Harty p. 167-207

Reports and Other Longer Documents:

• the word report is really just a generic term for a variety of documents that vary in form and purpose.
• Business and technical writing practice sometimes distinguishes between formal and infromal reports. Formal reports generally follow a multi-part format and are used primarily to present the results of a detailed report. Informal reports tend to be shorter documents and their formats are less complex.
• To ensure that their reports are useful, writers should take the same kind of process approach that they would use when writing any other business or technical document.
• Because they are often action oriented, reports require writers to analyze their audience-or audiences-carefully.
• Audiences can include any, or all, of the following: the layperson, the executive, the expert, the technician, the operator. Each brings a different background and a different set of needs to his or her reading of a report that writers must take into account if they hope to produce an effective document.
• proposals are in some ways simply specialized reports

Audience Analysis: The Problem and a Solution-

Every communication situation involves three fundamental components: a writer, a message and an audience. However, many report writers treat the communication situation as if there were only two components: a writer and his message.

• Talking point: is this an extension of poor spoken communication? People tend to think of their next point before the other person has finished what they are saying. These poor listening skills could influence (or could be influenced) by poor writing.

The inexperienced report writer often fails to design his report effectively because he makes several false assumptions about the report writing situation.

A report has value only to the extent that it is useful to the organization.

Artificial communication of a student in college-in writing only for professors, a student learns to write for audiences of one, audiences who know, more than the writer knows, and audiences who have no instrumental interests in what the report contains.

• Talking point: how could this be fixed? new ways of teaching/presenting information to students on the part of the professor? should the student be required to present research papers (or any paper) to larger audiences?

You must determine who your audiences are as related to the purpose and content of your report. "Who" involves the specific operational functions of the person who will read the report, as well as their educational and business backgrounds.

Three types of report audiences: horizontal, vertical and external.

In addition to having different educational backgrounds, the audiences will have different concerns, such as budget, production, or contract obligations. Audiences will also be separated from the writer by organizational politics and competition, as well as by personality differences among the people concerned.

Report travels routinely throughout the organizational pathway, and will have unknown or unanticipated audiences as well. The writer must design his report primarily according to how it will be used. The organization chart may describe the organization, but it does not describe how the organization functions.

An additional complication is that the external audience can judge an entire organization on the basis of one writer's report.

Procedure calls for preparing an egocentric organization chart to identify individual report readers, characterizing these readers, and classifying them to establish priorities.

• differs from the conventional chart in two senses: identifies specific individuals rather than complex organizational units and categorizes people in terms of their proximity to the report writer rather than in terms of their hierarchical relationship to the report writer.

A systematic characterization of the individual report readers is made in terms of operational, objective and personal characteristics:

• operational characteristics: particularly important.
• objective characteristics: specific relevant background data about the person.
• Talking point:a lot of the information given in this section refers to engineering. how can it be applied to other non-science fields? does it even need to be? writing about art or literature is sure to be very different than writing about engineering.

Think through the total impacts of your report on the organization.

The final step in our method of audience analysis is to assign priorities to your audiences in order of importance to you:

• primary: make decisions or act on the basis of the information a report contains. typical primary audience is the decision maker, but his actual decisions are often determined by the evaluations and recommendations of staff personnel.
• secondary: are affected by the decisions and actions
• immediate: route the report or transmit the information it contains. at times the immediate audience is also part of the primary audience and at other times it is part of the secondary audience.

What to Report-

"What does management want in reports?" is an extremely basic question, and yet it seems to have had less attention than have the mechanics of putting words on paper.

Every manager said he read the summary or abstract; a bare majority said they read the introduction and background sections as well as the conclusions and recommendations; only a few said they read the body of the report or the appendix materials.

• Talking point: what does this tell writers about time management and where to place the most effort during the writing process?

If a report is to convey useful information efficiently, the structure must fit the manager's reading habits.

• Talking point: is this just continuing the bad habit learned in school of writing for an audience of one?

The writer of the report for management should write at a technical level suitable for a reader whose educational and experience background is in a field different from his own.

