Building Technical Skills 3: Getting Graphic

Chapters 16 and 17

Due: Friday, 3/6/2009 by 8pm, by e-mail



Your task:

After sending out the memo (BTS 2), your CEO asks to see a business proposal from you explaining how our company will integrate the product into its business. His/Her schedule is pretty busy so you need to be clear and concise, using graphics to help out. He/She wants to know a few basics on the suggested use of the other company’s product, including discussion of economic factors.

The basic questions that he’d like addressed in your proposal are (p. 413):

1) What personnel is necessary to go through with the projected integration? How many of the company’s own workers will need to be included in the integration? What kind of personnel? What is the role of the other company, the one whose product your company is going to use?

2) Whose facilities are going to be used – theirs or ours, or both, or someone else’s?

3) What kind of equipment is involved? Are we going to have to buy or subcontract new equipment?

All of these questions should be integrated in your proposal to the CEO. However, you will want to structure your proposal as follows (p. 414-419):

1) Introduction:

a. Explain the product again and how and why using the product will benefit company (What is the opportunity?)
b. Explain the basic structure of the integration of the product (What is the scope of the proposal?)
c. Who would be in charge? This goes along with b., but should be emphasized.

2) Proposed Program:

a. Go into more detail about each of the basic questions asked above.
b. Use at least one chart or graph that emphasizes the economic sense of the project. Here are some options:

- Profit of your company, profit of their company’s product, predicted potential profit increase
- Cost of integration versus potential profit increase
- Budget for product integration, which would include projection of how much money is put in manpower, facilities and equipment over next five years. This projection should be a visual representation of the information within the proposal.

3) References or Experience:

- Choose one of these brief sections to end the proposal
o References: source material used for economic projections
o Experience: qualifications of those would will be in charge of overseeing the project

Format Requirements: TWO (2) pages; 10-12 pt font size; Times New Roman font

Memo Link

To help with your memo, click here, to get to another universities template and strategies for writing a memo. Of course, our own memo has a different subject, but this is a useful web source.

Building Technical Skills (BTS) 2: Business Memo

Due: Friday, 2/27/2009 by 6pm, by e-mail

Your task:

Generally speaking

Write a memo in which your purpose is to persuade the CEO of your company to use another company’s product in your business.

The CEO and other executives of the company will read the document. To be clear, you need to impress this audience with your recommendation – both in language and in concise but appropriate detail.

Specifically

Your job title is “Consultant,” and you make this recommendation after flying from Chicago to Seattle – meeting with executives and the marketing team for this other company. Their pitch makes good business sense to you.

First, you need to (again) choose your own company and the company you are hopefully going into business with. Consider real-life examples such as Apple and Nike; Apple and AT&T; retail stores like Martin & Osa and the Westfield mall chains….

Once you choose your companies, you will need to do some pre-writing, thinking as both buyer (your company) and seller (company making the pitch).

Before you do any memo-writing:

- Brainstorm the pitch, considering the product they’re selling
o Benefits of the product; what aspect of product are they focusing on
o Economics - $$$, how are they making it worth buying (discounts?)
o Think of how they would approach your company – Why do they want to go into business with you? How do you help them?

Required Content:

1) Include company logo/ letterhead as header

2) Appropriately address the letter (p. 352): audience, subject, date.

3) Get Down to Business:
- Use a natural, direct tone (active language; direct towards your CEO)
- Focus your detail on what you accomplished at meeting

o Key points discussed at meeting, including:
o What was that company’s proposal to your company?
o What are your company’s concerns, and how did they address them?

- Make a clear recommendation with a specific, business-related reason

4) In Text Format Considerations (p. 352; Ch. 18; check course blog for links, as well):
- Section headings
- Bullet points for key points?
- Spacing between paragraphs rather than indenting

Format Requirements: ONE (1) page; 10-12 pt font size; Times New Roman font

Goals of Document Design: 2/20

Here is what we will focus on today as we consider formatting and organizing BTS 1 (and of course, same considerations for other tech docs) (page 257):

1) To help readers understand the structure and hierarchy of information.

2) To help readers understand information.

3) To help readers remember the information.

Below is an outline of design principles.  Along with the reiteration of our textbook, I have connected the three goals above to those design principles below. Your job is to take apply these goals and principles into the design of your documents. In this case, BTS 1: Procedural How To.

Understanding Design Principles

Proximity - providing enough space between headers and text, between sections and sections. The human eye and mind need text broken up into related ideas, so you will want to make sure you give proper spacing between each of your three main parts of BTS 1. 

- Consider the distance between each section, even when use use section headings. 

- Consider the distance between a section heading and the text within that section.

- Related material should always be closer together, but still readable. 

Alignment - use indention, columns, etc. to help also clarify #1, showing the different levels of importance of information. Section headings, headings, graphics, and the text itself; how do you structure so that the reader can understand?

Repetition - for our BTS 1, it will be much clearer in your document if there is some repetition in the specific content within each section. For example, instead of inventing and using different examples to clarify each part you should use the characters from your first section, the hypothetical ethical dilemma...

