There are five long-term assignments:
1. Resume and Cover Letter2. Expanded Definition
3. Recommendation Memo
4. Analytical Report
5. Instruction Manual
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Table of Contents for Analytical Paper One
Progress Report
Informative Abstract
Analytical Report
MEMORANDUM
| DATE: | October 3, 2005 |
| TO: | Professors Fitzpatrick and Hickernell |
| FROM: | Christopher Paul |
| SUBJECT: | Statement of Progress on Analytical Report |
Overview
The purpose of the report is to provide a clear understanding of Professor Porter’s teaching pedagogy, expectations, and assignments to tutor ENGL 393 students.
Accomplishments to Date
All of the necessary elements of my research have been completed. Initial contact was made on September 15, 2005 and at my request, Professor Porter provided me with access to the Blackboard site. All documents on the Blackboard site have been copied and placed in a notebook that will be left in the Writing Center for future reference. A pre-observation interview was conducted on September 21, 2005 and a class observation was performed on September 27, 2005.
Class Goals and Requirements
Professor Porter’s primary goal is for writers to leave with the ability to present technical information to a semi-technical and a non-technical audience in a clear, well-organized manner. Porter wants writers to be reader/user aware and be in-tune with their audience so the writer may prepare a document that achieves its intended purpose: delivering useable information. Grading will be based on presentation, both oral and written, organization, content, style, proper use of visual aids and most importantly a non-stop attention to detail as it relates to the user’s needs.
Teaching Methodology
There are five long-term assignments:
1. Resume and Cover Letter
2. Expanded Definition
3. Recommendation Memo
4. Analytical Report
5. Instruction Manual
Professor Porter uses the resume for two purposes. The primary purpose is to assist the writers in learning how to organize documents for practical use. The secondary purpose is for Professor Porter to learn who the students are, what their technical expertise is, and to use this information to assist the writers through the assignments. The expanded definition teaches the writers how to become reader aware and audience conscious. The recommendation memo is a continuation in preparation of the analytical report. Porter’s methodology is to build students knowledge of technical writing through incremental steps. Each assignment will build from given information to new information. The analytical report builds on skills learned in authoring the expanded definition and the recommendation report and is used to demonstrate their mastery of graphics and technical description in a structured report format. The instruction manual this year will be written as a team of writers, each making individual contributions as is typically done in industry.
Student Issues
Technical writing is a shift in writing style for some students and others already have experience in technical writing without realizing it. Most of the writers are pursuing degrees in the sciences, technology, and engineering where they have had to prepare various types of technical reports for laboratory exercises and semester-long research projects. The main difference is the targeted audience. In previous papers, writers were expected to demonstrate their technical knowledge at their highest conceivable level, while in technical writing they need to convey the same information to an audience that is unfamiliar with science, technology, and engineering. The writers must balance their writing to convey highly technical information to a non-technical audience without sounding condescending. For some, this may be the first time writers have to think of the readers’ needs.
Tutor Preparation
Professor Porter would like tutors to advocate for the reader/users of the technical documents generated in the class assignments. The tutor’s purpose is to lead the writer through several revisions that will develop precise language that can be easily read and understood by the intended audience. Porter’s pedagogy in technical writing is that grammar has legal, ethical and safety implications and can lead to life or death implications. Therefore, grammar is extremely important, as is word usage. Technical writing should be complete, concise, and brief.
Problems Encountered
All problems encountered have been resolved. As two academics with hectic schedules it can sometimes be difficult to fit in one more thing to do. Due to the time constraints, methods such as email, phone calls, and blackboard research were used to remain on time.
Work Remaining
In the process of analyzing the data for the final report, other questions may occur that may result in a post-observation interview. Work remaining is to analyze the information collected, interpret the information and report my findings in the final report.
Time Frame for Completion
The first draft and final draft of the report will be completed on the required due dates.