Management itself has definite responsibilites in the reporting process. Four conferences at selected times can help a manager control the writing of those he supervises and will help him get the kind of reports he wants, when he wants them:

1. at the beginning of the project: define the project, make sure the engineer involved knows what it is he's supposed to do, and specify the required reporting that is going to be expected of him as the project continues
2. at the completion of the investigation
3. after the report is outlined
4. after the report is written

• Talking point: should the above steps be taken for every report? or is it sufficient to go over them the first few times a writer does a report? when should the writer have the ability to do it on his own?

The Writing of Abstracts: the percentage of those who read beyond the abstract is probably related directly to the skill with which the abstract is written.

An abstract has two purposes: provides the specialist in the field with enough information about the report to permit him to decide whether he could read it with profit (descriptive abstract) and it provides the administrator or executive with enough knowledge about what has been done in the study or project and with what results to satisfy most of his administrative needs (informative abstract).

The descriptive abstract cannot satisfy the requirement of the informative abstract. The informative abstract satisfies not only its own purpose but also that of the descriptive abstract.

Some tips:

1. your abstract must include enough specific information about the project or study to satisfy most of the administrative needs of a busy executive. specific information must be given!
2. your abstract must be a self-contained unit, a complete report-in-miniature
3. your abstract must be short. make it as short as possible without cutting out essential information or doing violence to its accuracy
4. your abstract must be written in fluent, easy-to-read prose.
5. your abstract must be consistent in tone and emphases with the report paper, but it does not need to follow the arrangement, wording, or proportion of the original
6. your abstract should make the widest possible use of abbreviations and numerals, but it must not contain any tables or illustrations.

Ten Report Writing Pitfalls: How to Avoid Them-

1. Ignoring your audience: WHO, WHY, and HOW
2. Writing to impress: don't assume that a word familiar to you is easily recognized by your reader. your objective is that your reader comprehend your thoughts, and there should be a minimum of impediements to understanding
3. having more than one aim: you must define the specific audience and characterize the information. you should be able to state the specific purpose of your report in one sentence.
4. being inconsistent: not limited to measurements, but includes terms, equations, derivations, numbers, symbols, abbreviations, acronyms, hyphenation, capitalization, and punctuation.
5. overqualifying: most reports have too many modifiers.
6. not defining: common words are used in science with other meanings than their common ones and terms need to be defined.
7. misintroducing: introductions not only tell the sequence or plan of the report, but tell the what, how and why of the subject as well.
8. dazzling with data: the usual error occurs in supportive material that many engineers and scientists feel is unnecessary to give a report scientific importance
9. not highlighting: attention should be called to key elements needed for the understanding of your material
10. not rewriting: don't expect the draft of your report to be ready for final typing and reproduction without rewriting. once you have written your first draft (and the quicker you accomplish this the more time you will have to perfect the text), you are in a better position to analyze, tailor and refine the report as a whole.

• Talking point: do computers allow you to do more fine tuning at the beginning and as you go along rather than waiting until the very end? is this better or worse?

Harty p. 115-167

Traditionally, business and technical correspondence has taken two forms: the letter and the memo.

• email has recently been added: it has a myriad of issues that are still largely unsolved. The ease with which it can be transmitted has led some writers to become more casual (and sometimes careless and sloppy).
• letters or memos announce or reaffirm policies, confirm decisions and conversations, and send or request information

There is nothing wrong with form letters or memos, as long as they are appropriate to the given writing situation. The danger with them is that they can become a crutch that writers depend on in situations when they are inappropriate.

• a process approach will help determine when they are appropriate.

Making your correspondence get results: many progressive organizations train key people in the writing of readable, result-getting letters.

• each of us is basically interested in himself or herself: the best way to persuade your readers to your point of view is to show them that it will be worth their while to do so.
• the most powerful letters appeal to basic needs and emotions rather than to purely logical reasons.
• clear, to-the-point letters, written in mostly conversational language is being called for.
• orient the letter to the reader!
• Talking point: there are two letters on page 122. one is the less personal and "wrong" way and one is more personal and "right". but do you sacrifice concise writing for personal appeal??
• tone requirements vary from person to person and from one situation to another.
• "At best, writing is a poor substitute for talking. But the closer our writing comes to conversation, the better our exchange of ideas will be." p. 125
• contractions can make your writing more conversational; appropriate usage depends on how the contraction makes the sentence sound when it is read aloud.

