a college course. It's all graduate students in my class who range in age litterally from 26-55. Then there's me who's 18 and needs this class for my BS degree...My problem is this English Question: Everyone has tried to follow directions to a new household item that they just bought and found them impossible to follow. What were the issues you faced and how could they have been more clear?

I've never had to assemble anything before as I always had it done for me or hired someone who's job it was to do so. I'm going to need to write a good paragraph or two. I need personal experiences from people so I can make something up. I'm completely lost.

Thanks

Answer 1

I guess translation errors are often a big issue. I've never had much trouble with assembling things, and i tend to stay away from the instruction manuals, but I have run across a few that were written by the swedes (read: IKEA merch), or something from japan or something. Those are ridiculously confusing, just because they don't use the right words... And sometimes the images depicted in the manual do not match the materials given. Like the manual is a universal one for all their products, but it doesn't show your exact model which has different parts. Hope that helps.

Answer 2

We bought this steam shower, and the instructions are obviously written by - Japanese?  Read the second page "SPECIFICATIONS" section.  Hillarious.

http://www.steamshowersinc.com/ebay/inst...

Answer 3

I can't believe you have never bought a DVD player or VCR and couldn't program the thing or an MP3 player that you couldn't interface to download your songs... Think!!! You have more knowledge about this than you know...

Answer 4

I bought wooden blinds from Home depot for my windows and installed them myself.  THe instructions were minimal.  Why don[t you purchase one for your apartment, they are inexpensive and you could get an honest personla assessment of your assignmnet.  Godd Luck!

Answer 5

Instead of trying to make up something or lying, why don't you just write a good paragraph on how you have no experience or expertise in this area?

And make sure you understand the question.  It doesn't say anything specifically about installation or assembly instructions, it only talks about directions.

If you've ever had an appliance or gadget that came with instructions on how to use it and you got confused, this would be an appropriate subject.

Or make it really simple.  Most everything you buy these days has instructions on how to use it.  Cleaning products are a good example.

Or how about a dvd player?  Ever had trouble programming a dvr/dvd/vcr player?  Ever had trouble programming an alarm clock?

Ever had trouble understanding a computer program?  Or installing a program?

Ever had trouble understanding a recipe?  If all else fails, pull out a cookbook and find the most obscure, difficult to follow recipe and try to make the dish.  This may not fit the question perfectly, but it's better than writing a lie.

Hope that helps a little.