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• Course Goals

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• Target Audience Interview

• Secondary Research

• Annotated Bibliography

• Literature Review

• Primary Research

• Recommendation Report

• The Oral Presentation

History of W231: Professional Writing Skills

W231 was designed by Barbara Cambridge at Indiana University Bloomington and introduced at IUPUI more than 16 years ago. Dr. Cambridge led a group of associate faculty members in designing a W231 curriculum to fit the needs of IUPUI students and the English Department. Over the years, the course was revised based on feedback from instructors and students. Originally oriented to business writing, the course offered students an alternative to the only other second-level writing course, which was then literature-based.

As more specialized business writing courses became available, W231 developed into more of a research course. The research focused on applied topics of the students' choice, both to build on their interests and to recognize the quite diverse group of students who take the course. For several years special meetings were held each year to which W231 students in every section were invited to hear community members talk about their writing. Students learned about the ways in which the skills they were practicing and learning would be useful in their future careers.

At different points in its evolution, W231's student population changed as well as increased. When the School of Science decided to stipulate which writing courses would fulfill a second-semester writing requirement, certain departments determined that they would accept either W231 or W132. W231 currently fulfills the requirement for a second writing course in several schools: Allied Health, Physical Education, Public and Environmental Affairs, and Social Work, among others. In addition, English writing majors often take the course. People from the community who contact IUPUI about which course to take to renew or develop their writing skills often decide on W231. Therefore, the business and technical writing orientation of W231 is now more appropriately expressed as writing outside the academy, or writing in nonacademic, professional settings. With ten or more sections of the course offered each semester, we serve not only a larger but a much more diversified set of disciplines now than in the past.

When W231 was first offered in the department, it wasn't necessarily considered as a course to follow W131. When faculty realized that the courses needed to be better coordinated, the process and not just the products of writing became a more central focus in W231. Instead of using a group of associate faculty who taught only or primarily W231, faculty who regularly taught W131 were encouraged to teach W231. This move integrated the course more closely into a planned writing program (Barbara Cambridge, personal communication, July 1998).

As the English Department grew, more writing courses were offered, including W290, Writing in the Arts and Sciences; W331 and W355, upper-level business and administrative writing courses; W233, Intermediate Expository Writing; and of course, W132, a roughly parallel course that focuses on academic research methods and argument to prepare students for writing in the academy. In addition, a 200-level business-writing course (X204) is offered in the School of Business, and Purdue offers technical writing courses at the 200 and 300 levels.

The W231 curriculum was revised in 1990 to incorporate assignments that reflected a process-centered approach, enabling students to practice and broaden the application of composing strategies from essays written in earlier courses to correspondence and reports in W231. The revision also extended the collaborative model of instruction to include cooperative writing. A major revision in 1994 (completed by former course coordinator Jan Blough) reflected a move from a long end-of-project report that analyzed all the research findings, to two shorter reports, one which analyzed the problem and reviewed the literature, and one which interpreted and applied the primary research findings.

Through all of these changes, W231 maintained its same basic design: a research-based course that requires students to write workplace documents within the framework of a limited class-based project, followed by an extensive, original, community-based one. Based on a 1996 student survey, Julie Freeman revised the curriculum again in 1999, and the resulting course guidelines reflected a more intentional use of repetition to build on skills developed in previous assignments. In coordination with other core course curricula, the guidelines called for two portfolios instead of one. The proposal assignment was replaced by two short progress reports, one describing the problem selected for investigation and the secondary research procedures, the second delineating the primary research methodology. The problem analysis report was replaced by a literature review created for the target audience. The Action Plan became the Recommendation Report, which incorporated visual aids. An oral presentation was also added to the curriculum. And finally, the portfolio transmittal memo was written as a Performance Review.

The curriculum underwent another major adjustment during the summer of 2002 based on Julie Freeman and Susanmarie Harrington's experiences teaching a pilot version of W231 during the spring semester 2002. The pilot was initiated because of high DWF rates and other concerns about the burdensome workload of the curriculum and complications resulting from first-year students working with real-world clients. The course experienced high DWF rates for years, and although these figures recently decreased along with the higher admission standards, the changing demographics of the IUPUI student population has resulted in younger, more inexperienced students taking W231, often earlier in their college careers. The goal, then, was to create a new course in which smaller cases and team projects make the workload more manageable. We aimed to meet that goal with the revised curriculum presented in 2003. The DWF rates fell dramatically after the introduction of the team project, and they have stabilized at a satisfactory level.

As we have continued to work on facilitating the development of effective teamwork strategies, critical thinking skills, careful research methods, and the clear writing that is so essential in all professional settings, minor changes and additions have been made to the W231 curriculum, as reflected in this 2006 version. Developments in technology have transformed the way information is obtained, analyzed, and communicated in professional communities today and will no doubt continue to impact future versions of the W231 curriculum.

LOGISTICS

Currently all sections of W231 meeting twice a week are scheduled in Cavanaugh Hall's computer classrooms for one class session per week. (Once-a-week classes may use the computer rooms at will.) Traditional classrooms are "smart" classrooms (technologically enhanced), providing the instructor with a networked computer, projector, and DVD player. To use the equipment, instructors must request a new Crestron passcode from Classroom Services every semester at https://falcon.iu.edu/in/uits/itr/media_req.html .

TEXTBOOK

Faculty may choose one of the following two books:

Oliu, W. E., Brusaw, C. T. & Alred, G. J. (2004). Writing that works: communicating effectively on the job. (8th ed.). New York: Bedford St. Martin's.

Writing that Works reflects an orientation to professional writing closely aligned with the IUPUI Writing Program's philosophy and goals. The related website, which offers student and instructor resources and a collaborative network, is located at http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/writingthatworks

Oliu, W.E., Brusaw, C. T. & Alred, G. J. (2006). The Business writer's handbook. (8th ed.). New York: Bedford St. Martin's.

The Business Writer's Handbook offers a brief approach to the topics covered in Writing that Works. The entries are alphabetically arranged in the spiral-bound book, which makes it a great reference for students. A companion website is available at http://bedfordstmartins.com/alredbus

OTHER IMPORTANT RESOURCES

W231 Faculty Development And Resources Website. The course coordinator maintains a resources site for W231 faculty, located at http://www.iupui.edu/~cyber231/classresources/course.htm. To access the site, enter the user id "instructor" and the password "w231" (case sensitive.) The W231 Faculty Development and Resources website contains assignment overviews, sample documents, assessment forms, and examples of student handouts in Word format. Be sure to double-check page numbers provided on all materials, as some of the documents were created before the adoption of the most recent editions of the textbook or handbook.
The website is updated frequently with new assignments and other contributions from faculty. As of this writing, the website contains pages on the following topics:

• APA Resources
• Assessment
• Annotated Bibliography & Literature Review
• Collaboration & Teamwork
• Correspondence
• Designing, Revising & Editing
• Importance of Professional Writing
• Introductory Projects
• Library Research
• Performance Review
• Primary Research
• Project Guidelines
• Proposals
• Recommendation Report
• Sample Syllabi
• Team Presentation
• Writing Resources

Group Work and Collaborative Writing by Brian Conner and John Vohs. To prepare students for collaborative work, most instructors rely heavily on this online collaborative writing handbook, available at http://trc.ucdavis.edu/trc/papers/vohs/ and as a text document on the W231 faculty website.

Faculty Listserv. The Writing program maintains a W231 faculty listserv, W231-L@listserv.iupui.edu. To be added, contact us at 274-3824 or 274-0092

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The curriculum presented here is based in part on the former curriculum guide written by Jan Blough. I would like to thank her for all her hard work and many contributions to W231. I also thank Vicki Hale, Susanmarie Harrington and Mary Sauer for reviewing drafts and making contributions to this curriculum. Finally, thanks to all the instrucotrs who have made W231 such a valuable course for IUPUI students.

CURRICULUM OVERVIEW

Professional Writing Skills (W231) is a Writing Program course that fulfills a portion of the general education requirements for students in the Schools of Science, Public and Environmental Affairs, Education, Allied Health, Social Work, and Physical Education, among others. It also carries elective credit under the English Major. With a grade of C or better in W131/W140 (or comparable transfer credit) as a prerequisite, students are introduced to writing in nonacademic settings, particularly report writing. W231 focuses on the development of research skills that will be of value not only in the work place, but also in upper-level courses in the student's major.

During the first part of the semester, students complete three writing assignments, each graded individually. These assignments introduce students to the importance and nature of workplace writing, to the types of workplace correspondence, and to research done on the job.

The rest of the semester focuses on the applied research project, which allows students to put the writing principles learned in the first part of the course into practice by addressing a problem in a local business or organizational setting. Writing in a "real-world" situation better prepares students for the type of problems they will encounter when writing on the job. The project involves applied research, emphasizing information retrieval skills, analysis, interpretation, and application of findings. In addition, the project is done in collaborative teams, allowing students to develop expertise as team players. Increasing experience in team dynamics is an important qualification for personal growth and advancement in many careers. Finally, the experience and skills gained as students undertake the research project will provide the foundation for upper-level course work.

In the research project, students work in teams to address a single, significant problem that currently exists within a local, professional community and for which alternative solutions are possible. They choose their topics by contemplating their areas of interest, such as their majors, jobs, and communities. After forming teams, selecting a problem and the local organization their project will target, they conduct secondary and primary research to find a solution. Sequenced to promote student success, the written assignments include proposals, progress reports, an annotated bibliography, a literature review, a primary research instrument, a recommendation report, and PowerPointl presentation. Instructors offer preliminary feedback to each major component as teams develop the final recommendation report, which is submitted for a team grade. Some instructors grade individual components, such as parts of the team's annotated bibliography and literate review, to help ensure equitable distribution of the team's work and timely submission of assignments.

COURSE GOALS

Students' work is assessed based on the degree to which it fulfills the W231 course objectives, which support the IUPUI Principles for Undergraduate Learning, particularly communication and critical thinking skills. (See http://www.universitycollege.iupui.edu//UL/Principles.htm). Instructors are encouraged to explain the connections between the PULs and the course goals early in the semester.