- If Charlie and Jason are the two characters used in your hypothetical scenario, re-use them in your second part to explain the ethical dilemma. Then, as you provide the general steps to a solution, use them in the example part of your explanation of each step in the solution.

Contrast - bold, italics, COLOR, because using an appropriate amount of COLOR can really help your readers remember specific content.

IF there is time...we will start working on these simple design elements within class time. Otherwise, you will want to do such work at home.

BTS 1 will now be due on Sunday, by e-mail, for full credit. I am giving you extra time so that you can play around with the design, however it is due before Monday so that I have more time to provide feedback for you to a. revise for a higher grade, and/or b. use feedback as you put together our next tech doc!

Working on Part 3 of BTS 1
2/18/2009

Remember that these are your three required sections of BTS 1: Writing a How To on dealing with an ethnical dilemma in the work place…

1) Describe a hypothetical ethical scenario:
- Use of detail to give a clear picture of the ethical dilemma
- Use character names for employees so we know roles in the scenario
- Make sure the actual ethical dilemma is clearly explained

2) Define and explain the ethical dilemma:
- Use of one or more of expanded definition tools (Chapter 9, p. 181-185)

3) Provide a detailed solution(s):
- What method(s) do you use? Clearly explain each method.
- Give step-by-step directions to method (review p. 139 and 144 to help you with an “organization pattern” in writing out your solution)

Our day’s goal is to take steps towards fleshing out the solution, first in content by writing out a detailed solution. Then our second task is to work on format using the PARTITION organizational pattern (p. 139, 182). To do so, the following exercises will help:

A) What is your solution? What are the steps necessary to take to make sure that the dilemma is dealt with properly? Ultimately, it is up to you to come up with the number of steps of resolution, thinking about the scenario. However, there should be at least 3 general steps taken, and each step should be clearly identified and then explained.

- First, outline each the steps simply by labeling them. For instance, the first step might be “address the issue firsthand,” and the second step might be to “discuss code of conduct” and the third step might be “discuss job consequences of behavior.” Rather than rely on these, though, I’d like you to have your own steps. Even these above don’t feel complete to me. I might even break down these three into more steps.

- Write out your steps, first, within paragraph form using transitional phrases and multiple, but concise, paragraphs to indicate each step. Provide examples or provide good explanation of each steps.

- After doing the two above tasks, begin to partition the steps by starting off with the label for each step and then after each label put the detailed, example-filled explanation. You may use numbering or bullet points.

Monday, 2/16: In-class work

Active Voice

To help us practice writing with an active voice, we have three writing activities for you to complete after briefly reviewing active and passive voice.

1) We will do the activity found here ....by clicking this link.

2) We'll play The Rudy Giuliani Game to help us focus on simple, active, clear noun-verb construction...

3) We'll do a re-write of today's homework -->open up a new Word document file and begin to revise "from scratch," making conscientious choice to eradicate the passive voice when unnecessary.

Active Voices Make for Stronger Documents

Read the following article by Helen Moody by clicking on this sentence!

This article is to help you understand when it is appropriate to use active or passive voice construction in your sentences.

BTS 1 assignment AND Monday's (2/16) homework

Building Technical Skills (BTS) 1: Procedural How To
Due: Friday, 2/20/2009 by 6pm, by e-mail

Your task: write a technical document in which you present an ethical-dilemma example for teaching management-level employees how to deal with their staff.

The document you are creating will be read and demonstrated to employees, and must include the steps they should take when encountering a problematic scenario within the workplace.

You have the choice of which kind of scenario you would like to write a step-by-step document for how to solve the problem. Some example general topics you may consider using:

- Sexual harassment in the workplace
- Prejudice within the workplace (choose a specific discrimination to provide a solution for)
o Racial
o Gender
o Sexual orientation
o Religious beliefs
o ??? – Other cultural instances of profiling, etc.
- Inappropriate use of office supplies
- Office romance
- Inappropriate use of work hours
- Some other ethical dilemma that you can think of…

Required Content:

1) Describe a hypothetical ethical scenario:
- Use of detail to give a clear picture of the ethical dilemma
- Use character names for employees so we know roles in the scenario
- Make sure the actual ethical dilemma is clearly explained

2) Define and explain the ethical dilemma:
- Use of one or more of expanded definition tools (Chapter 9, p. 181-185)

3) Provide a detailed solution(s):
- What method(s) do you use? Clearly explain each method.
- Give step-by-step directions to method (review p. 139 and 144 to help you with an “organization pattern” in writing out your solution)

4) Format to be coherent and readable (Chapter 10):
- Use of a coherent title
- Use of Headers
- Use of typeface

Format Requirements: 1-2 pages in length; use 10-12 pt font size; readable font; make consistent spacing and other formatting choices throughout document (some noted above).



