Part 1 of Week Eleven Instructions: Designing Your Description

• Time Required
• 7–8 hours, including reading time

 

This module asks you to finish composing the technical description that will tell someone about an object or process related to the topic you are exploring in your Recommendation Report. You will grade your own work by comparing your project to the criteria listed in the checklist.

Optional Reading Activities This Week

This week’s optional readings this week focus on strategies you can use to increase the readability of your documents. The ideas include both things you can write and document design.

To find the optional reading activities, check the “Canvas Announcements & Course Advice” on the Course Home. The posts show up in the Twitter feed for @HokieTengrrl Links to an external site., which you will find on the course home in Canvas. If you read them and watch the related videos, be sure to note the time in your Weekly Work Log.

 

Objectives for this Week

By completing this week’s activities, you address the following course objectives:

• Analyze the rhetorical situation and determine the appropriate audience or users of written communication, considering the needs of global audiences and people with disabilities. [CLO 1]
• Conduct research appropriate to workplace problem solving, such as literature review, evaluation of online resources, interview, and site inspection. [CLO 2]
• Interpret research findings with understanding of ethical and human implications. [CLO 3]
• Use conventions of various workplace genres, such as proposals, instructions, correspondence, reports, and slide decks, with understanding of how the genre conventions can be used as heuristics and as principles of arrangement. [CLO 4]
• Collaborate with classmates in planning, researching, writing, revising, and presenting information. [CLO 5]
• Apply principles of effective visual design for print and electronic presentation, including hierarchical, chronological, and spatial arrangements. [CLO 6]
• Identify and apply the principles of effective style in the composing of usable, reader-centered written communications. [CLO 7]

 

Activities for this Week

📚 To Read This Week

• Markel & Selber, Chapter 7: “Organizing Your Information”
• Technical Description Criteria (review as needed)

📝 To Write This Week

• Complete the Organizing Your Description activity.
• Finish work on your Technical Description Project.
• Complete the Technical Description Checklist. You have an unlimited number of times to complete the checklist.
• Remember to submit your Instructions Project in Part 2 of the Week Eleven module, once you earn full credit on the Checklist.

💬 To Discuss This Week

• Complete the Guided Self-Review: Use of Images activity, which partially replaces the Feedback Discussions.
• Post a reply and respond to the members of your group in the What One Thing Would You Do (or Change) to Improve Feedback Discussions? Discussion.

📓 To Track This Week

• Track and reflect on the work you have done for the week in your Work Log for the Week of 03/29, reviewing the Weekly Work Log Guidelines as needed.
• Complete the Week of 03/29 Self-Assessment to claim the points for the work you have done this week. You have an unlimited number of times to complete the self-assessment. Your points will be recorded automatically when you submit your quiz.
• Complete the Self-Assessment of Optional Reading Activities from March 29–April 2 to claim points for your optional reading.

🎯 Optional Work Available

These links provide more information about the optional work for those working towards a grade higher than a B:

• Optional Activities Overview
• Optional Reading Activities
• Optional Writing Activities Instructions