Problem Description and Research Assignment (15%)
+ Peer Review of Memo/Annotated Bibliography (5%)
This is a Technical Writing Assignment:
Like your previous assignment this assignment has multiple deadline and parts:
Part 1: Peer Review Portion of Assignment (5%):
Step 1: Write your rough draft of the assignment and then email it to your team no later than on March 2nd.
Step 2: Complete the Peer Review for your partner’s assignment (see e-class for peer review chart). Then submit your peer review to e-class: by end of day on Mar. 5th (Remember to return your feedback to your partner as well). NOTE: there is no grace period for the Peer Review portion of the assignment.
Part 2: Problem Description Memo (15%)
Part 3: Revise your work, taking the feedback of your partner into account. Then submit the final draft to e-class no later than end of day March 12th.
Optional Grace Period of 48 hours extension for Final submission of the problem description memo only. You do not need any further approval from me and there will be no late penalty applied. If you decide to take this option to submit the assignment late, no written feedback will be provided on the assignment. This means that you can choose to submit the assignment up to end of day March 14th.
Email policy regarding assignments: Last minute emails about assignments reflect that you have started the assignment too late. To ensure that all students master the type of professionalism that this course is training you to master, I will only respond to emails regarding assignments up to 48 hours before the deadline.
The fourth assignment asks you to write two documents: a problem description memo and an annotated list of references.
This technical writing assignment will provide the necessary background context and research for the next Technical Writing Assignment which will take the form of a Feasibility or Recommendation Report.
To come up with a good topic for your problem statement and annotated list of references, you may want to think ahead to your eventual feasibility or recommendation report. I have also provided some examples near the end of the lecture recording in Part 2.
We will be learning about recommendation reports and feasibility studies later in the course but if you wish to scan ahead you can refer to this reference:
https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/technicalwriting/chapter/longreports/
For this first assignment, concentrate on the preliminary stages of the project: for this first step you want to focus on writing the problem statement in the memo format and the annotated list of references.
For this proposal assignment, you will also learn, practice and apply the following:
PART 1: PROBLEM DESCRIPTION MEMO
Your problem description needs to be written in the Memo genre form. The Memo should be 2-3 pages and needs to follow the APA formatting style.
Please refer to this week’s lecture where I covered Memos.
You may also refer to this additional resource if you need more information on Memos:
https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/technicalwriting/chapter/correspondence/
Cover the following points in your problem description Memo:
PART 2: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
See Purdue OWL for information on the APA format for the list of references.
An annotated list of references describes or evaluates the subject and scope of several research sources (scholarly articles, magazine articles, newspaper reports, book chapters, etc.) that you think will be useful for your recommendation report.
Use APA format for the list of references. Cite at least five current articles (nothing older than three years) that reflect a range of sources. The annotations should include at least four sentences. The content of the four sentences is described below. You’ll find an example after the description.
THE 4-SENTENCE PATTERN OF ANNOTATION
SAMPLE APA CITATION AND ANNOTATION
Trudeau, P. E. (1992, September). “Trudeau speaks out”. Maclean’s, 22-26.
[SENTENCE 1] Former Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, argues against Quebec’s demands for the Charlottetown accord. [SENTENCE 2] He uses examples from past Québécois negotiations to illustrate his claims that Quebec uses guilt tactics and blackmail to get Canada to agree to its demands. [SENTENCE 3] Trudeau paints a less than favorable view of Quebec’s history to create sympathy for the Canadian government’s position on the Charlottetown accord. [SENTENCE 4] Maclean’s is a moderate Canadian news magazine (like Time in the U.S.) whose readers are generally high school and/or college-educated and reasonably informed about national events; the readers will recognize Trudeau’s authority as former prime minister of Canada, and many will automatically accept his view on the Charlottetown accord because of his past position.
Here is an additional resource for annotated bibliographies:
http://guides.library.cornell.edu/annotatedbibliography
Problem Description and Research Assignment REVISION CHECKLIST
For your peer review, go over the following points. You want to be certain that you are clear on each of these points as you revise your problem statement and annotated list of references and then submit your final copy.
As you review your submission as well as your partner’s, ask these questions?
ABOUT YOUR TOPIC
About Your Problem Description and Research Assignment
EVALUATIVE CRITERIA FOR PROBLEM DESCRIPTION MEMO
The problem statement and annotated list of references builds on the skills you’ve already been developing in our course. As always be mindful of: topic, audience, purpose, organization, and document design skills
Evaluation will be based on the following three components:
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