"I have some bad news for you"

• Three guidelines: the successful manager is people-sensitive and able to emphasize with others, remember that bad news is best delivered face to face, remember that everyone values honesty and forthrightness, especially when being disappointed.
• indirect message of bad news uses the soft and gentle approach-buries the bad news in the middle of the letter or memo surrounded by positive expressions of appreciation: THANKS...BECAUSE...SORRY...THANKS.
• Talking point: is it worth sugarcoating a disappointing message from the writer's point of view? what about from the reader's? would it be better to just get it over with?
• the direct message is still courteous but gets right to the point and does not try to bury the bad news. THANKS...SORRY...BECAUSE...THANKS.

How to write better memos

• primary functions: informing people, nailing down responsibility and deadlines, establishing a record
• secondary functions: serving as a basis for formal reports, helping to bring people up-to-date, replacing personal contact, handling people who ignore your oral directions.
• a memo should answer three questions: what are the facts? what do they mean? what do we do now?
• parts of a memo: summary, conclusions and recommendations, introduction, statement of problem, proposed solution, and discussion.
• be understandable and brief, but not brusque, and get to the point. have personal, human approach, a well written memo should reflect diplomacy or political savvy.
• avoid writing memos that baffle people and avoid memo-itis.
• talking point: do we have email-itis?

How to use bottom-line writing in corporate communications:

• length of communication doesn't cause problems in corporate writing. a lack of efficiency in the organizational pattern used in these communications does.
• people organize messages backwards, putting their real purpose last. but people read frontwards and need to know the writer's purpose immediately.
• concern about the waste of productivity involved in such inefficient communications
• present information in order of its importance to the reader
• almost every sensitive social situation reinforces the wisdom of being circuitous, of not being direct. students learn in school that it's quantity over quality.

Email: presenting a professional image:

• active language is energetic and clear, while passive language weakens your writing and can confuse readers. active language is very important when you are giving instructions.
• Pointers for using active language: put the actor before the action; say who acted, not just what was done; when giving instructions, talk directly to readers.
• use abbreviations with caution
• cut out unnecessary words and use specific language
• long sentences are very hard to read, especially on a computer screen
• pronouns that do not clearly refer to a noun or another pronoun can confuse readers.

Potential Problem Statements

Option 1: High school seniors know that they must apply to college, but are frequently unaware of how to do so. They need to know how to apply easily and successfully without being stressed. The proposed guide will teach them tips for applying that will decrease stress.

Option 2: High school seniors would like to successfully apply to college with the least amount of stress. However, many students are unaware how to apply in an unstressful manner. The proposed manual will alleviate much of their stress by providing suggestions and tips.

Option 3: The college application process is often very confusing for high school seniors. This is unfortunate because it can cause unneeded stress that often makes their already busy schedules more hectic. The proposed manual will reduce the stress associated with the college application process through the introduction of strategies to make the process easier.

Problem Statements 9/18/08

What is a problem statement?

• what it is that you want to do. the very central piece in your document. outlines what it is that you want to do, what the current situation is, and how you are going to fix it.

three structures:

1. what they know, what they don't know, and how you will teach them what they don't know
2. want to be in an ideal situation with certain criteria, but in reality all of the criteria aren't fulfilled so they are in a different situation, make the reality more like the ideal by writing a specific document.
3. current situation, negative consequences, how to alleviate consequences.

the problem statement is like a commercial for your paper.

Project Proposal Draft

Introduction:
The college application process is often very confusing for the large number of high school seniors that apply yearly. This is unfortunate because it can create additional stress that frequently makes their already busy schedules more hectic. The proposed manual will reduce the stress associated with the college application process through the introduction of student-oriented strategies to make the process easier.
The first section of the guide will contain basic information regarding deadline/time management, essays, letters of recommendation, interviews, and confusing terminology. It will be written in an easy-to-read style that will keep the students’ interest. The second section will include information specific to the spotlight schools (Clemson University, College of Charleston, and University of South Carolina-Columbia). This section will include information regarding application requirements and deadlines, SAT/ACT ranges, AP policies, application fees, and how to apply to the each school’s honors program.
These sections will give students a better idea about how to apply to the spotlight colleges in South Carolina, as they will come away with a better understanding of the application process. An increased understanding will decrease student’s stress, while also demonstrating if that college is feasible. College admission offices may also be assisted by the guide, as they will have fewer questions from students.

