Compare your recommendation report topic to the topics below that take on ideas that are specific enough to examine and complete this term.
| Student Topic | My Feedback |
|---|---|
| I have chosen to propose a new design for the fraternity house I am currently living in to address overcrowding. I live on Oak Lane which is an area on-campus dedicated to housing “Greek” life. | This topic works. It is about a very specific house, and it examines something specific about that location. |
| I will look at the usability of Discussions Tool in Canvas, both on the phone and on the computer. | This topic works. It focuses on a specific piece of web-based software (Canvas), and it looks at something particular about that software (usability of the Discussions Tool). |
| The topic I chose for my recommendation is the waiting times for a COVID test at MedExpress in Christiansburg specifically. | This topic works. It is about a specific activity in a specific location. Not all of the appointments. Not all of the tests. Just the COVID tests. And not everywhere in the world. Just the COVID tests at MedExpress in Christiansburg. |
| The Wegman's grocery store in Tysons Corner, VA has implemented a curbside pickup service, along with the other stores in the chain. Due to its location, the Tysons store has a pickup zone located in an underground parking garage. Cell service and WiFi are both inaccessible in the garage, meaning that direct interaction with employees is required to notify them of a customer's arrival. | This topic works. It is about a specific topic: cell service and WiFi, and it focuses on a very specific place where that access is unavailable: in the underground parking garage at the Wegman’s in Tysons Corners, VA. |
| The topic I want to chose is the preservation of two buildings and safer travel by the addition of a stop sign on the intersection of Center Street and Warren Street. | This topic works. It is about a specific location (the intersection of Center Street and Warren Street), and it considers a specific situation (the danger to the two buildings and people involved). Further, it suggests that there is a specific solution (a stop sign). |
The project topics below need to be revised so they cover a more specific topic. As they are shown, they are too general. The Recommendation project requires a topic that is specific and easily observable.
| Student Topic | My Feedback |
|---|---|
| Decisions made from data analysis is more precise than from intuition and previous experience. |
This topic needs to be more specific. Rather than examining all the decisions made with data analysis, the writer needs to focus a very specific decision or perhaps very closely related decisions. The writer can also consider whether to try to cover all kinds of data analysis or focus on particular kinds of data analysis. Additionally, to determine the overall precision of intuition and previous experience, the writer would need to survey a large number of people who make such decisions. There won’t be adequate time in the term to conduct such primary research (survey). |
| I am choosing to write about constructing buildings in environmentally challenged areas. | This topic needs to be more specific. There are many different kinds of buildings and many kinds of environmentally-challenged areas. To cover the topic as stated, the writer would need several years, not a few weeks. The writer needs to talk about a particular kind of construction how it affects a particular kind of environmentally-challenged area. |
| The topic I have chosen for my recommendation report is third party advertisements for company websites. |
This topic needs to be more specific. “Company websites” is a broad topic. The writer cannot possibly cover all sites or even all sites in a particular field (for instance, all oil company sites) during the term. The writer might think about a particular site, or compare two sites—one with challenges and one that demonstrates the solution to be recommended. The topic also needs to indicate what is being considered about the third-party ads: including them? not including them? their accessibility? their tracking cookies? their content? |
| I have chosen the topic of privacy on social media networks and the internet for my recommendation report. |
This topic needs to be more specific. There are several social media networks, which all approach privacy in slightly different ways. Covering all the different ways would take the writer more time than we have left in the term. Worse yet, covering the entirety of the Internet is a topic a writer could spend their entire career on. This writer might take on a specific social media network for the recommendation report. |
| My report will cover the issue of flooding in the state of Louisiana. |
This topic needs to be more specific. Flooding in the entire state is too large to cover in this report. The report could consider flooding in a town or a specific neighborhood/area (like the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans). Additionally, the writer would need to live in or near the area that is examined. Along with tightening the location, the report topic could focus further on the kind of flooding: flooding caused by hurricanes, flash floods, floods caused by levee failure, and so forth. |