Prewriting Questions
Progress
1. How is the project going?
2. What have you done/What has been accomplished?
3. How much time or effort, money, and so on did these tasks take?
Status
1. Where are we now?
2. What are you going to do next?
3. How do current activities relate to the overall project?
4. How does this work affect other phases of the project?
5. How are you doing?
Projections
1. Are we on schedule to meet our completion date?
2. What plans need to be changed? Or altered?
3. What will we do in the future?
Professor Porter designs the ENGL 393 Technical Writing course with the primary goal of providing students with the ability to present technical information to semi-technical and non-technical audiences in a clear well organized manner. Porter focuses on enabling students to communicate technical material through the use of written, oral, and visual formats.
Professor Porter's assignments are designed to increase the writer's awareness of the critical relationship between a document's purpose and its intended audience, a key factor when designing technical communications. Porter stresses the proper use of standard written English with an emphasis on grammar because of the "life or death as well as, legal, ethical, and safety implications" technical writing may have on its audience.
The troublesome areas in writing for ENGL 393 students as a whole are organization and lack of depth in paragraphs. To assist tutees in these areas, I recommend tutors show tutees various techniques of organization such as the use mapping, trees, and the heuristic, HDWDWW. Tutors should introduce tutees to the glossing technique in order to strengthen the development of content within paragraphs.
Introduction
Professor Porter's ENGL 393 Technical Writing course assists students in applying a systematic approach to various technical writing situations and helps them develop the skills necessary to write effective technical prose. Porter defines technical writing in the syllabus as "any writing that reports factual information objectively for the reader's practical use." Students will learn about applying the writing process, creating organizational techniques, formulating development techniques, and writing in an appropriate style and format.
This report will provide the Writing Center with a clear understanding of how Professor Porter's teaching methodology, expectations, and assignments can be used to serve ENGL 393 students' needs. The analysis will cover Professor Porter's philosophy and pedagogy, course goals and objectives, textbook selection, observations, assignments, grading and writing standards, elements of style, and the use of Blackboard. Advice for tutors will provide an assessment of the ENGL 393 students and useful advice for tutors.
Report Objective
The analytical report's purpose is to provide the Writing Center with a clear understanding of how Professor Porter's teaching methodology, expectations, and assignments can be used to serve ENGL 393 students' needs. The analysis will cover Professor Porter's philosophy and pedagogy, course goals and objectives, textbook selection, observations, assignments, grading and writing standards, and the utilization of Blackboard. Advice for tutors will provide an assessment of the ENGL 393 students and useful advice for tutors.
Methods of Investigation
In order to conduct the investigation, I collected data by four means. First, I examined all documents for the course: the syllabus, the assignment sheets, and documents downloaded from the ENGL 393 Blackboard site. Second, I conducted a pre-observation interview with Professor Porter. Third, I performed a classroom observation. ENGL 393 meets in computer laboratory ECS333 for the entire semester. Last, I conducted a post-observation interview with Professor Porter. After collecting data, I performed an analysis creating this document to assist tutors in advising ENGL 393 tutees.
Teaching Philosophy and Pedagogy
Course Objectives
Professor Porter's goal is for writers to leave with the ability to present technical information to semi-technical and non-technical audiences in a clear, well-organized manner. Porter wants writers to be reader/user focused and to consider the audience so the writer may prepare documents that achieve their intended purpose.
The course goals and objectives stated in Professor Porter's syllabus are to train writers to understand the purpose and process of communication in business and industry. By the end of the course, students should be able to recognize and analyze effective and ineffective business/technical communication. The writers will have a better understanding of the communication process-written, oral, and visual. ENGL 393 students will learn and use effective strategies for collaborative work in preparing documents and presentations essential in the professional world. The writers will be capable of producing documents that are appropriate for and appeal to various audiences. Students will have learned how to balance visual and verbal elements of communication in documents and oral presentations. They will be able to use mechanically and grammatically correct language in written documents and oral presentations. Finally, the writers will analyze their own presentation style and will provide insightful evaluation of others' presentations.
At the end of the semester, writers give a presentation of the technical manual for the purpose of developing essential oral presentation skills and as a "marketing tool." Professor Porter's goal is to make students "more comfortable on their feet." In other words, Porter is assisting ENGL 393 students to develop poise and confidence when they present. In addition, the students will learn how to "demonstrate their knowledge to an interested audience." Today, most graduates, especially, technology graduates, are required to have effective oral communication and presentations skills by employers.
