Recommendation Report: Assignment

Black woman typing on a notebook computer in a business settingFor this project, you research the kind of writing that you proposed in your Proposal Memo, explaining different perspectives on the genre, and then recommend the best strategies for composing it.

To find out how the kind of writing works, you will find online resources, interview people in the field, and analyze examples. You will use this same research as you work on your Poster Presentation.

The audience for this project is me, Traci. Your goal is to inform me about all the work and possible strategies for writing the kind of writing that you are studying. Your memo should explore the various options and then recommend the best strategies to follow when completing the kind of writing you have focused on.

This project will take place during four weeks of the course, giving you time to research and write a long formal report.

To understand more about the connections among the Major Projects, read How the Major Projects Connect.

Recommendation Report Scenario

As I explain in the Course Manual, I cannot teach you everything you will ever need to know about writing. Every workplace and every field requires different skills. New writing formats are created all the time. Existing formats change. Without a magic wand, it’s impossible to know what each of you will need in the future. Instead of trying to teach you every possible way of writing, this course focuses on how to survive in the workplace without a teacher telling you how to write.

Your job for this assignment is to figure out everything about a specific kind of writing and report on your findings in your Recommendation Report, which you will address to me. Your report should prove to me that you know how to figure out how to write something you have never written before. To demonstrate that you know everything about the kind of writing you are researching, your report needs to provide all of the following information:

  • The purpose for the kind of writing—that is, you will identify and explain the situation related to this kind of written communication, its goal(s), and the occasion (the time, place, or event) for this kind of writing.
  • The audience or users of this particular kind of writing, including their knowledge, experience, and work environments, their motivations for working with the genre in question, how they perceive and use the text in question, and what they do with it.
  • The constraints (in other words, the challenges and limitations) at work on the writers and the readers of this kind of writing, including computing environments, documents, facts, and workplace objects, but also less tangible factors such as relations, beliefs, attitudes, traditions, images, interests, and motives that are in play in their organizations or workplaces.
  • The preparation needed to write this kind of writing, including what you would need to know, how you would gather research, data, or information for the writing.
  • The organization of the kind of writing, detailing the typical order for the document, any possible variation of the order, and any additional sections that may be added.
  • The contents of all sections of the kind of writing, describing the kind of information included in each of the sections.
  • The ethical issues that may impact the kind of writing.
  • A bibliography that provides documentation for all of the resources you have consulted. You may use the bibliographical format that is appropriate for your field. Here are some tools if you are unsure what to use:
  • An appendix that includes at least three examples of the particular kind of writing in question that you use to show the generic conventions, characteristics, features, and strategies that distinguish this genre. In the case of longer genres, you can link to the examples, but include excerpts in your report as relevant.

Project Requirements

Your Final, Finished Draft must meet these requirements:

Check the Textbook

Use this information from Technical Communication to shape your document:

  • Focus on Process: Recommendation Reports, on page 473.
  • A Problem-Solving Model for Recommendation Reports, Figure 18.1, on page 474.
  • Ethics Note: Presenting Honest Recommendations, on page 477.
  • Elements of a Typical Report, Table 18.1, on page 478.
  • Guidelines: Writing Recommendations, on page 480.
  • Tech Tip: Why to Make a Long Report Navigable and How to Make a Long Report Navigable, on page 483.
  • Guidelines: Writing an Executive Summary, on page 486.
  • Writer’s Checklist, on page 490.
  • Sample Report, Figure 18.8, on pages 490–513.
  • Focuses on a kind of writing from your Analysis of Writing in Your Field project that you have not written before, as proposed in your Proposal Memo.
  • Is a document in report format created in a word processor.
  • Covers all of the information listed in the Scenario section above.
  • Includes the following sections, in this order, in your report:
    • Front matter
      • letter of transmittal (p. 481)
      • title page with a specific title (p. 481)
      • abstract (p. 481)
      • table of contents (p. 482)
      • list of illustrations (p. 483)—Optional, include if relevant
      • executive summary (p. 485)
    • Body
      • introduction (p. 479)
      • methods (p. 479)
      • results (p. 479)
      • conclusions (p. 480)
      • recommendations (p. 480)
    • Back matter
      • glossary (p. 486)—Optional, include if relevant
      • list of symbols (p. 486)—Optional, include if relevant
      • references (p. 488)
      • appendixes (p. 489)
  • Use professional design and formatting that does the following:
    • Makes information easy for readers to find and read.
    • Emphasizes important information.
    • Makes a good first impression as a polished, professional document.
    • Uses well-integrated and well-designed visuals to clarify the information.
  • Use accurate/appropriate grammar, spelling, punctuation, mechanics, linking, and formatting.

Length: With examples and appropriate formatting, your report will likely be close to 15 single-spaced pages long, though there is not a minimum or maximum page length. Write as much as you need to, but be sure to include all of the required information.

Activities Making Up This Major Writing Project

The following activities will all contribute to your Recommendation Report. You may have had previous teachers refer to such work as scaffolding activities. They support the work you need to do to complete your project. Each one either asks you to complete a task that will contribute directly to your project, or asks you to practice a skill needed to complete your project.

You can complete all of these activities, or you can pick and choose, depending upon the goal you have set for the course. Remember that the Final, Finished Draft is required in order to earn a B or better in this course.*

Week of September 30

Week of October 7

Week of October 14

Week of October 21

 

Photo Credit: Woman working on a laptop by Rawpixel Ltd on Flickr Links to an external site., used under a CC-BY 2.0 license.