Students successfully completing W231 will have the ability to

• Determine the appropriate content, format, and style for creating effective professional documents.
• Adapt writing to different situations, audiences, and purposes.
• Organize documents clearly and effectively for the intended audience.
• Develop teamwork skills by collaborating effectively in teams.
• Develop a process of inquiry, posing focused research questions and strategies.
• Gather, evaluate, interpret, and apply information accurately, logically, and ethically to produce reliable professional documents.
• Produce usable, accessible, well-designed documents.
• Exhibit a clear, concise writing style.

Technology Skills

In W231, students also learn or enhance their skills in the following technologies:

• word processing
• electronic communication and collaboration
• file transfer
• file storage
• Word templates
• advanced document design strategies
• charts and tables in Word
• track changes in Word
• library research strategies using electronic indexes and databases
• Web searching strategies
• Oncourse tools and features
• PowerPoint basics
  
  

Consider introducing the course by projecting a flow chart that shows how the assignments fit together. Discuss how the assignments will introduce students to various document formats and research strategies, and how completing the assignments will help them achieve course goals. Relate the skills developed in W231 to the IUPUI Principles of Undergraduate Learning, and explain how they will prove valuable in college and career.

ASSESSMENT

Students will take their writing through a recursive process of exploration, drafting, peer response, revision, instructor response, and further revising and editing as needed. Written comments, perhaps in combination with a checklist, are given in response to each assignment that will be submitted for a grade.

Instructors may wish to divide the team project into two phases. The Phase One folder, containing the team proposal, target audience interview guide, annotated bibliography, grid, and progress report, is typically worth 10% of the grade, while the final project folder contains the recommendation report and PowerPoint slides and is worth 40%. (See also "assembling the Team Applied Research Project folder" on p. 44) Instructors use the W231 grading rubric (see W231 website) to assess final project folders, meeting during finals week to read reports representative of each grade category as well as those considered problematic.

Determining Assignment Percentages

Assignment One * : 10%

Assignment Two * : 10%

Preliminary Proposal * : 5%

Annotated Bibliography * : 5%

Literature review section(s) * : 10%

Team Project Phase One Folder : 10%

Team Project final Folder & Presentation : 40%

Performance Review * : 10%

TOTAL : 100%

*DENOTES INDIVIDUAL GRADE

Awarding Points for Contributions, Homework, and Class Activities

W231 instructors may elect to award up to 10% of the course grade based on attendance, homework, or other student contributions. They may choose from among the many exercises at the end of the textbook chapters and/or set up Oncourse discussion forums about concepts or sample documents, and assign "Contributions Points" for completion of each. For example, instructors might award 5 points for completion of each homework assignment, with one due each week for a total of 75 points. Once set up, Oncourse gradebook will calculate the grade for Contributions.

Instructors should explain the criteria for team project topics very early, so students can brainstorm ideas throughout the first weeks of the semester. As the sample schedule below suggests, approximately three or four weeks should be allowed for the early projects, with the second individual project overlapping the initial phase of the team project.

SUGGESTED ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE

Please see the W231 Faculty Development and Resources website for a sample syllabus, detailed assignment schedule, and lessons plans.

INTRODUCTORY ASSIGNMENTS

Early in the course students are introduced to the importance and nature of nonacademic writing. Students are usually more accustomed to writing for teachers who will grade their work than for readers who need their information. W231 teaches students that workplace communication involves treating writing as a social and rhetorical action to meet the needs of employers, coworkers, customers, and clients, and is often a problem-solving activity. Workplace writers must consider the rhetorical and technical options for solving those problems, and they must produce documents that are clear, strategically organized, and carefully designed with readers' needs in mind.

To help students make the transition from their previous writing experiences to workplace writing, they might be asked to compare and contrast academic writing and professional writing, considering the purpose, audience, language, level of detail, and design features of each. A Venn diagram works well for this class activity, which is best done very early in the semester.

Instructors are encouraged to assign one project focused on types of workplace correspondence and one project on professional writing and problem-solving. The two most commonly assigned assignments are presented here as assignment guidelines directed to students. (You may also access them on the website for printing.)

Please note: Page numbers are not provided in this curriculum guide due to the frequent publishing of new editions.

INTERVIEW PROJECT ON PROBLEM-SOLVING AT LOCAL BUSINESSES

Objectives

• To reinforce basic rhetorical principles involving professional writing
• To introduce a common research skill: interviewing.
• To introduce essential skills for writing professional documents, especially analysis and synthesis of information, both of which will be required later in the course.
• To introduce problem-solving as a distinctive feature of workplace writing
  

This assignment gives you the opportunity to speak with professionals to learn about problem-solving in the workplace, with an emphasis on the role of research and writing in solving workplace problems. Although the project will be a combination of individual and group work, you will be graded individually.

To prepare for this assignment, please read the textbook pages on interviewing for information and then begin the project, which consists of the following three parts:

Part One: Interview Guide (produced collaboratively)

You will select someone to interview from one of the following categories of businesses or organizations. We will form teams based on the categories. Everyone on each team will interview someone from the same category, asking the same questions.

Category One: Nonprofit organizations
Category Two: Small businesses
Category Three: Large businesses

Criteria for the interviewee: The interviewee must be involved in some level of the planning and problem-solving aspects of the business or organization. Although the interviewee does not necessarily have to be in management, he or she must have firsthand experience dealing with the issues you will focus on in your interview. The person must also be accessible; in other words, he or she must be willing to be interviewed and must be available for an interview within the time frame of the assignment.

Brainstorming interviewees: Start by making a list of organizations with which you have some connection (for example, perhaps a family member or a friend is an employee or former employee of a local business or organization, or perhaps someone within your own organization or business would fit the criteria). Next, expand your list to include other local organizations that might be interesting to interview.

Prepare an interview guide: Your team should work together to create an interview guide for yourselves as interviewers. The interview guide prepares you to conduct the interview and serves as a record of the interview. The guide should include the following:

At the top:

• The name and title or area of expertise of your interviewee and the company name
• The date, time, and location of the interview
• The interviewee's address
• A statement of purpose-a 1-2 sentence explanation of your purpose for conducting the interview

In the body:

A list of 10-15 open ended logically sequenced interview questions (including possible follow-up questions). Please include the 8 questions listed below at some point in the guide (you may rephrase these if you wish, to better suit your audience).

Questions to ask about the organization's purpose:

1. What is your organization's purpose?

2. What are its goals?" (You're trying to find out what they do, what they sell, what service they provide, or, in the case of a nonprofit organization, what social or community-based needs they address.)

For example

Questions about writing:

3. Approximately how much time do you spend on work-related writing each week?
4. What types of documents do you write, and for whom?

Questions about problem solving:

5. What aspects of the organization do its leaders seek to improve? What sorts of problems do you typically encounter?
6. About how much time do you spend each week solving problems of various kinds?
7. What approaches or strategies guide you or your organization as you attempt to solve the problems you face? Do you have a problem-solving strategy or system?
8. What role does writing play in the problem-solving process?

Final required question:

9. Is your organization (or business) experiencing any problems that I could address in my upcoming research project for my professional writing class?

Your team should brainstorm and come up with several more questions that might illuminate how they do business, with an emphasis on how they function effectively as a business or nonprofit. Consider areas such as the following:

• Methods of communicating with their constituency (their audience).
• Impact of technology.
• Recruitment, training, or retention of staff (volunteer or paid).
• Marketing of their services or products.
• Approaches to innovation.

Sequence your questions in a logical order, moving from the general to the specific, with related questions grouped together. Make sure the questions are clear and concise.

Your group's interview guide must be instructor-approved. Each student will then create a separate copy of the guide, with a heading adapted to his or her own interviewee. Be sure to identify the interviewee's company/organization and job title/position. Leave space on the guide after each question for note-taking during the interview.

Then, schedule and conduct interviews. Take careful notes and if possible, tape record each session for reference. (Be sure to ask permission to tape record the interview.) Face-to-face interviews are preferred, but phone call or email interviews are acceptable.

Part Two: Memo Sharing Results (produced individually)

Step One: When you have completed your interview, share the results with your team members by typing in the responses to the questions on the interview guide and posting your completed guide in your team's Group Space (under In Touch.)

Step Two: Your team will then collaborate on a grid to help you synthesize all your findings. Create subjects for the grid by using short phrases or questions drawn from categories of interview questions.
Step Three: Based on what you've learned, you will then compose a two- or three-page memo, addressed to the class* (see below), which serves as a short report summarizing the conclusions you have drawn based on all the interviews conducted by your team members.

Like all memos, this memo should have

• an accurate and interesting subject line (NOT the name of the assignment).
• an introduction that states the memo's purpose and previews its contents.
• headings to organize the contents.
• a clear sense of audience and purpose. Make sure the memo would make sense to outside readers; i.e., those who are unfamiliar with the assignment or research method used to complete it.

How to organize the body of the memo:

This memo should not merely report the answers to each question you asked on the guide, nor should it merely report what one interviewee said, then the next, then the next. You will organize your memo by subject, not by interviewee or by question. Use the subjects listed on your team's grid to create headings for the memo. Under each heading, analyze and synthesize the findings (results of the interviews) and explain their significance. Are all businesses/organizations researched alike in each of the areas? If not, how are they different? What seems to be the most significant information in each of the subject areas? Explain how the organizations compare and contrast in the various areas you investigated.

Important: Although you will be working from the grid to determine how to organize the memo, be careful to go beyond just listing what each interviewee said, one after the other. Effective synthesis will not result in monotonous "list-like" language, but will instead produce coherent language, complete with transitions to show the relationship between the sources and to connect the ideas logically and clearly. If you do not understand what is meant by this, be sure to ask; listing disparate pieces of information one after another will negatively affect the entire memo.

The memo should end with a brief paragraph containing some conclusions you have drawn about the subject overall; this will bring the memo to a sense of closure.

Refer to the discussion of memos in your textbook for help with this assignment. I will look for depth of information, specific details, thoughtful analysis and smooth synthesis of the results of the interviews, as well as overall effective memo-writing as I grade these memos.

Part Three: Thank You Letter (produced individually)

As soon as possible after the interview, you will follow up with a thank you letter. Each team member will compose a letter to his/her interviewee. Although I expect you to actually send your letter, make any necessary changes based on my feedback before you mail it.

Format:

A sample thank you letter is found under Tools under Formats ("example of a letter with no company letterhead"). The handbook explains how to space the elements of the letter. With shorter letters, you will want to adjust the horizontal placement of your return and inside address to achieve a balanced page. Please follow these guidelines carefully, making sure your letter has the proper heading-your return address and the date, but not your name-the correct inside address, salutation, complimentary closing, and signature.