Textbook Selection
Professor Porter chose R. E. Burnett's Technical Communications as the required textbook for the course based on the knowledge that "it is not too prescriptive." The textbook does not attempt to establish norms or rules indicating how language in technical writing should or should not be used. Rather the textbook describes ways in which language and document formats may be used. Professor Porter uses Burnett's textbook because it "gives students a comprehensive, generic background for writing basic technical documents." By providing a generic background, the writers will remain flexible when it comes to learning specific styles and formats in industry. Federal government agencies and many large corporations have their own style manuals that technical writers are expected to follow. Professor Porter provides the writers with a generic background so it is easier to write from the general to a specific format.
Observations
The lecture I observed was on the topic of visual aids. Professor Porter used two PowerPoint presentations and an overhead projector to demonstrate and discuss how to construct visuals that communicate with an audience in a technical setting and how to conduct oral presentations. Professor Porter's confidence and poise in presenting provides students with the opportunity to ask questions while she lectures. Most times, Porter's eyes are focused on the audience so she is attentive to the audiences needs. The overhead projector provides the presenter with the unique ability to lay slides side-by-side. This presentation technique allowed Professor Porter to demonstrate the difference between legible graphs and distracting graphs cluttered with "chart-junk" (see Appendix, Figure 1).
Chart-junk can mean statistical representations that rely on an abundance of clever or cute images to make their point. Chart-junk can also refer to ink that is not used for the purpose of creating the actual graphic such as background, boarders, containers, extra tick marks or anything that does not aid the reader in understanding the actual data. Such items are bells and whistles that only distract the viewer's eye. Therefore, visuals must effectively communicate their explicit meaning to the reader at a glance. Hence, visuals must be chart-junk free in order for the reader to understand explicitly what the writer is explaining.
Assignments
On the first day of class, the students write a diagnostic essay as an in-class assignment. This document provides Porter with an assessment of each student's writing strengths and weaknesses. Professor Porter says, "a few of the students demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of the writing process." Some students provide "well-organized and developed" responses with "few grammatical errors." However, many of the ENGL 393 students have weaknesses in "organization and a lack of substantive development of topic ideas arranged in a paragraph form." During the course of the semester, there are five long-term assignments: a cover letter and resume, the expanded definition, a recommendation memo, an analytical report, and the instruction manual. These assignments proceed through a logical progression of complexity building and expanding from the previous document.
The resume serves two purposes for Professor Porter. First, the resume teaches writers how to organize documents for practical use. Second, Professor Porter learns who the writers are, what their levels of technical expertise, and last, how to use this information to assist writers through the assignments. After writing a cover letter and resume, ENGL 393 students progress to the next level of technical writing complexity: writing an expanded definition.
The expanded definition explains the details of a term in an encyclopedia style format. It may include the etymology of a term, the historical background describing the development and use of the term in addition to specific examples to illustrate the application of the term. The expanded definition may incorporate various types of visuals to clarify and explain the term. The complexity of an expanded definition will vary according to the intended audience. In ENGL 393 the users of the expanded definition will be a non-technical audience. The purpose in writing to a non-technical audience is because of the inherent difficulty in explaining technology in non-technical terms. The writers can use nomenclature when necessary but must explain it to the reader out of consideration for the audience. The reason Professor Porter requires students to write an expanded definition is to teach technical writers the critical relationship between a document's purpose and the document's targeted audience. Writing an expanded definition introduces the students to a term that will be required later in the analytical report.
The recommendation memo is a continuation in preparing for the analytical report. The memo is addressed to the primary reader of the analytical report. The recommendation memo describes a problem, which also requires a technical description, and requests permission to proceed to the analysis stage. Requesting permission to perform an analysis is another industry standard. Once again, Professor Porter's goal is to encourage ENGL 393 writers to pursue topics related to their majors or in their workplace, providing practical, real-world experience.
