Reminder for Final

1) Our final presentations tomorrow are to be from 2-4 pm in our same classroom.

2) Also, some people still owe assignments. This will affect final grades.

3) Lastly, a tip on graphics:

Many of you are simply inserting the graphs in your proposals without explaining after each graphic the relevance of the graphic. 

If you show us a graphic that shows profit value, explain the relevance of those profit projects. For instance, if the graph shows profits doubling in 2-3 years, reiterate this in writing, and give the final explanation of why. 

Advertisement Example...

Wednesday, March 18th: Graphics, Language and Handouts

Effective Language (p. 558 - 560)

For a maximal presentatation, considering how you use writing and what kinds of writing becomes essential. The following strategies are useful to organize thoughts and graphics, and allow for your audience to follow along while you develop your ideas slide-to-slide.


1. Advanced Organizers - a statement that highlights the main points of the presentation and clarifies what you will discuss, and in what order. Use transitional phrases and specific, active language to outline where you will take audience. You may have many such advance organizers, which may serve as introductions into a. entire presentation, and/or b. sections where points are developed in steps and multiple examples.

The following is an example of an Advanced Organizer for entire presentation:

Chez Denis brings Paris, France to Chicago. From the first sight, our customers will have travelled across the globe without the expensive plane ticket. From the facade to the dining rooms to the singing of metal pans cooking the best French cuisine the city can offer, we intend to show you how the City of Love falls in love with the Windy City.


2. Using Memorable Language - appropriate, clear language is necessary, but so is langauge that will be vigourous and specific enough to paint your image in the audience's brains.

The above example includes some memorable language. Common references to Paris (City of Love) and Chicago (the Windy City) help build the connection. Also, "facade" is a French term, which sticks out in various ways: 1. "facade" is a concise description instead of
buidling's outside appearance" and 2. the word allows for the Paris to be brought in the language.

Also, there is reference to the customers in the description. All of the language specifically describes the following general things - the customers, the concept of the restaurant, the city/community.


3. Summaries - use some slides to summarize/conclude some of the previous slides. Too often we summarize first, telling audience how to look at everything. However, there is a difference between providing an advanced organizer and a conclusion. The conclusive summary indicates "this is what we talked about" while advance organizers provide "what we are going to expand on, and in what order."


4. Transitions - Rather than starting a new point from scratch, use slides like you would use paragraphs. Repeat some key words and phrases from the last slide (point) as you transition into a new slide (point).

Also, use transitional phrases such as "such as", "secondly," "in contrast to," etc. Go back in our blog to look at transitional devices


Writing Prompt:

Create an "Advanced Organizer" paragraph that you could incorporate in the beginning of your presentation that would help us understand the vision of your restaurant.

Incorporate some memorable language - think about what your food is, what your restaurant's name is, who your customers will be, what the atmosphere will be, ...what are you selling, and in what order (in the presentation) ...



Final Homework (for Friday, 3/20):

1. Bring in a brochure, flyer, or advertisement you feel exhibits strong technical writing strategies (both aesthetically and in use of effective language). Post to your blog the specifics of the example that you feel are rhetorically strong.

2. Be ready to discuss "handouts" that you may use in a presentation, and which your group might use.

3. The goal for next class is to discuss the creation of effective handouts, and to start practicing the creation of such in our last class before the final!

Monday, March 16th:

PowerPoint Presentation *– Strategies for Success

*please print a copy of your presentation off, for professor, and in case of emergency

I. Of course, understand audience and purpose.

1. You are trying to persuade an investor by providing information of your restaurant concept, fully considering all business and cultural aspects of the proposal.
   

II.  Organization / Development of Presentation

• The most important aspect of a presentation is the clarity, and ordering your information (from slide to slide) in a logical manner
  

- Remember Organizational Patterns, Chapter 7

• How are you starting the presentation? What information comes when?
  

- When do you discuss the economics? Do you include all 

of the money aspects at once, or spread throughout presentation?

- When do you discuss community and how your place fits in?

- Real estate – property value (rent, or buy?)
- Neighborhood?

-  When do you discuss the food, the look of the restaurant, etc.?

- Each slide should be used effectively, with a smaller purpose 

that fits into the larger purpose of presentation.

- Divide presentation into larger categories 

of information first, perhaps, and then

devote a number of slides to each category

- Don’t spend too much time on one slide in presentation (30 

seconds/slide).

- Balance slides with proper amount of information – don’t make 

to busy with complicated graphics or large amounts of text

- Content meets form:
o Legibility of font; appropriate font size
o A font that thematically fits presentation and restaurant 

concept:

- Ex: elegant font for a “classic restaurant”; 

boxy, sharp-lined fonts (like Eurostile) for “modern."

o Color of font and slide background to fit theme, too
o Graphics – variety of graphics
- Pictures/ model of restaurant
· Inside; kitchen; outside; logo/sign; 

neighborhood shots

- Charts and Graphs
· Economics

- Table Charts – organizing steps/ phases

III. Using Effective Language

Foodie Enterpreneurial Articles

Again, to help inspire your final projects (as the one you're pitching to), here is some reading material that may or may not inspire, or even give you confidence, in your own ideas:

1) A Young Entrepreneur Makes Food, Not War

2) Uniting Around Food to Save an Ailing Town

3) QUICK BITE/Sea Cliff; Morning Coffee, Evening Sushi

4) A Southern-Fried Picnic, to Go

5) A New Era for Brooklyn's South Shore

Here is one colleges interesting website:

North Dakota State's "Your Resource Guide to the Food Industry: Food Entrepreneur"

Entrepreneur Databases

To help out with our business ventures, here is one link that may lead you to some data/material, if not only to broaden how you are looking at your proposal!