Current Situation:
The college admissions process is getting more competitive and therefore more stressful for students. In fact, 65% of students surveyed by the Princeton Review feel high levels of stress about the college application process. This number is up 6 percentage points from last year’s survey (Zernike). College admissions officers are even aware of the stress students often feel during the application process. For example, the dean of admissions at MIT considers the stress a health risk for teenagers (Gamerman). The college application process is not just stressful for students; parents often report higher stress levels as they hope that their children gain admission into the best college possible. Parental involvement, and parental stress, only serves to increase the tension felt by students. It also is thought that applications produced by students under a great deal of stress could be less successful.
Despite the increased awareness of the problem students are faced with upon applying to college, relatively little research has been done on the topic. This lack of research only adds to the anxiety many students feel as they don’t have access to help and advice. Furthermore, most of the material dealing with the college application process is either geared towards parents, written by adults, or both. Consequently, there is a need for a how-to manual directed towards students that will alleviate the stress they feel.

Project Plan:
The product will be broken into two sections: general advice and an in-depth section on each of the three spotlight schools (Clemson University, University of South Carolina and College of Charleston). The presentation of the material will be in a user friendly format, possibly as a website or email newsletter. It will be written in an informal way and geared towards students, not parents.
The material covered in the general advice section will include deadline/time management, essays, letters of recommendation, interviews, and confusing terminology. Suggestions and advice will be given for each of the subsections listed above in an effort to make completing each step as easy and painless as possible for the student. In addition, timelines and checklists will be included for the student to use. The information in this section will be compiled from personal experiences, admissions officers’ advice and current literature on the subject.
The section on each spotlighted college will include specific information on application requirements and deadlines, SAT/ACT ranges, AP policies, application fees, and how to apply to the each school’s honors program. Links will also be provided to the colleges’ admission websites and, if permitted, contact information for admissions officers will be given. Information in this section will come directly from the college’s website and admissions material. Additional material may be gathered from sources such as the Princeton Review.

Qualifications:
The writers have successfully applied to more than one school, including the spotlight schools. We are able to write with a student’s perspective and have immediate access to admissions counselors. We will also use current materials written about our topic to reinforce our ideas. These outside sources will also give us more opinions.

Budget (timeline):
· Admissions counselors from the three spotlight schools will be contacted by Friday 19th with requests for information and advice.
· Specific information about applications for the spotlight schools will be gathered by Monday 22nd.
· Information will be completely compiled by the first week in October and writing will begin.
· Work on the presentation medium will begin as soon as first draft is complete. It should be finished by November 11th.

Conclusion:
One of the most stressful times during high school is the college application season, because many are unfamiliar with the college application process. There are guides for parents, but none, if few, for actual students. A guide to college applications for the three main South Carolina colleges is much needed, as it will decrease student’s stress. Our guide will contain two sections, the first of which will contain general information that can be applied to most colleges. This section will give students a better understanding of what they should be doing to gain admission. Another section will give detailed facts about each spotlight university, and together with the previous section, students will come away with comprehensive knowledge of how to apply to each spotlight college.
Additionally, the writers’ previous experience and their availability to information will allow for an inclusive guide. To ensure that the guide is understood by the audience, a student friendly format will be used. Another benefit includes an organized timeline that will allow room for reworking and editing.
Because of the previously mentioned strengths, our manual will be well written and easy to understand for the audience. The manual will reduce the students’ stress, while increasing their confidence.

Works Cited:
1. Ellen Gamerman (2005, September 17). Family -- Application Season: Beating College Stress; Movie night, anyone? Ellen Gamerman finds new ways families alleviate high-school anxiety. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p. P.24. Retrieved September 15, 2008, from Wall Street Journal database. (Document ID: 898321931).
2. Zernike, Kate. "Ease Up, Top Colleges Tell Stressed Applicants." The New York Times (Dec 7, 2000 pA1(L) col 02 (35 col): A1(L). General OneFile. Gale. Clemson University. 15 Sept. 2008 .