Homework:
- Read Chapter 11 (Structuring Effective Sentences) for discussion
- Post the first draft to the first two parts* of BTS 1 to your blog, by 2:45p.m. Monday, 2/16à
o Describing the hypothetical ethical dilemma (the scenario)
o Definition and explanation of why scenario is unethical

*Note: use formatting (section headers) so audience can coherently see and understand each part.

Agenda, 2/9: Organization and Evaluation

*Pages 128-136 will help immensely as you look to organize all of your data for the interview.

The main goal for today's class is to begin organizing your questions in a way that seem appropriate for the interview. What is deemed appropriate? Well, that depends on what you, as a group, want to focus in on in the interview.

Perhaps you've found lots of data on the company --its business success in regards to similar companies, its public relations issues, its company motto and core company values. Or perhaps there is other material you've found.

As a group, you must evaluate together all of the information you found in your individual research. (Again, grades of the assignment depend partly on your interpersonal communication within your group.)

To Organize Questions: Make a choice for how to order of each question...

1) Do you want to perform your Interview starting out with General questions on the position and the candidates skills and then order your questions to be more company-specific?

2) Do you want to ask question that start out with the most important questions about the job (also the most company-specific/duty specific), and then filter towards questions that may not be as important in terms of getting the job. These "less important" questions might be questions that have to do less with company, then, and more about resume details, etc.

One important thing: As a group, how do you decide which is more important, and which is less? Make sure to discuss this amonst the group.

3) You may also use any of the other methods of organization charted on 130-131 and explained in better detail in Chapter 7 --but the above two choices are most likely the easiest ways to structure your script. You may borrow some of the techniques of structure from the other organizational patters, though. For instance, "cause and effect" might be an interesting pattern use for the questions --since many of the questions in a successful interview seem to play off of each other.

Consider Your Answers in final organization:

1) Depending on your example answers, which are required to be included in the script, you may feel that some questions are more connected to each other once you've gone through and looked for patterns in your answers.

2) You may even want to re-word a couple of your Interview questions to include previous possible answes to other questions!


The Final Form: like all technical documents, the final form should be consistently formatted, and aesthetically-pleasing to the eye (aka: readible and presentable).

1) Are you using numbers to organize questions?
2) Are you using sub-headings for different sections/ lines of inquiry?
3) To bold, or not to bold? Italics? Indenting? These are usually some of the last things inexperienced technical-document writers conside, but they should be decided on amonst the group.

You want to the document to be professional-looking, with no errors (!), remembering that you are handing this in to your Human Resource Manager on Wednesday, at 2:45p.m.

Agenda: Wed., 2/4

After settling into which company you are doing The Interview Script for, here are a couple of tasks that you are to start doing today within your groups, to help in the research process:

1) Inquiry e-mail to the business:
-Have someone on the team draft a professional-looking letter of inquiry that a. explains that you are doing it for a class project, and b. you want to know what kind of characteristics they look for in hiring someone into their company.

You may get a response, you may not, but this is part of the research process. For some help, go to page 117 of our text)


2) Library Research: Expanding beyond the workplace
-Everyone in the group should brainstorm together, and create a list of, various kinds of data and job-related material might be useful when discussing the available position. For example: there are theories, and standard practices and tools used within various fields. When you are about to interview someone, it is helpful to get to know some of what the experts know in that position...so...to the library! (http://www.chipublib.org/)

Interview Script

The Interview Script (50 points)
Due: Monday, February 9, 2009 at 2:45pm

Explanation:
You’ve had some practice thinking about what you would be asked by an interviewer. Now, and for bigger points, you are asked to be the interviewer. More specifically, you are a Human Resources employee that is assigned to put together an “interview script” by the Human Resources manager; one that (s)he can use to evaluate potential candidates for a position in Public Relations/Marketing.

Further explanation of the kinds of questions and answers you will put together will be listed below. Also, for this assignment, you will be working in small groups of 2-3 people, as you would in the workplace.

You are allowed to choose your own company, which we will do during class time, once small groups are formed.

First steps:
1) First, exchange contact information for communicating outside of class time.

2) As a group, choose an easily researchable company; one whose product each of you is familiar with.

3) To begin your research, search/go to that company’s website and start looking for relevant information on the company’s history and its company goals/motto/beliefs/ core values. The website is usually starting reference point, and sometimes there is an “about” or “history” section where this information is located. Make sure to record this information so you can evaluate and use material for your Interview Script.

4) You will also want to do outside research using the school and public libraries, using interlibrary loans, periodical indexes, and other secondary source material (refer to Chapter 6 of Technical Communications for a refresher).

5) Start creating an agenda for the group to follow in the writing process.

Goals/Requirements:
1) The Interview Script includes both 1.specific question appropriate to be asked based on the company and the position being interviewed for, as well as 2. exemplary answers that are specifically related to company and to Public Relations/Marketing position.
2) The script should be approximately two complete pages, single-spaced, with a minimum of six questions
3) The script should include researched (and cited) material, both from primary and secondary sources . We will work during the week on finding sources, etc.
4) Each student will get evaluated both on group work and individual part in putting the script together. (There will be an evaluation form filled out by group members.)