Content:

Begin by thanking your interviewee in a very brief opening paragraph. The middle paragraph should include a reference to specific information gained through the interview that you found particularly helpful or insightful. The third and final paragraph should restate your appreciation and possibly provide contact information if further contact is expected. OR, if you think you may be contacting him or her about the upcoming team project, you might allude to that.

Please submit the project in your folder on the date indicated in your syllabus. Include

• the interview guide with your interviewee's name, position, and responses added
• the individually produced memo report, synthesizing all your group's findings
• your individually produced thank you letter to your interviewee
• completed peer review form
• your team's grid

Source: Adapted from an assignment created by Gail Bennett, IUPUI.

CORRESPONDENCE CASES

Objectives

• To build knowledge of professional writing
• To learn basic rhetorical principles of letters and memos
• To help you adapt writing to different situations, audiences, and purposes
• To expand document design skills
• To organize documents according to perceived audience reaction
• To learn appropriate responses to various types of correspondence
• To introduce the concept of collaboration

In order to complete this assignment successfully, you MUST complete the assigned readings as listed on the syllabus! In addition, refer to the pages on complaint letters and inquiries and responses.

Directions: Create a piece of correspondence in response to each of the two cases below. Use the appropriate format and organizational strategy based on the situation for writing.

(Instructors may substitute cases of their choosing.)

Case One: Remember Me? Request for a Recommendation Letter (letter of inquiry)

Your task: Write to your former employer, asking whether he or she would be willing to write a letter of recommendation on your behalf to a potential employer. (As an alternative, write to an imagined former employer, Mr. Montoya, Investors Plus, at 4124 Beaumont Blvd., San Antonio, TX 78920.) You may "invent" details if needed, whether you are writing to an actual former employer or the fictitious one.

Help from the textbook: Be sure to follow the organizational pattern you think is most appropriate based on your assigned textbook reading, and be prepared to explain your choices.

The situation: You are applying for a job similar to one you held before. Your former employer knows something of your abilities and would probably be willing to comment on your qualifications for the new job. However, if it's been a while since you worked for this person, your former employer may know relatively little about your more recent accomplishments and aspirations, such as unique work or educational experiences. You will want to refresh his or her memory about you, pointing out your specific skills, good work habits and talents, and other job-related assets to ensure he or she will be sure to emphasize them in the letter for you. Mention any honors you have received as well as experience you have that could set you apart from other candidates.

If appropriate, you could refer to your resume (assuming you would attach it, although creating a resume is not required for this assignment.)

Make sure your former employer has all the information needed to comply with your request, such as the date by which the letter is needed, the name and address of the person to whom it should be addressed, and any other specific details.

Special Note: If your audience for this assignment is a friend, you still need to meet the requirements of the assignment, which is meant to introduce you to business letter writing. This will mean adopting a different approach and tone and including different details than you normally would when writing to this person. (If you are close friends, you would not be writing them a business letter in the first place.)

Case Two: Parking Nightmares

It started out like any other day. You woke up on time, but your dog threw up on the carpet, delaying your shower. Then while you were getting ready, your electricity went off! You still managed to get to campus fairly close to your usual time, damp frizz and all, but when you arrived at your usual lot, Lot 58, you were surprised to see that several spaces were roped off for some sort of repair to the lot, making them unavailable for parking, and the remaining "E" spaces were already taken. Your Speech team was scheduled to do a PowerPoint presentation at 9:30, and it was already 9:20! A few "A" spots were the only ones left, but you knew from past experience that parking in one of those spaces would result in a ticket. So you drove around for almost 15 minutes until you were able to slip into a space vacated by someone in the parking garage by the hotel, but you had to pay for it. As you breathlessly strode to your classroom, you were greeted with a note saying the network was down in the computer room, so the class was meeting in another room. By the time you finally got there, you had missed your team's presentation and earned a hefty grade penalty.

Write a letter to Parking Services complaining about their lack of advance notification of limited parking in Lot 58. Request reimbursement for your parking fees in the garage. Direct the letter to IUPUI Parking Services at the Vermont Street Garage, 1004 W. Vermont St., Indianapolis, IN 46202

Directions for the Writer's Memo

This assignment is similar to the Writer's Statements you probably wrote in freshman composition (if you took it here at IUPUI). Write a memo to me in which you discuss the rhetorical contexts for each piece of correspondence you composed.

• Explain the purpose, audience, and the situation for writing, and describe how each of those elements affected the choices you made about organization, content, language, tone, etc.
• Discuss your efforts to build goodwill.
• Emphasize the organizational pattern that you used for each document (e.g., direct, indirect, pattern for complaints, or other pattern.)
  

The handout "Thinking about your Writing Context" under Tools in Oncourse and the Writer's Checklist in your textbook contain prompts to help you thoroughly discuss your writing.
Like all memos, this memo should have an accurate and interesting subject line (NOT the name of the assignment) and an introduction that forecasts or previews the memo with a clear sense of audience, purpose, and scope.

Contents of your project folder: (10% of your course grade)
____ Document in response to the "Remember Me?" Case
____ Document in response to the "Parking Nightmare" Case
____ Writer's Memo
____ Outlines for both documents (can be informal, even handwritten, but should be specific)
____ Peer Review Form

Your assignments will be evaluated based on their effectiveness in the following areas:

• Management of Purpose (Intended task is accomplished)
• Audience Awareness (Content is appropriate for the intended readers and meets their need for information)
• Organization (Appropriate sequence of information for the subject, the purpose, and the audience)
• Development (Depth of analysis; level of detail and elaboration; length)
• Coherence (Logical and smooth transitions between sentences & paragraphs)
• Format/Document Design
• Clarity, Concision, & Style
• Grammar, Punctuation, & Spelling
• Tone
• Diction (word choice and use)
  

OTHER OPTIONS

Various other options for the early individual assignments, including a job search project, are provided on the W231 Faculty Development and Resources website at http://www.iupui.edu/~cyber231/classresources/course.htm

As you make choices about which projects to assign, please consider the course goals, keeping in mind the objectives of the early individual projects: to introduce students to the nature and purpose of professional writing and to the various types of workplace writing and the rhetorical principles of each; and to prepare students to undertake the applied research project. You may choose one of the various options for the first major assignment, or you may wish to do some combination of them, submitted in a folder. One project may be selected as a major graded assignment, and others assigned for contribution or performance points. Some instructors assign various pieces of correspondence first, to familiarize students with general rhetorical principles and to acquaint them with letter and memo format. Instructors should review introductory material on purpose and audience in the textbook with students. The companion website has links to chapter summaries and topics which can be helpful when overviewing the material using the projection screen.

THE APPLIED RESEARCH PROJECT

The applied research project includes library research and primary research, culminating in a collaboratively produced recommendation report and an oral presentation. This project is completed in teams, which allows the class to simulate an important element of professional writing today. Since many businesses and organizations organize workers in teams or groups, it is important for students to get a sense of the ways that team-developed documents evolve. Textbook chapters on collaborative writing and the online collaborative handbook Group Work and Collaborative Writing (http://trc.ucdavis.edu/trc/papers/vohs/ ) should be assigned prior to team formation. Instructors may choose to quiz students over this material to ensure careful reading.

Students write preliminary topic proposals, form teams and select a topic for the applied research project while finishing the final individual assignment from the first part of the semester. This means there will be considerable overlap between the last individual assignment and the team-forming phase of the applied research project.

Students' work is organized in class to facilitate the negotiation of all aspects of the work. Students should be supplied with principles for successful collaboration and clear guidelines for managing the work. They will need to be reassured that each team member will be responsible for specific sections of project documents, ensuring that everyone in the team will not only reach targeted course objectives and develop the necessary skills, but also do their share of the work. They will also complete assessment forms (samples provided on the website) about their own work and their team members' work in order to ensure equitable work distribution and fair evaluation. The sample syllabus on the website includes examples of instructor-mandated policies governing teamwork.

Students will also need reassurance that they will have most or all of every class meeting in the computer room to work on team assignments and about 15 minutes of class time in the regular classroom to plan what work should be done outside of class in preparation for the next class session. Instructors should be aware that even though team projects reduce the amount of writing each student produces, a great deal of class time is needed for students to negotiate tasks and plan their work. Teams that use their time wisely and communicate regularly on email should not need to meet outside of class.

Teams will use Oncourse to share drafts between classes. (See appendices for instructions on how to set up Group Spaces on Oncourse.) The text offers digital shortcuts like tracking changes and inserting comments that will facilitate collaborative production of text. Please note that at the time of this writing, the status of original Oncourse and Oncourse CL is uncertain. All references to online course management pertain to original Oncourse.

Instructional strategies:

• To prepare students for working in teams, devote part of one class session to a discussion of students' previous experiences with teams - what are the advantages and disadvantages they have observed? For all the disadvantages, such as students not doing their share of the work, brainstorm ways to counteract the problem. Small group discussions followed by report-outs to the entire class work well for this activity. This will open their concerns to discussion.

• After assigning reading on collaborative work (from the text and online handbook) as homework, lead students in a brainstorming session on how best to manage conflict in teams. Have students keep their notes to use for a subsequent activity after teams are formed: require each team to create a statement of their policies and procedures, explaining (1) How they are going to communicate outside of class; (2) Where and when they will post assignments so team members have access to them; (3) How they will handle conflicts among team members, such as disagreements on how to approach an assignment, or a team member who consistently arrives late. The Policies and Procedures document may be submitted with the team proposal. To help students think about possible problems they might encounter, Susanmarie Harrington created a class activity called "Scenarios for Teams" (available on the website.)

Forming Teams

Prior to the class in which teams are formed, have students review all the preliminary memos (described later in this guide) on Oncourse as a basis for deciding which topics they are interested in and which best fit the criteria.

One option for forming teams is to have students form a circle and give brief overviews of their proposals. The rest of the class should refer to a topic criteria checklist as they listen to the overviews.

Following the topic overviews, allow the class to mingle, asking questions of students whose projects interest them. An alternate way to facilitate the team forming process is to allow students to form teams first based on with whom they wish to work, and then the group picks the best topic from those proposed by group members. Research shows that ideally, teams should have no fewer than four and no more than five members. Team work must be able to proceed even when one or two members are absent, so smaller groups don't work well for this project. Larger groups (more than 5) may take too much time negotiating all the work. Large groups might also make it too easy for passive or unmotivated students to stay in the background and not make sufficient contributions to the team's discussions and work.