The analytical report builds on skills learned in authoring the expanded definition and the recommendation report. Professor Porter considers the analytical report as "the granddaddy of all the assignments" because the writer is forced to demonstrate a broad array of skills learned in technical writing. Writers must now include research, analysis, graphics, and technical descriptions in a structured report format.
Grading and Writing Standards
Grading will be based on presentation-both oral and written, organization, content, style, proper use of visual aids, and most importantly, "a non-stop attention to detail as it relates to the user's needs." Correct grammatical usage, sentence structure, and punctuation are essential in this course.
Professor Porter says that, "In technical writing, grammar" and the use of standard written English "can have life or death implications as well as legal, ethical and safety implications." An example of a life or death implication would be the warning label on a new hairdryer: "Warning! High Voltage! Do not operate when wet."
Each of the eight documents is designed to demonstrate the ENGL 393 students' professional knowledge and to establish the students' professional image. The course grade will be based on the following percentages: resume and cover letter 10%, expanded definition 15%, recommendation memo 15%, analytical report 25%, and the technical manual equals 20%. The in-class assignments, the diagnostic, the memo for the technical manual, and the technical manual briefing cumulatively count as 15% of the student's grade.
Professor Porter's rubric has the following standards. In order to receive an "A," the paper must have excellent content, style, organization, visual design, mechanics, and grammar, in addition to all the assignment requirements being fulfilled as prescribed by the assignment sheet. A "B" means that one of the aforementioned criteria needs to be improved. The "C" paper has two or more of the aforementioned needs improvement or is missing.
Elements of Style
Student's documents in ENGL 393 must address the specific needs of targeted audience and meet the central purpose of the document's intention. Sentence style in technical writing must be clear, concise and coherent with appropriate transitional devices. Documentation style must be consistent and must adhere to the specific style-MLA, APA, AP, Chicago Style, CSE, IEEE, and others as required according to subject matter and discipline.
Utilization of Blackboard
Blackboard is used as a repository for all documents, writing samples, visual samples, presentation samples, and handouts for the semester. Later in the semester, students will be required to visit the Discussion Section of Blackboard where Professor Porter has posted two prompts. Professor Porter expects students to use the first prompt to collectively brainstorm by posting their topic ideas for the technical manual. Students are more likely to produce a better product it they have a vested interest in the topic.
The second prompt instructs the students to visit the Society for Technical Communications, Society for Technical Communications and then discuss the kind of writing the author may expect to do in the future by posting to the electronic bulletin board. The writer is also expected to comment on the range of salaries listed on the Society for Technical Communications web site. The purpose of this exercise is to stimulate student's thoughts about how they may apply technical writing skills in their professions after graduation.
Advice for Tutors
Two weaknesses ENGL 393 students have are organization and a lack of depth in paragraphs. Listing may be used as a method of promoting fluency and helping the writers to think dialogically and analytically. Tutors can assist writers by asking questions to help writers with building a list of associations. When the list is complete, similar items can be clustered according to the qualities that the members share. Each cluster can be named according to the quality the members share. According to Meyer and Smith, these cluster names can then be used to generate more content.
Suggesting tutees make a formal outline before actually writing can help a tutee see exactly how the parts of the research will fit together. This also aids the writer in seeing where examples will be required and promotes structure within the document. The advantage of taking the time to create a formal outline is that it presents an overview of the work. Tutors can suggest making a sentence outline or a topic outline. The advantage of a topic outline is that is faster and easier to write than a sentence outline.
Mapping is a tool that may be used for visual learners. This technique can assist writers in thinking verbally and visually about organization. A visual learner may see clues as to how random thoughts may be organized and can use circles to create clusters of thoughts. Connecting lines can assist to form transitional sentences.
Decision trees used in probability and mathematics are highly advisable for technical writing. Decision trees use a topic, plus an if/then structure. The daunting task of technical writing can be the number of steps required to explain a process. The use of trees will aid the writer in accounting for lost steps.
The heuristic HDWDWW (How Does Who Do What and Why?) can be used to help a student with organization and meaningful paragraph content. This method will help students in elaborating and developing their ideas. HDWDWW will also teach the writer to think in terms of the reader. Tutees will learn to read their own writing and ask questions the reader will undoubtedly want answered.
