Introduction to technical writing

Hello All!!My name is Coretta Johnson and i am a senior biology major at Southern. I currently work at Forrest General Hospital and bartend on weekends. Since my field of study revolves around research, most of my writings are of the 'lab report' type. I do enjoy writing lab reports. They are documentations in a chronological order of any procedures and results conducted in the laboratory setting. I also enjoy narrating. The type of writing that can get challenging,for me, is a research paper. I say this only because i always have to refresh myself on the proper way to site a research paper. I rarely write them so it is hard to remember the guidelines but once i find proper information on how to cite, i don't mind writing.
I think the biggest contributing factor in miscommunication in writing is not using proper grammar or attempting to read a paper that doesn't 'flow' right. By flow i mean, weird stops or mispunctuation, or using words that don't belong. Another factor in miscommunication, i think, occurs when attempting to read or understand something that is outside of your comfort zone. I am a biology major. I read a lot of scientific research, lab procedures, etc. I would have a hard time trying to read a electrical engineer's writings on how to wire a house. I wouldn't understand or know any terminology, and since i have never seen some of the tools that would be used, i couldn't even attempt to form a mental picture of the steps of wiring a house. It is hard to understand something you are not accustomed to.
I hope to obtain a better understanding of how to see and quickly find the overall message in a particular writing. Basically knowing the purpose of the writing puts you in a certain frame of mind to prepare you for what you are about to read- a business proposal, a scientific document, a comedy- knowing the purpose of a writing quickly helps you understand what your reading and better take in the information.