APPLIED RESEARCH PROJECT OVERVIEW

All major team assignments should be reviewed as drafts by the instructor and by other teams as the projects unfold.

Project Topic Criteria

The need to develop information literacy for success in the work place is well documented and will continue to increase. As students become practitioners in their fields, they will also become critical readers and users of the literature of their professions. Therefore, this curriculum emphasizes an approach to problem solving that looks first to the literature as a means of understanding and defining the problem within a larger context, then to primary research to obtain needed data to address the problem at the local level.

The project process includes (1) identifying the problem, (2) targeting a local organization in which the problem exists, (3) interviewing a decision-maker within that organization who can provide insight and background information about the situation, and (4) researching the problem using secondary and primary methods. Students may select their organization before identifying a problem suitable for W231 by interviewing someone in authority at that organization, or they may opt to identify a problem in which they are interested, and then find a local organization experiencing this problem. Students should be encouraged to confer frequently with their instructor, who acts as project supervisor, and with their target audience, a decision-maker at the organization impacted by the problem under investigation.

Students are given strict criteria to guide their choices about topic, purpose, and audience. Teams must not proceed with research until the instructor has approved their topics. They need to understand the emphasis on applied research and select their topics accordingly. The success of this project rests in large part on the selection of an appropriate topic. Instructors should therefore work closely with students to guide them through the topic selection process, insisting that they adhere to all of the following criteria:

Criteria for the Problem

The problem must be

A single, significant problem. Students may need to narrow their initial choices from a broad scope (employee turnover, for example) to a manageable one (employee turnover among entry-level employees at a warehouse, for example).

Significant enough to warrant extensive research and be open to multiple solutions. For example, while the need to replace four-way stop signs with a traffic signal at a given intersection is a legitimate, localized problem, solving it requires primarily documentation of need and discovery of existing guidelines and procedures, rather than analysis and thoughtful decision-making.

An organizational problem, not a social problem or debatable issue. Students should not choose issues such as health care, welfare, abortion, euthanasia, gun control, capital punishment, etc. Their purpose is not to make a claim about an issue; their purpose is to conduct research to find solutions to a local problem.

Local, not global; narrow, not broad. Students should choose a problem which primarily affects the targeted organization or company, not the entire state or country. (The problem may exist at similar organizations or businesses, as their research will show; however, their final recommendations will address only the local situation.) Their topics should be narrow enough that they can adequately address them in the time allotted for the project and in the assigned length of the documents. By identifying a local business, industry, government agency, service, or other organization for which the problem is significant, the team ultimately combines existing knowledge with new information from which they develop a plan to address that problem -- the essence of applied research.

Organization-centered, not "me-centered." Their problems should not be a complaint against their company or organization. Students must express an interest in improving a situation for their organization, and their organization must agree that the problem exists and must express an interest in their research.

One for which both primary and secondary sources are accessible and available. Access to primary sources, including the local organization targeted by the project, is essential. Students must be able to arrange a face-to-face interview with the designated audience or a representative of a decision-maker within the organization. Later, students must be able to gain permission to conduct primary research at the work site if they decide that is the best approach for their project. Some restrictions may apply to conducting primary research that may affect topic choice. (See the section on primary research).

Criteria for the Target Audience

An individual, or at the most, a small group of individuals (e.g., a board of directors). Although there are probably many people (members of the organization) who will benefit if this problem is solved, they are the secondary audience, not the primary (target) audience. The target audience must be well defined. For example, residents of X neighborhood, retirees, teachers, or similar classifications are not sufficient or appropriate. The audience must be capable of taking unified, decisive action on the problem. Students should identify a specific audience; for example, a proposal which initially targets parents of elementary school children could be altered to target the PTO of a particular school, a change that may enable the team to work with a topic of interest but will alter the rhetorical situation significantly.

A stakeholder. The purpose is not to complain to the target audience but to suggest solutions for them. Students will be in a consulting role with their target audience. Students will become the experts on this problem as they conduct the research and analyze the data for their target audience.

A decision-maker, someone with authority. The primary audience, the one targeted in project reports, must be someone who has the authority to make a decision based on the recommendations students will ultimately propose once all the research is complete.

Accessible. Students must confirm that this individual or a suitable representative will be available for a face-to-face interview, will approve their approach to the project, and will cooperate with them.

Criteria for the Research Question

Open-ended: Questions for applied research projects usually begin with a phrase such as "How can...?" or "What are the ways .....?" The question should elicit a variety of workable solutions, not just a yes or no answer or other factual response.

Dependent on primary research: The problem should rely heavily on primary research for a solution; if students could get the answer solely from library research, it is inappropriate for this assignment.

Approaches to Problem Selection

The following chart, created by Susanmarie Harrington, shows the ways in which students may identify a suitable topic for the project, as well as the benefits and challenges of each approach.

Instructional strategies to help students understand the nature of applied research and to select a topic:

• After discussing the topic criteria, write sample topics on index cards, and give one card to each group. Make sure some of the topics are social issues like alcoholism, teenage pregnancy and violence in schools; complaints against employers; broad, global problems; or other topics that don't work for W231. Have the group deliberate on whether the topic would be appropriate for W231, and explain why or why not.

• Before students compose their preliminary memos, provide an example of a moderately ineffective memo and ask students whether the proposed topic is workable for W231. They identify the memo's strengths and weaknesses.

• Give students sample topics from previous semesters and have students create research questions for those topics. Then have them determine the position of the person who they think might have served as the target audience for that topic. (For example, a project about increasing parental involvement in an elementary school may have targeted the president of the PTA or the school principal.) Next, have them talk about what kind of primary research the student may have done, and explain why they think so.

• Have students brainstorm a list of all the organizations with which they are affiliated, noting any problems occurring within them.

• Refer students to the list of topics at www.scican.net/~jhenning/W231/topics.htm and go over them together

• Students who have few associations with organizations or businesses can be encouraged to consult the Community Resources Handbook (The Rainbow Book), located at the Reference Desk in University Library, and identify a local community organization they can contact to identify a problem. Students can also consult the list of campus organizations, available at the information desk in the Student Center at University College, and consider targeting one related to their major or other interest area. For example, most campus organizations are continually seeking new members and/or new funding sources.

PRELIMINARY PROPOSAL LEADING TO TEAM FORMATION

Each student must go through the process of writing a preliminary proposal memo to the class, identifying

(1) a potential problem that would be suitable for this project

(2) the target audience who will act on their recommendations

(3) the methods they suggest to gather information.

Although the project will be conducted in teams, each student must identify a real problem that might be addressed with research. The purpose of the preliminary memo is to create a pool of ideas from which the class will draw to form teams and plan their work. It is also important that each student have a clear understanding of the nature of the project they are about to undertake. The preliminary proposal should take the form of a memo with a specific, descriptive subject line so various topics can be easily identified. Students email their memo to the class in Oncourse, where students review all of them prior to the class in which they are presented orally.

The preliminary proposal should address the following issues:

Problem Statement: Getting right to the point, students should briefly announce the purpose of the memo. They need to define the problem they wish to investigate and explain its significance. The causes of the problem (if known) should be described as well as its potential impact on the organization or business where it is occurring.

Scope: Students should also describe the scope of the study, since there would undoubtedly be many aspects of the problem that are not within the scope of the report due to time constraints and the length of the assigned documents. They should also include the research question their project will attempt to answer, stated as a "How can ...?" or "What are the ways...." type of question. Provide sample research questions for students so they can see how to narrow their focus and phrase their question.

Personal Connections: Students should explain what people or issues represent their primary tie to the organization and problem.

Research Objectives and Methods: The class should be convinced that each proposal writer has a good understanding of the proposed project. Therefore, in this section writers explain their research procedures (methodology) in two parts. First, they address secondary (library) research: What kinds of information might be needed to understand the problem better? What databases might be explored? What key words might be used as search terms? What kinds of sources might be looked for (e.g., academic journals, trade journals, newspaper articles, etc.)?

Conclusion: Students discuss any concerns they would like the class to address in response to their proposal, then conclude the memo.

Assessment: Although you should give students feedback on their topic ideas before they compose their proposals, you may choose not to respond to rough drafts of preliminary proposals. However, show students the importance of the proposal by assigning it a percentage of the course grade. Make it clear that students may not join a team if they have not contributed a project idea. You might even tell students that their preliminary proposal is their "ticket" to class on the day teams are formed.

After teams form, and before they leave that class session, they should briefly fill out a compliance checklist containing the project criteria and submit it to you so you can authorize them to proceed with their team proposals. Instructors may also ask students to provide their team members' names and to select a team name so you can immediately form groups on Oncourse and create Group Spaces for each team.

To facilitate teamwork, require students to post all individual work in their team's group space on Oncourse prior to the class it is due. This ensures that the team's work can continue even if an individual team member must miss class. (You should also encourage students to save ALL their course files in an Oncourse CL Resources folder. This eliminates those common crises involving lost or damaged disks or flash drives.) For help creating group spaces, see "Using Group Spaces in Oncourse" in the appendices.

Facilitating Collaboration

To facilitate teamwork, require students to post all individual work in their team's group space on Oncourse prior to the class it is due. This ensures that the team's work can continue even if an individual team member must miss class. (You should also encourage students to save ALL their course files in their Oncourse file manager. This eliminates those common crises involving lost or damaged disks.) For help creating group spaces, see "Using Group Spaces in Oncourse" in the appendices.

TEAM PROPOSAL

Objectives:

• To assess team strengths and weaknesses
• To develop team planning skills
• To reach agreement on precise problem definition and focus

After teams have been formed and they have chosen a project focus, they describe their topic and request instructor authorization to proceed. The team proposal shows the instructor that the team has made a thoughtful decision about the focus for their work.

Like all memos, this team proposal memo should have an accurate and interesting subject line, an introduction that previews the memo, and a clear sense of audience and purpose. The team will work together to revise and add to the preliminary proposal of the team member whose project your team selected.