Dombrowski p. 1-37

Chapter 1: Nature of Ethics

broad new awareness among technical communicators of the ethical implications of their work.

• due in part to the recognition of many important ethical lapses in recent years involving communications about technology.
• rising concern among the general public about ethics in nearly every facet of our lives.

ethics involves making judgments about values.

increasingly the public is unwilling to allow scientists to decide unilaterally the desirability of scientific programs and activities.

values shape communication technology itself.

in information communication, ethical concerns are raised about issues of privacy, ownership of information, copyright, access, freedom of speech, personal and national security, and access to markets in other countries.

the previous view of ethics in technical communication involved relaying faithfully information between transmitter and receiver.

• now the situation is less cut-and-dry
• we have the responsibility to be familiar with and use the latest technologies of communication as well as with the technologies about which we communicate.
• the uses to which our information will likely be put, the range of possible readings of our documents, and the consequences of our communications at all levels of society beyond the immediate audience.

we need to consider systematically what guidelines can help us to satisfy our ethical responsibilities to ourselves and to others.

each of us is an ethical decision maker because the ethical burden falls on and must be borne by individual person.

• but one should not make ethical decisions alone as a radical individual accountable only to oneself. they should be made on the basis of some principle of responsibility that connects us all as human beings and as a society.

only when our deliberations are freely open to different voices can we legitimately say that we have arrived at truly ethical decisions.

assumptions in this text:

• ethics is problematic in several senses.
• ethics is both individual and social
• ethics is neither an entirely absolute nor an entirely relative matter.
• it would be irresponsible either to blindly accept or reject the authority of others in ethical matters.
• due to the social, situation-specific nature of ethical judgments, no single ethical theory or approach will always be best for all situations.

terminology:

• values refers to the intentions or ends that guide an action, which need not involve the same sense of careful responsibility that is connoted by ethics
• ethics usually involves values, but values need not always involve ethics.
• absolute: definite, unchanging, and inflexible, applying to any and all situations in exactly the same way.
• relative: changing in relation to circumstances.

Chapter 2: Survey of Ethics in Communication and Rhetoric

rhetoric means the use of reasoned arguments based on socially accepted values and presented to inform and persuade in order to accomplish some socially desirable action such as a policy decision.

persuasion means the willing, informed collective agreement of a critically thinking audience.

many contemporary thinkers consider science and technology to be value systems because they have not only criteria for establishing knowledge but also play important roles in society in settling disputes and because they are pursued for their own sakes.

Plato: ethical values come before any communication.

• because ethics is a matter of pleasing god, who can only be immortal and unchangeable, ethics must also be unchangeable and not subject to contingencies.
• ethics were authoritarian because only the brightest, most sensitive, and most conscientious people could have a clear perception of the will of god. these people should lead while the rest follow. communication is therefore a largely one-way affair.
• good communication first and foremost must be ethical and deal only with what is true, good and right. we should learn what is right before we begin communicating to ensure that we say only what is right.

Socrates: the communication between competing sides on a controversial matter reveals the proper values and the right course of action

• our innate burden is to continually reflect on and critically examine all aspects of our lives because only through this conscientious reflection can we determine what is right for us to do.
• insisted on doing the right thing no matter what the consequences.
• ethics is a matter of pleasing god-insisted on following his conscience as led by the will of god, regardless of what any of the falliable people around him happened to think he should do.
• ethical behavior requires active social involvement

Aristotle: ethics ultimately stemmed from the essential order of things, in practical affairs the ethical course of action had to be determined in a debate.

• two categories of knowledge: certain and uncertain. rhetoric deals with uncertain knowledge and science deals with certain knowledge.

Sophists: the communication act can alter our ethical values because there is no absolute basis for ethics.

• claimed to have the power through their rhetorical craft to make the weaker case appear the stronger, or the worse case seem the better.
• there are no absolutes and that communication is immensely powerful precisely because it shapes minds, hearts, values and decisions.
• values are relative because they depend on circumstances-because cultures differ as to what is true, right, and good, we must take any and all of these values as equally valid.
• social constructionism is the point of view that all knowledge is only a construct deriving from its social context.
• all we have is communication among ourselves about what to think, believe, and do, and we should make the most of this.
• many of the famous philosophical notions attributed to Plato and Aristotle derived from intellectual investigations begun by sophists.
• perhaps the most important activity attributed to the sophists is debate itself.
• the learning of rhetorical skills is in no way connected with the learning of ethical values.

recently rhetoric has received a negative connotation.

