What You Will Learn and Practice

• How to analyze your audience and purpose so that you can choose supporting material that is convincing to your readers. [CLO 1]
• How to find and evaluate ethical evidence in secondary sources, such as books, articles, podcasts, and videos, that supports your position. [CLOs 2 & 3]

What I Want You to Do

Identify research resources in your career field that you can draw on as you work on your recommendation report and which you can use in future projects.

Why I Want You to Do It

Every field has go-to resources that set the standard for research. By completing this activity, you will assemble your own custom research toolbox, which includes the standard resources you should begin with. Whenever you conduct research—here in college and in the field once you graduate, these resources are where to start.

Where You Can Find Help

• From Markel and Selber, Chapter 6 in the “Conducting Secondary Research” section (pp. 126–135).
• From the University Libraries, consult the Research Guide for your discipline to familiarize yourself with sources in your field. You can also talk to the librarian for your subject area.

When to Do It

• Suggested Due Date: By 11:59 PM on Friday, September 17, 2021.
• Timely Feedback Date: If you need more time, take more time. Remember that you will need to conduct your research to write the Methods and Results sections of your Recommendation Report.
• Last Chance Date: The grace period for your work ends at 11:59 PM on Friday, December 3, 2021.

How You Do It

1. Review the sources listed in the “Where You Can Find Help” section above.
2. Use a search engine to find additional resources in your field.
3. For each question listed below, provide the name and the URL of the site that contains information for your answer. For instance, as someone who teaches technical writing, I would list the following as part of my answer to Question 1:
   The Association for Teachers of Technical Writing, https://www.attw.org/.

How to Assess and Track 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.
• Watch for occasional feedback on your work. I do not comment on your responses, but I do review it.

Work is always marked as either 1 for Complete or 0 for Incomplete:

• Canvas will automatically mark this activity Complete after you submit your work.
• Canvas will automatically mark this activity Incomplete if you do not submit your work by the end of the grace period.

 

This activity was adapted from Exercise #3 from Chapter 6 of Markel and Selber’s Technical Communication (13th edition).