Students should be asked to do the following:

• Revise the introduction so it is clear that this is a team proposal, not a preliminary proposal. After describing the problem the project will address, explain why the team chose this project over the other available topics. The team proposal should show that the team a thoughtful decision about the project topic.
• Revise the body of the memo, keeping the sections already there, and adding any that were missing.
• Address all concerns noted on the original draft, being especially careful to address areas where the preliminary proposal did not meet the criteria or did not clearly explain how the project meets the criteria. For example, the preliminary proposal may not have clearly defined the problem; it may have neglected to name the target audience; or it may have failed to mention the possible type(s) of primary research that might be appropriate.
• Add to the proposal the following two sections:

(1) Group strengths and weaknesses: Every group has strengths and weaknesses, and the key to successful teamwork is to be aware of what they are. That way they can work around the limitations and maximize the strengths. Although they have just started working together, they can get acquainted by sharing and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their team. In this section, they will describe their team members' talents, skills, past writing and research experiences, past team experiences, technological expertise, etc.

They can also describe any limitations or areas where the team will be lacking or will need extra help.

(2) Policies and procedures: Here the team will describe the following:

• How the team will keep track of deadlines and who's doing what.
• What specific strategies from Group Work and Collaborative Writing the team will incorporate to help them meet challenges or overcome conflict.
• Whether the team plans to appoint a coordinator or co-coordinators for each phase of the project? For the entire project?
• What strategies the team will use to discourage groupthink, and how they will work together to insure that everyone's voice is heard.
• How they will handle issues such as excessive absenteeism, chronic tardiness, late or missing work from team members, etc.
• How they will decide if and when to involve the instructor in resolving problems.
• Teams are required to post their drafts on Oncourse in their Group Space prior to class. What other procedures will they follow to ensure that the work is completed and available to the team?
  

Closing:

The memo might close with any questions they have for their instructor as they begin the project.

INTERVIEW WITH A DECISION-MAKER AT THE TARGET ORGANIZATION

Objectives:

• To learn objectivity in interviewing
• To design questions relevant to previously defined project purpose
• To developing meaningful questions based on the practical, unique circumstances of the local organization's situation

Students need to do some preliminary investigation to ensure that their selected target audience agrees the problem is in fact a problem for the organization or business. They also need to make sure that the person they envision as a decision-maker within the organization does indeed have the authority to act on the recommendations to be proposed at the end of the project. With that established, team representatives interview their target audience to gather background information about the problem as it is occurring at the local organization. They create an interview guide containing questions designed to solicit general information about the organization's priorities, limitations, past experiences, as well as specific data related to the problem.

For example, if their topic is employee turnover, they will want to find out how many employees have left the business in a stated time period; their reasons, if known, for leaving; and the cost of training new employees. Conducting this interview early in the project reinforces the applied nature of the project, insures that the team has the cooperation of the target audience, and helps students define their research project's purpose. Ultimately, they may choose to narrow, refine, or refocus their research question as a result of this interview.

However, some teams might prefer to postpone this interview in order to do some reading in the field first. This allows them to become more knowledgeable about their topics and to capably create effective interview questions. Instructors may choose at which point to assign the interview, or may opt to let students make that decision based on their particular situation.

IMPORTANT: Ask teams to submit a signed letter or form you provide from the target audience, acknowledging their work on the project and authorizing primary research.

Students will need help designing interview questions which solicit the needed information, including the history of the problem; current strategies or plans for addressing the problem; concerns such as politics and budgets that affect the decision-making process or limit the possible solutions to the problem; and kinds of information the target audience needs that could be gathered through library or primary research.

The team follows up with a thank you letter to their interviewee. Following the interview, students summarize the information gathered and email the instructor a brief report.

Instructional Strategies:

• Have students write an audience analysis of the interviewee and use it as a starting point to identify issues to explore during the interview.
• Ask teams to exchange drafts of interview questions and evaluate them based on issues of ethics, relevance, sequence, and style.
• Caution students against asking the target audience how to solve the problem, reminding them that if the target audience knew the answer to the problem, their research project would be unnecessary.

SECONDARY RESEARCH

Formal Writing Tasks: Annotated Bibliography and Literature Review

Objectives:

• To lead students through the steps of information retrieval through library research.
• To acquaint students with source evaluation strategies.
• To teach critical reading and summarizing of literature.
• To teach APA documentation style.

Teams with narrowly defined topics are ready to conduct library research at University Library using a variety of databases to explore the problem on a global level to see what other organizations have done to address the problem. As students locate their sources, critical reading is guided by the research questions initially formulated as well as new questions that arise in the course of the reading. Teams use their questions to ascertain where additional information is needed and to determine when the research process is complete. During this part of the course, instructors may wish to emphasize the academic as well as nonacademic applications of the course work. Before gathering articles, they need to understand how they will be used in the literature review. The library instructional session and other class activities on collecting, evaluating, integrating, synthesizing, and documenting sources will be invaluable to students as they undertake this comprehensive task.

Library Instructional Sessions

Students will need supplementary instruction and guidance to complete their library research successfully. With library technology making vast and diverse quantities of information accessible, students need organized and careful instruction in the mechanical skills of using electronic and traditional library resources, in planning a research strategy, and in analyzing and evaluating secondary sources. In the computer classroom, students can conduct initial electronic data base searches as the instructor monitors process and progress.

Members of instructional teams at University Library offer specialized sessions for W231 classes. These sessions can be scheduled in advance to take place during a regular class period, either at University Library or in the computer classroom in Cavanaugh Hall. The purpose of the session is to introduce students to the process of library research and explain where and how to seek help in the library. The current library liaison for W231 is Karen Zimmerman (kpzimmer@iupui.edu). Experienced instructors may choose to present instruction on library research themselves.

Instructors should encourage teams to determine their research question prior to the class in which they will be introduced to library research strategies. To accomplish this, the team project must be introduced early in the semester, before students complete their last individual writing assignment. When students come to the session with an approved topic and research question, the session is more meaningful to them as they see connections between the information presented and their own research plan.

Instructors may also wish to schedule a class meeting in the library when students are ready to begin their research. A conference room can be reserved in advance, and instructors can station themselves there to be available for advising students as they work on their projects.

Library Research Tips to Share with Students

1. Encourage students to seek a wide variety of recently published articles from academic journals, trade journals, professional journals, or other periodicals.

2. Suggest some good indexes to start their research, such as Business Source Elite, J-Store, Lexis-Nexus, and the Expanded Academic Index. EBSCOhost provides a great list of databases which can be searched simultaneously.

3. Remind students to use INDYCAT to see if our library holds the journals or books they need, and to search for journal articles using the title of the journal, not the title of the article. (Searching with the title of the article is the most common error students make.)

4. Encourage students to make sure the sources they have gathered will provide relevant information

• They should look for articles that provide solutions, not those which simply confirm the existence of the problem. For example, a newspaper article that reports on the problem, without suggesting how to solve it, may not be very helpful.
• They should not focus their research on the issue the organization deals with. The organization as audience will not need that information; its members already know why the organization exists. Background information as it relates to the problem under investigation is relevant, and causes and effects of the problem should be examined, but the main focus should be how to solve the problem.
• Generally, students should not use sources published by the organization or business targeted in their project. (Students who lose awareness of their audience during library research may think they have solved their research problems by gathering several brochures or other publications about their organization.)

5. If students find a source that is "just what they're looking for," they can identify the descriptors in the abstract and plug those new search terms into the database search. They should also look at the article's reference page to find the key sources the author used and try to locate those in our library through INDYCAT.

If students come up with too many hits while searching an electronic index, they can narrow the search field by

• Using the thesaurus feature of the database, which is an official list of all subject headings.
• Using the index of the database to identify and redefine search terms.
• Using AND to narrow the search. (OR can be used to enlarge the search.)
• Limiting the search to only those articles written in English.
• Determining if the database has a lit review of significant articles on the topic.
• Narrowing the topic.

6. Teams should be urged not to select more than a few articles from the same publication. They are expected to gather information from various sources representing various points of view.

7. Although students may consult the dictionary or encyclopedia, most instructors agree they should not be used or listed as sources.

8. Organizational pamphlets or documents are usually considered primary, not secondary, and may not be appropriate for the literature review.

9. Remind students they are looking mainly for recently published scholarly works, such as academic journals and trade journals, rather than popular magazines.

10. If they are experiencing difficulties finding sources, suggest they try the philanthropy, the medical, or law libraries if appropriate. The Philanthropy library is located on the second floor of University Library and has many sources for topics related to fund raising, volunteerism, and not-for-profit organizations.

11. Discuss reasons for avoiding the open Internet for scholarly research. Discuss strategies for evaluation sources from the Internet.

12. Use the library's Inflite tutorials (http://inflite.ulib.iupui.edu/) which cover most of the above topics.

Advise students to carefully evaluate the information presented in each article by asking the same questions that a skeptical reader would ask:

• Is it accurate?
• Is it complete?
• Is it up-to-date?
• Is it unbiased?
• Is it supported by evidence my readers will find compelling?
• Does it conflict with other evidence?
• Is it clearly relevant to my readers' situation?

Team Collaboration: Division of the Work

Each team member should locate at least three reliable, recently published articles from credible business or trade journals. Team members consult each other as they conduct their research to make sure the team searches several appropriate databases and gathers at least 10 different articles.

They decide what pieces of information from which articles to include in their literature review. To fulfill the purpose of the research project, they will probably be most interested in the causes and effects of the problem and the strategies the authors suggest, or which other organizations have used, to address the problem. The team evaluates the articles they collect, and narrow the collection to the best 10 articles. This is a good time to remind students that although all members of the team will receive the grade awarded to the project, individual team member's grades may be lowered if the instructor has sufficient credible evidence that a particular student failed to meet his or her obligations to the team.

Once the team has gathered and read all the articles they plan to use, they need to

• Create an annotated bibliography (described on the following page).
• Re-read the articles, identifying and categorizing the key questions/issues the authors address.

• Sort the literature using these categories. The best way to do this is to construct a grid of common points. This grid lists every question/issue they have identified and then briefly describes how each of the sources responds to this issue. (See the website for an example.)

To divide the work of composing the literature review, the team should collaborate on the introduction and conclusion, making sure the focus is on the literature. Each team member should accept responsibility for drafting one or two sections of the literature review, depending on how many sections are needed. To draft a section, students should work from one row of the grid, incorporating and contextualizing the material in that row. Section length will vary depending on the amount of material gathered related to the particular subtopic or issue.