The glossing technique can be used to aid the tutee in developing content at the paragraph level. Glossing is used to name the feature shared by a group of sentences. Once the feature has been named, it should be easy for the tutee to spot sentences that are out of place because they introduce a new idea that does not follow with the rest of the sentences. By having the tutee write out the main ideas contained in each paragraph, the tutee will be able to recognize when a paragraph could be further developed. Glossing will also assist tutees in visualizing flow from sentence to sentence within a paragraph.
Tutors can help tutees with visuals by following a few simple rules. First, check that the writer refers the reader to the visual. Most text will use a parenthetical reference to the visual. Other writers will incorporate the reference as part of their explanation of the visual. Either way there needs to be a reference to the visual. Second, visuals should be placed either above or below the text explaining the visual. This prevents the reader from flipping back and forth through the document to look at the visual and read the text. In some cases a visual may be so complex that it is necessary for the author to make them a full page. In this case the visual will have to be placed at the end of the document. Last, if the visual looks cluttered, it is cluttered. The tutor may suggest experimenting with different graphs to see what kind of graph explains the data simply.
The most frequent problems that ESL students have in ENGL 393 Technical Writing documents are the misuse of the articles (a, an, and the), verb tense, and subject verb agreement. The nonnative English speaker has trouble with these parts of grammar because they do not exist in the ESL student's native language. Tutors should search for patterns of error within the tutee's paper. Scan for sentences where articles, verb tense and subject verb agreement are used correctly, point them out to the tutee, then go back to the sentences with errors and ask grammatical questions. This will help the tutor determine if the problem is in not understanding grammatical structures or if the tutee simply lapsed back into familiarity of grammatical rules in their native language.
Appendix
Figure 1: Bar Graph with and without Chart-junk
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ADDENDUM
| DATE: | October 18, 2005 |
| TO: | Professors Fitzpatrick and Hickernell |
| FROM: | Christopher Paul |
| SUBJECT: | Three Topics Missed in the Course Analysis of ENGL 393 |
Elements of Style
Student’s documents in ENGL 393 must address the specific needs of targeted audience and meet the central purpose of the document’s intention. Sentence style in technical writing must be clear, concise and coherent with appropriate transitional devices. Documentation style must be consistent and must adhere to the specific style (MLA, APA, AP, Chicago Style, IEEE, etc.) required according to subject matter and discipline.
Teaching Philosophy and Pedagogy
Grading and Writing Standards
Professor Porter’s rubric has the following standards. In order to receive an “A,” the paper must have excellent content, style, organization, visual design, mechanics, and grammar, in addition to all the assignment requirements being fulfilled as prescribed by the assignment sheet. A “B” means that one of the aforementioned criteria needs to be improved. The “C” paper has two or more of the aforementioned needs improvement or is missing.
Advice for Tutors
ESL Students
The most frequent problems that ESL students have in ENGL 393 Technical Writing documents are the misuse of the articles (a, an, and the), verb tense, and subject verb agreement. The nonnative English speaker has trouble with these parts of grammar because they do not exist in the ESL student’s native language. Tutors should search for patterns of error within the tutee’s paper. Scan for sentences where articles, verb tense and subject verb agreement are used correctly, point them out to the tutee, then go back to the sentences with errors and ask grammatical questions. This will help the tutor determine if the problem is in not understanding grammatical structures or if the tutee simply lapsed back into familiarity of grammatical rules in their native language.
After peer review, an attempt was made to strengthen content within paragraphs to create a deeper analysis and to provide clarity to some nomenclature specific to technical writing such as the expanded definition and chart-junk. Most lists were torn down placing the information in parenthetical form. A switch in voice was made in the methods of observations. Parallel sentence structure was corrected. Some information was dropped based on the question, "what do tutors really want to know?" The length of the report was reduced. Quotations were framed as necessary. The expanded definition was covered in greater depth. After the Writing Center review was performed, content was further subdivided within the body of the text. Organization of the entire paper was reconsidered based on reader focus and ease of use of the document. A conscious effort was made to further reduce the length and unnecessary repetition in the report.
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