Hegel:

• values were arrived at socially, often by forces that were working to preserve only their own self-interest in what amounted to power plays.
• asserted the powerful role of communication itself in the overall social process whereby values are proposed, endorsed, and propagated.
• famous as a modern "rehabilitator" of the sophists.

Perelman:

• explored the social contingency of values and the fundamental role of rhetoric in establishing values.
• our language is our values

Burke:

• showed the fundamentally social nature of all language use and the power of langugae to negotiate knowledge and value judgments through rhetoric.
• also known as a symbolic interactionist.

Weaver:

• all language use inescapably involves expressing some values, whether implicitly or explicitly.
• values serve as the foundation for rhetoric, giving it the substance toward which the audience is persuaded.
• concerned about the scientific and technological mindset b/c it specifically distances itself from values. encourages passivity and obscures the necessity for social discourse about topics such as opinions and goals.

Recent Developments:

• notion that science and technology represent value systems has flowered into an entire subfield within rhetoric studies, known as rhetoric of science, with a parallel rhetoric of technology just now emerging.
• values and rhetoric are related to power and social dominance within a culture-the language of the privileged class perpetuates itself while it discounts anything different. it values what it chooses to recognize while ignoring anything different.
• the question of what should count as knowledge figures prominently in the thinking of many critical theorists in both the US and Europe-when we think of knowledge we assume that it must be technical or scientific. there are simply no absolute, independent criteria for deciding such knowledge other than rational argumentation among earnest, well-intentioned participants. consensus is our only standard on such matters, and language is the medium that makes consensus possible.

Project Proposal

Executive Summary

Introduction

Body

• current situation: we need to find some sort of data that highlights how much of a problem this is for students. how many of them know what they are doing/how successful they are, etc.
• project plan: talk to admissions counselors at three major public universities in SC: Clemson, USC, and College of Charleston. also we'll talk to students who have applied to the three schools and get any helpful tips from them. our advice as well will be included. talk to high school guidence counselors about what they see from their side. we could use college admissions websites. information will be presented in an interactive power point/video cd. Topics: deadline/time management, essay advice, how to pick a teacher to write recommendation letter, tips for SAT/ACT, interview tips, cost, school requirements,
• qualification: we have applied successfully to more than one school, we are able to write from a student's perspective and have access to the different resources we're going to use.
• budget/timeline:

Conclusion

Pages 49-115 (Harty)

Introduction:

Writers should remember their readers and:

• write everything as clearly, straightforwardly, and simply as possible
• write in a manner or style they would be comfortable speaking

Jargon: technical language unique to a profession or occupation

Gobbledygook: mindless gibberish akin to double talk and characterized by pretentiousness.

Legalese: overreliance on legal terminology when plain english will serve the reader and writer as well.

Gobbledygook:

the longer word may carry the meaning better, but not because it is longer

it is important to remember that human communication involves listeners AND speakers

Writing in your job:

four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.

use active verbs and avoid "concept nouns"

a simple style is the result of hard work and hard thinking, not the result of a simple mind.

using "I" can warm up any document or institution.

be yourself when you write.

The Plain English Revolution:

What is it?- Its aim is to make functional documents function. If a consumer is expected to abide by a formal document, then the consumer must be able to understand it.

34 states have laws or regulations setting standards for clear language in insurance policies; law firms are trying to train young lawyers in clear legal drafting.

some lawyers are using "simple" language to misinform and take advantage of consumers. (pg. 76)

A Critic of plain language misses the mark:

Critics claim that lawyers can't use simple language for two reasons:

• they have an economic interest in confusing clients
• they deal with abstractions and can't use down-to-earth language

International Communication and Language:

communication is about what words mean in the dictionary and how they are put together.

the way we communicate may be mystifying to people from other cultures, even though WE believe we have made ourselves clear.

each learned language gives you a new perspective on the world. if you work with people not from your native culture, you must be able to shift from your "native" perceptions, because language affects how you think.