As they start drafting based on the grid, advise students that they cannot merely list their sources and summarize the contents. They must illustrate how the sources agree, how the sources disagree, and how the sources overlap by providing ample connections to lead readers to see the relationships among the sources. Each row of the grid should be used to create one section of the review to ensure organization of the paper by key points, not by source. Teams will work together to combine the sections into a coherent literature review. (The literature review is described in more detail on the next page.) Before they are ready to begin drafting the literature review, however, teams create an annotated bibliography describing their sources.

Annotated Bibliography

The annotated bibliography is a formal, comprehensive record of sources the team has gathered. Each student writes a bibliography in APA format listing the sources he or she contributed. Each source is annotated with a brief summary (descriptive abstract) and a statement of relevance and potential application of the content to the local problem under investigation. The team chooses about 10 articles from the 15 - 20 gathered by the team, then compiles the team annotated bibliography -- one document that lists the sources in alphabetical order. Remind students they can save their annotated bibliography with a new file name (annotations deleted) to create their references page for the report. They also need to be reminded to included only the works referenced in the text of the report. Instructors have the option of grading individual annotated bibliographies prior to the submission of the team's compiled annotated bibliography.

Instructor feedback will indicate if they are on the right track with their research, or whether they should narrow their topics, find different kinds of sources, or in some other way modify their approach.

Teaching APA style

Several of the programs that require W231 use APA (e.g., Social Work, Psychology, Allied Health) and expect students leaving W231 to enter their classes with a solid background on integrating sources smoothly and accurately according to APA style for both in-text citations and the references page. It is essential to provide thorough instruction in APA documentation.

Instructional Strategies:

• Provide a model of an annotated bibliography since that format will be unfamiliar to most students.
• Use a short sample article in class to practice reading for main points and writing summarizing statements.
• Have students bring highlighters to class along with a copy of one of their articles. Guide them through highlighting main points and drafting one complete entry for their annotated bibliography.
• Ask teams to create a citation for one of their sources on the board and present it to the class for critique.
• Provide a references page or section of a report with APA errors and ask them to correct it, perhaps rewarding the team who catches the more errors.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Objectives:

• To identify and analyze issues raised in the literature
• To establish relationships among secondary sources
• To identify similarities and differences between secondary research contexts, events, and issues
• To form explicitly stated conclusions
• To review summary, quotation, and paraphrase
• To review organizing long reports; synthesis
• To use transitions to show relationships and connections
• To review purpose and form of APA documentation

The literature review is a major section of the recommendation report and provides the target audience with a survey of what the experts are saying about the problem under investigation. The review will update the target audience on the recent research in the field. Students survey the literature to see how others have perceived the factors related to the problem under investigation and to define the problem as an important step before arriving at solutions. The reviews become a major section in the upcoming recommendation report, and should be approximately 4 pages single-spaced, should cite 6 - 8 sources, and should include topic-related headings and subheadings.

Completion of this assignment will reinforce and build on the skills students began to develop earlier in the semester, such as critical reading, analysis, synthesis, organization, and use and integration of sources. In addition, reviewing the literature will help the student focus the primary research more meaningfully on aspects of the problem found to be important in the published studies. A comprehensive review of the literature ensures that no major variables have been ignored that have previously impacted the problem. The survey of the literature not only helps the researcher to include all relevant variables in the project, it also provides a good framework to proceed further with the investigation.

As students examine the current state of the literature on their topic in a comprehensive analysis, they identify strategies used by other organizations to address the problem as well as the causes and effects of the problem discussed by the experts.

According to Sekaran (1992), a good literature review ensures that:

1. Important variables that are likely to influence the problem situation are not omitted from the study.

2. The problem investigated is perceived by the professional community as relevant and significant.

3. A clearer idea emerges as to what variables would be most important to consider, why they would be considered important, and how they should be investigated to solve the problem. Thus, the literature review prepares the student to conceptualize the primary research.

4. The problem statement can be made with greater precision and clarity.

5. The student does not run the risk of "reinventing the wheel," that is, wasting efforts trying to rediscover something that is already known.

6. The student as researcher is knowledgeable about the problem area and has done the preliminary work necessary to conduct primary research.

When drafting literature reviews, students should write a logical presentation of the research done thus far in the area of investigation. The review should synthesize all relevant information in a cogent and logical manner instead of presenting all the studies in chronological order with bits and pieces of uncoordinated information (Adapted from Sekaran (1992), Research Methods for Business: A Skill-Building Approach (2nd ed.) New York: John Wiley and Sons.).

Instruction should discuss key concepts related to literature reviews. For example, literature reviews synthesize large amounts of information and present it in a coherent, organized fashion. Synthesis comes from the Greek word suntithenai -- to put together -- and occurs when two or more things are combined to create something new, whether it is a new idea, a new fabric, a new sound, or a new piece of writing. Thus, for this assignment, students will combine material from several sources to create a new report.

Although writers control the synthesis, they must remain objective and unbiased as they review the literature. The readers of the literature review do not wish to learn what the student thinks; they want to learn what the authors/experts think. Therefore, students should be cautioned against commenting on the sources or evaluating their ideas. Instead, they should show how sources are related. Students who are unfamiliar with the concept of synthesis often simply list their sources and summarize their contents as they did for their annotated bibliography. They must be taught how to illustrate ways in which the sources agree and disagree by providing topic sentences and transitional words and phrases so readers can see those relationships. Students need to learn how to establish their focus on the literature, beginning with the introduction, and maintain it through to the conclusion. Using transitional words and phrases that show the connection between the sources helps students stay centered on the literature.

Each section of the review should fulfill specific purposes:

Introduction: Since the lit review introduction will be the introduction to one part of a larger report, it is unnecessary to give the background information or state the problem here. In a sentence or two, students should simply introduce the purpose and scope of the literature review, including the key issues the review will address.

Body: Using relevant headings, the body should take up each question/issue one at a time and discuss how the authors of the articles respond to that question or issue. Students should relate the sources to one another and to the key point. Length of body section: about 4 - 5 pages single-spaced.

Conclusion: A brief final paragraph should bring this section of the recommendation report to a close by summarizing what the literature says about the topic overall.

Instructional Strategies:

• Guide students through development of a grid of common points to ensure synthesis.
• Have students work in groups to analyze and evaluate a range of sample literature reviews, looking at how well expectations were met in areas of content, format, synthesis, objectivity, and documentation. Provide them with a list of questions to guide their analysis.
• Have teams draft a section of a literature review in class, pointing out the need for topic sentences which maintain focus on the literature. Have them report out by reading aloud or projecting the file onto the screen.
• Have students complete an audience analysis worksheet to ensure they are directing their report to their target audience. The writer's checklist in the textbook could serve this purpose.

PRIMARY RESEARCH

Objectives:

• To consider multiple audiences: readers of the recommendation report as well as respondents
• To relate instrument's content to overall project purpose
• To analyze primary research findings
• To organize and quantify data
• To interpret findings

During secondary research, students investigated their problems in a broader sense to determine all the key factors addressed in the literature and to see how other organizations have dealt with the problem. Now, during primary research, they will investigate the local situation to help develop workable solutions tailored to their specific organization's situation.

In the primary research phase of their projects, students will continue gathering information to find ways to answer their research question, but instead of using written sources, they will collect data by means of a quantitative primary research tool, such as a

• survey by questionnaire
• controlled observation
• content analysis of company or organizational data or documents

Based on their new knowledge of the problem, students are led through heuristical processes to make good decisions about methods of conducting primary research -- surveys of those affected by the problem, interviews with subject matter experts, analysis of primary documents such as annual reports or sets of organizational data, or controlled observations. Students submit drafts of their research tool for instructor approval. After revision, they conduct their research, tabulate the data, and submit all completed surveys (or other forms used) as proof of research.

The primary research methods the team chooses should arise directly from the research question guiding the project and the type of information the student needs. If they need to know how many pre-allied health students at IUPUI might be interested in joining the Pre-Allied Health Student Organization (PAHSO), a survey by questionnaire is a logical choice to collect information from a reasonably large sample of the population. On the other hand, if the team wants to explore student attitudes about participation in campus organizations at an urban commuter college, a number of interviews might be conducted in which the student asks the same interview questions and then considers the similarities and differences in the responses, how strongly the opinions are held, etc. In combination, the student might conduct the interviews first and use those results to develop a meaningful questionnaire.

In helping students choose their methods wisely and conduct their research appropriately, we must recognize and share with students a critical point about W231 research. As an introductory course, W231 does not engage students in projects that are comparable to graduate or professional level research. W231 offers an opportunity to practice research skills in a limited way, in order to lay a foundation for later work, but not necessarily to create research designs that produce statistically reliable data.

Responsibilities for Ethical Research

The following assumptions create a framework within which classroom research is conducted:

1. The purpose of W231 student research assignments is to offer opportunities to learn to conduct responsible primary research by designing, conducting, analyzing, and presenting the results of research projects.

2. Any research involves ethical and legal responsibilities. The rights of respondents must be respected. Research among populations which represent special risks must be individually approved at the University level, and there is not sufficient time to go thorough that approval process in W231. Therefore, student projects cannot involve children under age 18, patients, prisoners, or other at-risk individuals.

3. Students must not proceed with research without the permission of the target audience and the instructor.

4. W231 students are responsible for all information collected as a result of their projects.

5. Research standards with regard to sampling techniques, statistical analysis, reliability and validity of findings, or interpretation of findings may not meet the professional requirements or expectations of the field in which the student's project is based.

6. Evaluation of student research-based writing projects is based on assignment guidelines and course objectives related to the student's writing (organization of material, writing style, format, correctness, for example) which might not correspond to requirements or expectations that would exist in a particular professional community.

Selecting a Primary Research Tool

Only one primary research method is required, and it must be quantitative. However, students may also choose to do an interview with an expert or other qualitative research to effectively address the research question. If they do choose to interview an expert, they should not confuse this interview with their target audience interview; they should select someone who has expertise in dealing with this type of issue. It's important to note, however, that if they choose to do an interview with an expert, they must still conduct some type of quantitative research.