General Guidelines for Final Project

Final Project Presentations (300 pts)

Due: Friday, March 20, 2009 (though it may be moved to finals week)


Prompt and Guidelines:

In groups of three, you will put together and make a 15-20-minute presentation to the class, using visual aids. Notice the plural in there; aids. The most basic visual aid will that you are required to use is a PowerPoint presentation. You must also put together a brief proposal (1-2 pages) and bring a copy for everyone in the class (7 copies, plus your group). You must also hand in a bibliography (Work Cited page) full of researched data used within your presentation; one copy to the professor.

Specifically, you are to choose one of two options:


1) You are a group of burgeoning restaurateurs / restaurant owners. You have an idea for a restaurant, you’ve done your research on both the food and the business side, and you need a financial backer. You set up a meeting with a wealthy businessman and his group of lawyers and accountants. You must impress him with both a thorough consideration and outline of the economic aspects, as well as showing him your vision of what the restaurant will look like.


2) You are three hotshot architects (or so you think!) working for an architecture firm in the city. Donald Trump wants a new building; again. He invites you to be among the firms to bid on designing his building. He wants to know what your design is, how much it will cost, and also what extra services can be put in the building. How much of the building will be residential, or office space, etc.?


With either option, research becomes a big role in the success of the presentation. With three people, and the focus of the remaining two weeks being on this project, we expect some very engaging presentations.

Those who choose option 1 should immediately start research on restaurants and what kind of material goods (from building space to stoves to forks) will be needed and how much things cost (budget!). Those who choose option 2 should to immediately start looking up modern architectural terms, designs, etc. Both groups will benefit from understanding some of the basic/known figures and terms in either the culinary (cooking) or architectural worlds.


Expected Material:

1) PowerPoint with visuals
2) Proposal with clear vision, outlined budget and material, with graphs (7 copies)
3) Bibliography (Work Cited Page) of research for project
4) One extra technical document – your choice…something group feels is needed to go with presentation
5) Other visual/ audio aids: poster-board with graphics; appropriate music (to enhance vision); a company website (this would be impressive and time-consuming, and those with skills and knowledge are encouraged to go with your guts!)

Making Charts and Graphs

Charts and Graphs tutorial...


Practicing Chart


Below is the data that we will use to familiarize ourselves with making charts and graphs. Though the process can be intimidating (at least it is to me, the professor!), and involves using both Word and Excel, once you get the hang of making the graphics, you'll find them not as hard to really make.


1) Having your data handy is the very important first step. You need:


- The numerical values (money spent, intervals)


- The items whose values you are comparing (on Excel they call these "categories")

- How many times you plan to compare the items (one year, two year, etc.)






2009 Budget for Nike-Apple Integration for Apple:

1. Project Management combined salary (executive personnel): 200,000

2. Software Design Team combinedsalary: 450, 000

3. Chicago Technology Lab (new division/area): 1 million

4. Ground transportation of product: 300, 000

5. Air Transportation of product/ team members: 150, 000

Okay, above are example budget concerns that may show up in a proposal. All of this numerical data can be better displayed using graphics. Below are steps outlined for using Word 2003.


Microsoft 2003 steps for making a chart:


1) On the Insert menu, click Object, and then click the Create New tab.

2) In the Object type box, click Microsoft Graph Chart, and then click OK.

Microsoft Graph displays a chart and its associated sample data in a table called a datasheet.

3) To replace the sample data, click a cell (cell: A box formed by the intersection of a row and column in a worksheet or a table, in which you enter information.) on the datasheet, and then type the new text or numbers.



Note: If you close the datasheet you can reopen it by double-clicking the chart and then clicking Datasheet on the View menu.

20 Point Quiz # 4

Today's quiz is a little different way to review. Rather than multiple choice, which is confining, I want you to start putting your critical, creative thinking talents to better use:

Follow this link, and do both 16a. and 16b. E-mail both to me. So as to control the exam, we will give 20 minutes, and I will guide you along the steps.

Table, Line and Bar Graphs, Pie Charts: 3/2

Today, after we do 20 Point Quiz #4, we will discuss charts and graphs and their use in technical documents. To help us out, we will look back to pages 305 - 315 as guides.

Goals for the day:

1) Understand: Where do we get the information? What information is being asked?

2) Understand: What is included in the graph or chart?

3) Understand: What kind of graph is useful for different purposes, for different documents.

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.