Talking Points:

• what can be done to prevent lawyers from taking advantage of consumers through simple language?
• is the tendency to avoid simple language taught to us as children? or do we learn it as we get older?
• are we taught to write formally and impersonally rather than as ourselves?

Potential Project

I have been thinking that I would really like doing a how-to manual on how to apply to college. It's a pretty hard thing to do especially when students are balancing school, friends, extracurriculars and often a job in addition to college applications. Most applications have multiple parts and many forms involved that have to be filled out by various people at varying points in the school year. If a student doesn't have a really involved guidance counselor, this process can be very stressful and hard to manage alone. This is especially the case if the student in question is the oldest in the family and doesn't have anyone to ask for advice.

PAFEO Analysis-

• P: the purpose of this work would be to give hints, tips and advice to high school juniors/seniors embarking on the college application process. Topics from organization and deadline management to admission essay construction and revision would be covered.
• A: the audience would be high school students although some material may be included for parents as well (perhaps as an appendix of some sort). The material will be written with the assumption that the student has not gone through the admissions process before and has little access to help from those who have (i.e. a student who is the first in the family to attend college-the oldest sibling)
• F: the format of the guide will be fun yet informative. Written in relatively casual terminology, the guide will use a lot of bullets and helpful checklists to ensure that the material is understood by the reader.
• E: testimonials will be solicited from both students who have gone through the college admissions process successfully and unsuccessfully as well as admissions officers. The advice and hints collected from these sources will be included as well as the authors opinions.
• O: there are a few different options for the organization of this guide. It could be organized in a chronological manner with information being given in the order it will be used. It could also be broken up by topics such as letters of recommendation, essays, etc. The manner of organization will be chosen in a way that makes the material the easiest to understand and put to use.

Other thoughts from class feedback: narrow it down to one state, region or school. We need to figure out the best way to reach our target audience (websites, facebook/myspace, videos, etc.) Also work in AP policies. Possibly use the common application as the example application.

Brainstorming from 8/28

1) College Late Night Cookbook- limited ingredients; technical aspects--> table of contents, intro, technical book format
2) Gameday Traditions in Clemson- insiders guide to being a fan, website directed to visitors and fans, pictures, ritualistic lists, from sunrise til sundown
3) Business Plan- annual report, contact small company volunteer some of their reports
4) Medical Procedures- type of writing they do in their everyday work, interview a physician, differences in fellowships and residency programs within the Medical profession, coswt analysis
5) Profession Guide- from an undergraduate perspective, how to jump through the correct "hoops" to get into graduate school or obtain a particular job out of college, road map of sorts, make a film or website
6) Technical Research Documents- medical journals, analysis, taxes, will, investment documents
7) Non-Profit Organization- what needs they may have, link up, some sort of survey report whether their information is being correctly communicated to their audience
8) "How to" document- any genre, sports, outdoor activities, depending on your interests, rules of Golf, how to read music, how to learn guitar, how to computer software, how to fly fish, incorporate a video, how to apply to Medical school and undergraduate programs, how to create a gaming comp., how to backpack through Europe, how to build an investment portfolio, good places to hike in and around Clemson, start off your finances after college, where and why to invest
9) Evaluations of Different Schools Admission Materials- from a student's perspectives
10) Legal Documentation- how to, process behind, talk to Lawyers
11) Resume Building- video resume, more than just a word document, taking advantage of media technology, broaden your appeal
12) Off Campus Housing Advertising- pros and cons, market analysis
13) Rate My Professor- more in depth, what professors to take in order to improve the students' learning
14) Medical Research- genetics
15) Evaluation of Medical Product Reviews-
16) Guide to Studying Abroad- different steps, etc. to making it work financially, academically and socially, create a website

Other URLs

http://clemsontechwriting.blogspot.com
http://sharkey314.blogspot.com
http://myenglish314.blogspot.com
http://brennan314.blogspot.com
http://techwriting314ryan.blogspot.com
http://english314annadimitri.blogspot.com
http://minermementoes.blogspot.com
http://myENGLH314.blogspot.com
http://brittaj.blogspot.com