Quantitative Research Tools-- Students choose ONE

Survey by Questionnaire. If they need information about a group of people so they can describe something about that group statistically, they should administer a questionnaire to a sample group that represents them. Questionnaires are a good choice when researchers need to know "how many." Students typically distribute their questionnaires to a sample group of twenty-five people and collect them at the time of distribution. Questionnaire design is described in the text and should be discussed in class. Minimum of 25 completed questionnaires.

Observation. If students want to observe behavior or activity as it occurs naturally and without interference from the researcher, they should use the observation method. The data gathered can be quantified and analyzed statistically. They need to decide what events or activities to observe, and what specific behaviors or actions to assess. They will prepare an observation form to record the data observed. Examples should be given to students selecting observation as their primary research tool. Minimum of 4 hours of observation.

Content Analysis. Attending conferences and meetings and analyzing the speeches and presentations is another way to gather information. Since attendance at those conferences and meetings may not be possible, students could instead examine business records, transcripts of conferences and/or minutes of meetings. Another example of content analysis is to obtain accounts of an event or an issue as reported over a period of time in a newspaper or company report, (e.g., annual reports) to determine changes, patterns, or etc. Again they would need to develop a record form or other appropriate tool to aid in assessing and evaluating the information. Minimum of 20 analyzed documents or files.

Letters of Inquiry. Solicitation of very specific information from a group of people via mail or e-mail. Minimum of 8 letters.

Interview Guides for use at target organization. One option is to do several interviews in which several people are asked the same questions. Interviewees are typically members of the organization or workplace the project targets. While fewer interviews than questionnaires are required, students should be reminded that this method is usually more time-consuming than the survey. It can be difficult to obtain quantitative data using this method. Minimum of 6 interviews.

Focus Groups-- using Interview Guides at the target organization with groups of members or employees. A method similar to the one above involves meeting with a group of individuals at the same time. Tape recording the group's session is essential to retrieving the information. It can be difficult to obtain quantitative data using this method.

Qualitative Research Tool--Optional

Interview an expert. Students should be reminded that interviews with experts can only be done in conjunction with a quantitative research tool, but that they can consider conducting an interview to obtain expert information which can be applied to the research question. They should choose interviewees for their experience and expertise in dealing with this type of problem or situation.

Instructional Strategies to Help Students Select a Research Tool.

Remind teams that the method they choose should rise directly from the research question guiding their projects and should elicit the type and amount of information needed. The main question they should consider is this: Which method will help us make recommendations and offer solutions in our Recommendation Report? Most teams will probably select the survey method since it best meets the criteria.

Have them answer the following prompts in class:

• What kind of information do you need that your library research did not supply? Factual information? Statistics? Opinions of those affected by the problem? Other?
• Where can you get this information? Will it be accurate and reliable? How do you know? Will it be sufficient? Why do you think so?
• If you will obtain your data through surveying or observing people, who? How could these people provide answers to your research question?
• About which strategies recommended in the literature would you like to question your survey respondents?

Progress Report

Objectives:

• To explain rationale for choice of primary research methods; providing answers to the "who, what, when, where, why, and how" of the selected methods.
• To explain the perceived application of the data to be collected

As soon as teams have selected their primary research method, they update the instructor on their progress with the project. They explain the primary research method they have selected, along with the rationale for their choice. They explain what method they have chosen; why they think this method will provide sufficient relevant data; how they think the data will be applicable to their research question; who will be surveyed, interviewed, or observed; how they intend to conduct the research; and when they plan to complete it. This update can take the form of a brief email, a more formal written memo report, or even a short presentation to the class.

Textbook Support: page 381-384

Other Instructional Strategies:

• In groups, have students look at a list of research questions and decide what possibilities exist for primary research regarding those situations.
• Have students work with each other to come up with ideas for primary research for their own projects.
• Have students identify strategies from the sections of the literature review they composed from which they could develop survey questions.
• Critique sample questionnaires.
• Use PowerPoint presentations available on the faculty website related to designing questionnaires and conducting surveys.

Instructors needing more information about research with human subjects can view a presentation at http://www.iupui.edu/%7Eresgrad/Human%20Subjects/human-subj-course-IUPUI_files/v3_document.htm

RECOMMENDATION REPORT

Objectives:

1. To analyze and synthesizing the research findings
2. To define and contextualize the problem for the designated audience
3. To interpret primary research findings in light of knowledge and information gathered through secondary research
4. To smoothly integrate visuals that enhance understanding f data
5. To design a well-supported report based on application of research findings

Explain to the class that once they have finished the literature review and have conducted the primary research, they are ready to analyze and interpret the data they have gathered, draw conclusions, decide on what actions to recommend, and complete the remaining sections of the recommendation report.

Arriving at recommendations. If they are confident of their findings, they are ready to interpret them and apply them to the problem situation they have been addressing throughout the project. They should consider these questions:

• What do we conclude from the research?
• Are other interpretations possible - and do we need to explore them?
• What are the implications for my readers?
• What else must I learn to explore those implications thoroughly?
• What are the implications for the secondary audience, or stakeholders who are not my readers?
• What does this mean my readers should do? What are our recommendations? Will they be convinced they have the information necessary to to take the recommended actions?

The recommendation report uses visuals and text to present an analysis of all data collected and to propose solutions to the problem investigated. The report is accompanied by a cover letter or memo to the target audience, a title page, and may include appropriate appendices, such as a copy of the survey tabulations. Evaluation should be based on the quality of the visuals in addition to the other elements typically evaluated in this type of assignment. The length should be approximately 3 or 4 pages single-spaced, not including the literature review section, the cover letter, the reference page, or any appendices.

Rhetorical Situation: The Recommendation Report is defined as a detailed report that the team submits to a reader or a group of readers who are in a position of authority -- the target audience designated at the outset of the project -- and who may endorse or reject the recommendations. Students will present a carefully created, well-supported proposal for application of the research findings to the problem investigated.

Although this document is directed specifically to the decision-maker or person with the authority to act on the suggestions and recommendations, students should envision this document being read by other stakeholders. For example, their target audience may have to take the report further up the organizational ladder for commentary and approval. Similarly, he or she may decide to share it with those further down the organizational ladder. Therefore, writers must include details about the problem that they discussed with the target audience in the interview at the beginning of the project that other readers would not know. The report should make sense even to readers with no (or very limited) background knowledge on the company or its situation.

Most students' reports are unsolicited; that is, no one asked them to solve the problem. Instead, the problem was identified with the target audience's help. Depending on the project's purpose, that audience is waiting for this report to make a decision, initiate changes, begin a new program, or to create a policy. The acceptance of the report recommendations, for example, can lead to improved working conditions, a more efficient and economical business, additional jobs or business for a company, or a safer environment.

Teams should approach writing the report as a problem-solving activity. The goal is to solve a problem that affects the reader and his or her organization. Everything in the report should relate to the problem.

Students should be asked to

• Regard their audience as a skeptical reader. They should assume the reader will question what they say and will want to see how they arrived at their conclusions and recommendations. They should examine their drafts from the reader's point of view and look for errors, omissions, and inconsistencies.
• Spell out recommendations with hard facts and concrete examples, thus avoiding unsupported generalizations.
• Make sure the recommendations are workable. What they propose should be consistent with the organization and capabilities of the company. It would be foolish to recommend, for example, that a small company (50 employees) triple its workforce to accomplish the proposed suggestions. It should also be financially realistic. Students should be cautioned against recommending solutions that would be financially unfeasible for the target organization to implement.
• Present the report attractively. The report should be carefully edited, inviting, and easy to read, with headings and other visual devices.

Audience: Although this document is directed specifically to the decision-maker or person with the authority to act on the suggestions and recommendations, students should envision this document being read by the entire business or organization. Their target audience may have to take the report further up the organizational ladder for commentary and approval. Similarly, he or she may decide to share it with those further down the organizational ladder. Therefore, writers must include details about the problem that they discussed with the target audience in the interview at the beginning of the project that other readers would not know.

Content:

Introduction: a brief statement of the purpose for writing this report; succinct definition of the problem; explanation of why a specific change is necessary; emphasis on how this report will address that problem. Concrete evidence is cited here to show that the problem is significant and that action needs to be taken; verification of how widespread the problem is or how frequently it occurs supported by specific examples; quantifiable details about the implications or consequences of the problem.

Methodology: all methods used to gather information explained in detail.

Literature Review: entire literature review is pasted into this section of the report.

Primary research findings: interpretation and analysis of the primary research findings. In the primary research analysis section, at least one visual based on a set of significant primary research findings should be included, such as a chart, table, or graph created in Excel or Microsoft Word.

Conclusions and recommendations: Conclusions drawn from both the primary and secondary research are presented and discussed. This section is used to lead readers inevitably to the recommendations. Every recommendation should be supported by information/evidence provided earlier in this report. Students may choose to present the recommendations in a bulleted list.

Closing: The report ends with a brief paragraph or two in which the seriousness of the problem is reiterated and readers are reminded of the reasons change is needed. The most important benefits of the proposed solutions may be emphasized again.

References page in APA.

Appendices to the report should include the tabulation of survey responses.

Instructional Strategies:

1. Provide some sample statistical data for collaborative analysis to enable students to practice interpreting quantified data and identifying some of the common errors and misleading interpretations that can occur when working with statistics.
2. Ask students to complete a detailed, written analysis of their designated audience. Using the analysis in collaboration, students discuss implications for the introductory section, organizational choices, style, and tone. Emphasize that the choices will be different for each student based on the rhetorical situation.
3. Have students bring their tabulated data to class and work in groups to determine which sets of data are appropriate to represent visually. Next, they determine which type of graphic aid will best represent that set of data. Finally, they decide how and where to use the visual aid in the report.
4. Obtain a set of data from a campus organization, such as the admissions office, and design a class activity that leads students through the steps discussed above.
5. Schedule a guest speaker who has expertise in using Word or Excel to create visual aids.
6. Remind students that they must persuade readers that their conclusions and resulting recommendations are firmly based on the facts. Point out that their readers must understand

• their recommendations -- the actions they want their target audience to take
• their evidence -- the facts and data from the research offered in support of the recommendations
• their line of reasoning -- the connections linking the recommendations and the evidence; the reasons why readers should agree that the evidence backs up the recommendations.

