What You Need to Do

During your Week 10 Meeting, you divided secondary research among group members. After the meeting, you were responsible for conducting the research. In this Try-It, you’ll post what you found so that everyone in your group has access to it.

How This Activity Connects to the Course

You and your group are working directly on your Recommendation Report by gathering the information that you will include in your report. You usually use your secondary research to explain why the website guidelines you are using matter (for instance, why color can help readability). You can also use details on the effectiveness of design choices to demonstrate why making changes is likely to improve the website.

You’ll use the information that you post here in your Recommendation Report in these ways:

• You’ll refer to your research in your letter of transmittal, abstract, and executive summary.
• You’ll discuss how you conducted your research in the Methods section.
• You’ll explain what you found in your research in the Results section.
• You’ll connect to the research to support the ideas in your Conclusions section.
• You’ll include bibliographic citations for any relevant outside sources in your Works Cited, References, or similar section (whatever is required for the documentation style your group chose).

How to Do It

1. Review the Recommendation Report Research Guide for tips on secondary research.
2. Return to your Week 10 Meeting Minutes, if needed, to remind yourself what secondary research you are responsible for and to remind yourself of the documentation style your group is using. The minutes should be posted in an Announcement in your Group area on Canvas. For help, see How do I use groups as a student?.
3. Complete your assigned research according to the schedule your group agreed to. As you read the sources, look for key details that will help with the analysis of your website and your recommendations to improve it.
4. Add at least two separate Replies, one for each of the two research sources you are responsible for. Post on each source separately (e.g., source one in post one, and source two in post two). If you found additional resources that will help with your report, you can add more replies.
   Allowed Use of AI
   

   If you’d like, you can ask Copilot or the AI tool of your choice to write your summary. You will need to provide the AI tool a PDF copy of the article OR a direct, public link to the article.

   If you do, review the summary to make sure it’s accurate. If the research source uses images or other visual elements, the AI tool may not be able to identify the information that they add to the source.

   Add a note in your reply that indicates the specific AI tool it was written by. Something simple at the end of the summary works. Here’s an example: Summary written by Copilot.

   Prohibited Use of AI

   You cannot ask AI to write or revise the other portions of your post. Doing so directly violates the Cheating and Plagiarism sections of the Virginia Tech Honor Code.

5. Write your first individual reply post by following these steps:
   1. Reply to this discussion.
   2. Add one or two keywords that capture the topic of the source (for instance, Color).
   3. Post a bibliographic citation for your source, using the documentation style that your group has decided to use (e.g., IEEE, MLA). There are citations generators you can use on the Documentation and Citations for Your Report page.
   4. Add a Summary heading.
   5. Under the heading, summarize the source. Aim for 100–200 words (but I won’t count).
   6. Add a Useful Quotations heading.
   7. Under the quotations heading, add two or three direct quotations that could be used in your report. You’ll need to choose these yourself.
   8. If your source has pages (for instance, it’s a journal article), add the relevant page number for the quotation.
   9. Use document design features to make your keyword and headings stand out from the rest of the content in your post.
6. In your second individual post, repeat the process in Step 5 (directly above) for the second source you have signed up for.
7. Read through all the posts your group adds so that you are familiar with the content and can use these sources as you work on your Recommendation Report.
8. Add replies to share any feedback or reactions. You can note research that will be important to your Recommendation Report as well as any place where deeper research is needed.

Assessment

I will mark your participation in this Discussion Complete (or Incomplete) after the end of the Grace Period passes and I confirm that you added a minimum of two replies (one for each of the sources you reviewed). Allow me several days to read and mark all your posts. I will assess group members individually based on their participation.