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March 10

Page history last edited by Jared 9 years ago

On Deck:

  • Team Meeting One: Reviewing and Revising Steps One and Two of the Plan

Due:


Defining YOUR COMMUNICATION’S Objectives (Unfinished Business)

 

 

Chapter 3: Defining Your Communication’s Goals

 

overview. Chapter 3 introduces the first (and perhaps most important) of the five writing activities: defining objectives. The most important aspects in defining objectives is getting to know the reader and understanding how the reader will use the information while reading. Significant concepts addressed in this chapter include three ways readers search for information, readers’ organizational roles, complex audiences, and stakeholders.

 

Meeting One:

 

Tasks:

  1. Designate someone to keep March 10 Meeting Minutes and organizing these on your wiki, including:
    1. a list of attendees,
    2. a statement of the issues considered by the participants on that day,
    3. and the responses/thoughts or decisions for the issues. 
  2. Team Reviews and Revises Step One and Step Two
  3. Team Offers "Statement of Purpose and Audience" to Coach for verbal feedback + 2 Questions + Confirms Thursday's plans 

 

Step One:

Identify a topic and a suitable genre of Technical report.  Briefly, and somewhat generally, what is the question, issue, problem or challenge you want to investigate and resolve? What genre of report (Proposal, Empirical Research Report, Feasibility Study) is most suitable to this topic and why?

 

Using the appropriate chapter from Anderson, initially describe your Report's Goals in a brief paragraph. 

 

  

  • Step One Stasis and Revision Questions:  Use the stasis questions in blue to frame discussion (to take notes about), and the revision questions in orange to focus your team on the writing of your Collaborative Plan/Project 3 A. 
    1. (Conjecture, Attitude: Friendly)
      1. Have we, as a team, decided on a tech-com genre?  For what main reasons? (reminder: whoever is keeping minutes should take notes).  
    2. (Definition, Attitude: Friendly-debating)  
      1. What features of this genre seem particularly useful or important for your project and your project readers?  (take notes).
      2. Does our first paragraph establish our chosen genre, some reasons why we chose it, and note some genre features seem relevant to our project?  
      3.  Do we note (in sentence or so) what sections/superstructure components seem most important or challenging (implementation, recommendation, cost vs. benefit)?  Do we reference Anderson or any relevant pages from Anderson to help prove our basic understanding of this genre?
    3. (Definition/Friendly-debating)
      1. What exactly is the problem we're interested in addressing?  (take notes).
      2. What organizational, or departmental, or social, or ecological GOALS are we helping to solve?  (take notes...)
      3. Should we BRIEFLY list ONE OR TWO criteria per researcher to brainstorm/discuss exactly how we are hoping to evaluate the problem and potential solution?  (SAMPLE CRITERIA: "Our problem is one of implementation (of ...), cost, technological feasibility, sustainability, accessibility, effective marketing, ethics, organization, communication flows  ... Our solution addresses: Ease of implementation (of ...), cost/benefit, sustainability, reliability, ...) 
      4. What exactly is the information we will be looking to provide?  
      5. To whom are we writing?  How complex is our audience?  
      6. After this discussion, do we think our Step One paragraph concisely states the outcome we desire for our project?   
      7. Does our draft of Step One state our intended readers for the final report?  
    4. (Policy, Attitude: seeking consent and roles) 
      1. Should you revise this introductory paragraph one more time now or later, or both?   If you plan on returning to this paragraph, how will you ensure this revision takes place?

 

  • Note:  Our final version of the plan will be due Wednesday after the break. 

 

 

Step Two:

Use the "Writer's Guide" for "Defining Your Communication's Goals" (pp. 62) to discuss:

  • YOUR PURPOSE
  • CREATING A USEFUL COMMUNICATION
  • CREATING A PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION
  • READER'S PROFILE**
  • CONTEXT
  • ETHICAL TREATMENT OF STAKEHOLDERS

 

**For the "READER'S PROFILE" section, identify at least 3 probable audiences for your technical report project.  These include your instructor as the audience for the memo and at least one primary and one secondary audience for the technical report.  Make sure that you have identified at least one primary (stakeholders and decision makers) and one secondary (advisors or implementers) audience (Anderson Chapter3).  Additionally, briefly describe who you are in relation to your proposed audiences.  What is your position and why have you been chosen to investigate and resolve this particular problem? 

 

  • Step Two Stasis and Revision Questions:   
    1.  (Quality, Attitude: Group Inquiring/looking things up, testing and analyzing ideas for their relevance, usability or persuasiveness for an audience)  
      1. As a group, do we think, with some confidence, that our Step Two seems to be following Anderson's Guidelines for Defining Your Communications Goals in Chapter 3?  Should we quickly review these in Anderson?  For example, do we Describe our Reader's Tasks? (p. 63)
        1. Looking at our draft (or notes) for Step 2, do we Identify the major kinds of Information they (decision makers, advisers, and/or implementers) will want? 
        2. Do we Identify any of the "typical kinds of questions asked" by decision makers, advisers, and/or implementers as particularly relevant to our upcoming research or report writing?
        3. Knowing that this is highly valued in this course, do we really try to describe our readers and how they will likely USE the information we want to provide?
        4. Do we briefly describe how we plan on being persuasive to a particular audience?
        5. Do we have a decent reader's profile? (p. 67-8)  If not, how can we complete/execute one this week?
      2. Do we have a good sense of the our Context for this project?  Should we review p. 77- 78?  
        1. Looking at our draft, do we specify any recent events related to our topic?
        2. Do we address any interpersonal, interdepartmental, or intra-organizational relationships? Do we want to/need to?
        3. If necessary, how will we plan to add this CONTEXT to our current general-reading or research this week?   
      3. Do we identify our communication's likely stakeholders (those affected directly, indirectly, or remotely?  Should we review p. 78-9? 
    2. (Policy, Attitude: seeking consent and roles):  
      1. Should we Revise or Re-Write Step 2 in Divided, or Face-to-Face or Layered collaboration?  How many paragraphs or memo sections does this step need?

 

  • Finally, with no less than 30 minutes left.  Your Team should be prepared with THREE things for coach:
    1. A current statement of "Purpose" and "Audience" (including an overview of your "Readers' Tasks", p.63)  for verbal feedback
    2. Two questions about your plan so-far
    3. A Confirmation of your plans for your Library Meeting 

 

 

Meeting Two:  

Where? During Class-Time Thursday in the Undergraduate Library (that's where I'll be mainly), or in Purdy Kresgy

What?  Team works on first drafts of Step 3 and Step 4 of your Plan, specifically following the prompts in the Assignment Description.

 

 

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