After teams brainstorm a list of recommendations, ask them to create a table to ensure that readers will be able to follow their thinking from the findings to the conclusions to the recommendations. They should list their recommendations in the first column, then in the boxes next to each recommendation, describe the data that led to that recommendation. After they draft the recommendation report, they can add a sentence to each box that states where in the report the data can be found. Remind them that readers must be able to follow their line of reasoning; therefore, they must discuss in the report all information that led to the recommendations. Point out that this table is different from the grid they completed for the literature review in that its purpose is to help them make sure their recommendations are supported by the research findings, not to help them organize the content.

THE ORAL PRESENTATION

Objectives:

• To share the results of the research project
• To condense the results of an extensive project into a 10- minute talk
• To design visual aids to supplement the presentation
• To develop PowerPoint skills

Teams do a 10 - minute PowerPoint presentation to the class on the results of their research. These presentations take place the last two or three class meetings before portfolios are due, perhaps just prior to course evaluations. Students (or instructors) who are inexperienced with PowerPoint can complete an online tutorial at http://www.iupui.edu/~webtrain/tutorials/powerpoint2000_basics.html

Instructors should provide students with a written evaluation of their presentation based on criteria such as the following:

• Anticipated level of audience's background knowledge of the topic
• Introduced the topic well to arouse audience interest
• Limited the talk to main points and findings
• Arranged points logically and made connections among them
• Avoided clichés, slang, and jargon
• Designed clear, easy-to-read visuals
• Ran close to allotted time

Printouts of the PowerPoint slides are included in the team's portfolio and may be assessed as part of the final project or graded separately.

Instructional Strategies:

• In the computer room, introduce PowerPoint and lead students through a simple exercise to construct a set of PowerPoint slides.
• Show students several PowerPoint presentations given by teams in previous semesters and critique them together.
• Have students analyze their reports to identify the important information they want to include in their presentations, highlighting key phrases and terms that they want to stress. Then have them make an outline for their presentation, including only the major points.
• Do an exercise on parallelism and explain its importance in crafting effective slides.
• Have students practice their presentations on members of their collaborative groups, timing their talks, troubleshooting, and making sure they fall within expected time frames.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW (Self-Assessment)

Objectives:

• To reflect on accomplishments; comparing writing at the beginning of the semester to writing now
• To demonstrate understanding of course goals and key concepts
• To analyze level of achievement of course goals

In a 2 - 3 page memo to the instructor, students review their performance in the course and describe their learning experiences. They might be asked to construct an argument regarding the level at which their writing accomplishes course goals. Some instructors ask questions which prompt students to demonstrate learning of specific concepts; for example, students might be asked to define "review of the literature," to discuss how it differs from a typical research paper, and to explain where in the recommendation report readers will find examples of effective synthesis of sources.

The performance review is not part of the final project portfolio, since the portfolio contains only team-produced documents. A percentage (usually about 10% of the course grade is based on this memo.

Instructional Strategies:

• Students work in groups to define and explain course goals in their own words; then they examine each writing assignment in relation to the goals. Ask students to draft one paragraph in class that includes the goal itself, the student's evaluation of degree of achievement, and two or three supporting statements. Suggest that students have thus created their own model for the performance review.
• Have the students brainstorm all the things that they have learned during the semester and write them on post-it notes. Then have the students stick them in a haphazard way on the board. Ask them to look at the items and to figure out "categories" for the things learned, e.g., communication skills (list serv, email, interviews, etc.), technology literacy (computer use), research skills, and problem solving/higher order thinking skills. Then have them match the items to the appropriate category. When the students have finished, all the board items should fit into one of the categories. (Contributed by Joanna Henning, who mentions to her class that, coincidentally, those are the very skills sought by potential employers.)
• Post a series of grammar and style quizzes to the class listserv and have students complete them outside of class.
• Hold an editing workshop in which students highlight stylistic concerns, such as passive voice, wordy sentence constructions, "There are" and "It is" sentence openers, and revise and edit.

Assembling the Team Applied Research Project Portfolio

After a series of in-class editing workshops which emphasize the professional standards identified throughout the course, teams should be prepared to assemble a portfolio representing their work on their projects. The project portfolio contains only the team-produced documents related to the project; individual student work from earlier in the semester is not included. All contents of the portfolio should be revised and submitted as clean copies of final products. The portfolio is typically worth 40% of the course grade and should be submitted during the last class meeting of the semester, prior to finals week. (There is no final exam in W231.)

Instructors requiring one team project folder for the semester will ask for all project-related documents to be submitted. Those dividing the project into two phases will ask for only the following to be submitted in the final folder:

1. Cover page for portfolio

2. Cover letter

3. Recommendation Report with title page, table of contents, visuals, and references page

4. Primary research tool with tabulations (usually presented as an appendix to the report)

5. Print-out of PowerPoint slides

6. Previous drafts with instructor comments and assessment sheets

Determining Course Grades

Grading rubrics are provided on the W231 website, along with sample assessment sheets for all the major projects. Instructors may wish to email project assessments to each team in Oncourse. (If Oncourse groups have been formed based on team membership, you can easily mail your assessment to the entire team at once.) Ask teams if you may keep their team project portfolio to share with future classes. If they do not wish to leave the portfolio for future classroom use, make arrangements to return the project to a team representative.

Those using the Oncourse gradebook can simply enter the team project grades; and, assuming grades on earlier individual projects have already been entered, Oncourse will automatically calculate final course grades. This will eliminate the need to send students individual assessment sheets at the end of the semester.

A Word about Incompletes

In a writing course where due dates may seem distant, students sometimes procrastinate and fall behind. It's important to clarify that incompletes are not given to students who have simply fallen behind. Our incomplete policy should be pointed out to students early in the semester.

The School of Liberal Arts Bulletin gives the following requirements for consideration of an Incomplete:

The grade of Incomplete is an agreement between the student and the instructor and is assigned only when a student has successfully completed with passing grades at least three-fourths of the work in a course and unusual circumstances prevent the student from completing the work within the semester. It is the student's responsibility to contact the instructor to get a grade of "I" assigned (18).

When deciding whether or not to give an incomplete, the instructor must assess what constitutes three-fourths of the work completed as well as the "unusual circumstances." In W231, the student should have completed all project work in full participation with her team, through the draft of the recommendation report. The "unusual circumstances" might include serious illness of the student, her spouse, child, or parent; serious accident, fire, or other trauma; or serious emotional upheaval. The instructor in consultation with the course coordinator determines the validity of the circumstances. The instructor also negotiates with the student and her team to ensure that the team is comfortable with the handling of the situation.

The SLA Incomplete Form must be completed and signed by student and instructor. This form outlines what work still needs to be done and the time-table for completing it. Copies of the completed form must be made for the student and the instructor and the original given to the Writing Program Office at the end of the semester along with the internal roster. Blank incomplete forms are available from the Writing Program secretary in CA 343.

APPENDIX

USING GROUP SPACES IN ONCOURSE

Creating Groups

To create groups within a class:

From the Class Roster, click Create/Edit Groups.

Click on "New Group" and name the group.

Hit control (the ctrl key) and click on individual students' names to form the group.

Click on "New Group" again to form the subsequent groups, and repeat the selection process.

Once the groups are formed, the group names will appear as options under Oncourse Mail, Discussion Forums, and Group Spaces. You can restrict discussion forums to specific teams to allow for more extensive participation and in-depth discussion.

Group Space

Note: Drop boxes and group spaces work similarly. In a drop box, only students and the instructor can see the files students put there. In a group space, files are available to everyone who shares the space.

A group space is a special folder where those in your class (and other designated users) can upload files to share.

Uploading files to group space

To put a document or file into group space, follow these steps:

1. From within Oncourse, select your course, and then click In Touch.

2. From the menu that appears, select the appropriate group space.

3. Click the blue arrow next to "Upload a File". This will open a window prompting you to choose a file.

4. Use the Browse button to navigate to the file on your workstation. Select it; then click Open or Save.

5. Click Upload Now. Keep the browser window open until you see an "Upload Completed" message.

Note: You also have the option of adding more than one file by clicking Add to upload list and choosing another file. When you have added all the files you want to upload, click Upload Now.

Deleting files from group space

To delete a document or file from group space, follow these steps:

1. From within Oncourse, select your course, and then click In Touch.

2. From the menu that appears, select the appropriate group space.

3. In the list of files and documents that appears, put a check in the box to the left of the item or items that you want to delete.

4. Click the red "X" next to "Delete".

Renaming files in group space

To rename a document or file in group space, follow these steps:

1. From within group space, in the list of documents and files that appears, put a check in the box to the left of the item that you want to rename.

2. Click the pencil icon next to "Rename".

3. In the dialog box that appears, type the new name that you have chosen beneath "New Name".

4. Click Rename.

Moving files in group space:

To move a document or file in group space, follow these steps:

1. From within group space, in the list of documents and files that appears, put a check in the box to the left of the item that you want to move.

2. Click the move icon next to "Move".

3. In the list of destination folders that appears, click the name of the folder into which you want to move the item.

4. Click Move Now.

Creating new folders in group space

To create a new folder in group space, follow these steps:

1. From within group space, click the folder icon next to "New Folder".

2. In the dialog box that appears, type the name that you want to give to the new folder; then click OK.

Drop Boxes

Note: Drop boxes and group spaces work similarly. In a drop box, only the student and instructor can see the files. In a group space, files are available to everyone who shares the space.

A drop box is a special folder created by an instructor where students (or other designated people) can upload files. Students commonly use drop boxes to hand in assignments.

Within each drop box, Oncourse creates individual folders for every student who uploads a file. Students can only see the files in their own folders, and cannot delete files. Instructors can see and delete everything in the drop box, and can also make files available to individual students.

To put a document into an existing drop box:

1. From within Oncourse, open your course, and then click In Touch.

2. From the menu that appears, select the appropriate drop box.

3. Click the blue arrow next to "Upload a File". This will open a window prompting you to choose a file.

4. Use the Browse button to navigate to the file on your workstation. Select the file, then click Open or Save.

5. Click Upload Now. Keep the browser window open until you see an "Upload completed" message.

Note: You have the option of adding more than one file by clicking Add to upload list and choosing another file. When you have added all the files you want to transfer, click Upload Now.

(These instructions were obtained through the Oncourse help feature.)

Reminder about other instructional resources: PowerPoint presentations for classroom use as well as grading rubrics, samples of assignment guidelines, assessment sheets, handouts, student papers, and other resources are available on the W231 Website.

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Julie Freeman June 2002 Department of English Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis