This webpage and Wednesday’s (4/05) will cover research strategies. In lieu of doing a full research project, you’ll be turning in a Proposal, Visual, and Annotated Bibliography (April 26th), and your Assignments Page has more details on that. It’s never too late to start!
Chapter 8: Reports and Other Such Fun
Chapter 8 basically stresses the need to understand audience and purpose for particular types of reports. Of course, reports are industry specific, so we need to be careful about generalizing. However, there are important components of the chapter that can be generalized as effective types of technical communication.
- p. 168: As much as I wish this weren’t true, Tebeaux & Dragga are correct when they claim, “None of your readers will read your entire report unless it’s a single page.”
- p. 170: You’ll continue to have due date even after you leave college (so use your calendars!), so this is good advice: “If you your reader(s) to respond to your report by a certain date,” let them know!
- Casually, we say, “do it by next week,” “get this to me by Friday,” and “I need this in April,” but these are more accurate for professional contexts:
- Please complete this by Monday at Noon.
- Turn this in no later than Friday, 5:00 pm.
- I must have your report by 5:00 pm on April 26th.
- Also, it might be a good idea to indicate in what format (paper, digital, email, etc.) you need the report.
- Casually, we say, “do it by next week,” “get this to me by Friday,” and “I need this in April,” but these are more accurate for professional contexts:
- p. 170: Distribution Lists
- In emails, we BCC not necessarily to hide who gets the document but to protect from someone “Replying All”
- Listing who gets what correspondence (reports, emails, memo, etc.) may be required for legal reasons, so make sure you know your organization’s policies on compliance with state and federal regulations.
- p. 171: the section “Background or Rationale” needs a bit more explanation
- Tebeaux & Dragga are right about how readers use these documents, and they indicate different readers will have different needs and backgrounds.
- Remember: technical reports and all kinds of professional documents have primary, secondary, and tertiary readers:
- Primary audiences: technical experts, lawyers, regulators
- Secondary audiences: managers, accountants, lawyers
- Tertiary audiences: shareholders, potential investors, lawyers
- Notice that lawyers could be any of the audiences.
- p. 227: For your Weekly Discussion Post, I’m asking you to do #3 from the Exercises, so refer to the Figure 8-9 “Procedural Reform Recommendation for the U.S. Marshal Service.”
Some questions
- What attributes make the reports in Appendix C an effective report for the busy executive?
pp. 380-410: “Organometallic Chemistry Research Relating to Medical Imaging and Anticancer Drugs”- Clear, concise Abstract
- List of Keywords for signaling relevance
- A clear, concise Executive Summary
- A well-organized report with clearly defined sections for quickly looking up information
- What about the effectiveness of the report Figure 8.1: “Marketing CSU–Status Report” pp. 172-174?
- Although this is a shorter report, it provides clear and concise information
- The numbered lists also allow readers to quickly see the main points
- Notice that no list is longer than six (6) items and they’re grouped under different headings
- A general rule is to not have more than seven (7) items to a list in a report, but this isn’t a universal rule.
Research Discussion Introduction
Preview Proposal, Visual, and Annotated Bibliography due in two weeks on Monday, 6/21.
Next Class
Wednesday’s page (4/05) is up and goes into more theoretical aspects of research and knowledge making and discusses source credibility.