Goals

• Analyze the rhetorical situation and determine the appropriate audience or users of written communication, considering the needs of global audiences and people with disabilities. [CLO 1]
• Use conventions of various workplace genres, such as proposals, instructions, correspondence, reports, and slide decks, with understanding of how the genre conventions can be used as heuristics and as principles of arrangement. [CLO 4]
• Collaborate with classmates in planning, researching, writing, revising, and presenting information. [CLO 5]
• Apply principles of effective visual design for print and electronic presentation, including hierarchical, chronological, and spatial arrangements. [CLO 6]
• Identify and apply the principles of effective style in the composing of usable, reader-centered written communications. [CLO 7]

The Task

What I Want You to Do

Create a first draft of your technical description, which visualizes an object or process related to your recommendation report. You will incorporate your description into your recommendation report later in the term.

Why I Want You to Do It

Visualizing an object or process for someone who is unfamiliar with it requires you to think from someone else’s perspective. By beginning your draft now, you should have time to work out the deatils that someone needs to know to understand the object or process you are describing. Since the description will ultimately be part of your recommendtion report, you need to be sure that your readers will understand.

How You Do It

1. Create a first draft of your technical description that informs your readers, viewers, and/or listeners about the item or process. As you did with your pitch and instructions, you get to choose what your first version looks like. Here are some examples:
   • Shoot some video footage of the object or a step in the process.
   • Write a script for your descriptive video.
   • Take photos to illustrate your description.
   • Sketch out an outline for your written description and begin filling in the details.
   • Choose an infographic tool (like Adobe Spark) and begin designing your description.
2. Review the technical description criteria to assess how you are doing and consider what you need help with.
3. Share your some portion of your first version (all of it or just part of it, whatever will help you most) in this week’s Discussion in Canvas, following the instructions in the Technical Description Draft Feedback Discussion. Post your draft by Thursday so that others in your group have time to provide feedback.
4. Submit evidence of your work on your first version to this assignment. You can decide what to submit, based on what you worked on. Here are some examples of what you can submit:
   • Video footage you created.
   • Images (such as photographs) that you created or shot.
   • Your storyboard or outline.
   • Your script (or a portion of your script).
   • A written explanation of what you did this week.
   • Some other kind of evidence that will show your work.

Obtaining the Points for Your Work

You track and grade your own work in this course. Be sure to complete the following tasks:

• Track your work in your Weekly Work Log.
• Post your first version in Discussions in Canvas with a specific question, for this week’s Technical Description Draft Feedback Discussion.
• Claim points for sharing your first version when you complete the weekly self-assessment  in Canvas.