• Time Required
• 10–12 hours, including reading time

Welcome to Week Six of the course. This week, we finish up work on the Technical Description and Instructions Assignments. To ensure that you earn a Complete on your work, pay attention to the criteria and the information in the Self-Check activities, which tell you exactly what I will look for in your submissions.

Next week we will begin work on the Recommendation Report with a presentation that pitches the topic you want to explore in your report. Next week also marks the middle of the semester, so it’s a good opportunity for you to aim to finish any outstanding work from the first half of the term.

Holidays & Events This Week

• Black History Month in American and Canada continues through February 28.
• Presidents Day is celebrated Monday the 20th.
• The World Day of Social Justice is also celebrated on Monday the 20th.
• Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday) takes place on Tuesday, the 21st.
• Ash Wednesday, a Christian holiday marking the beginning of Lent, is Wednesday, February 22.
• Saviours' Day is a holiday for the Nation of Islam, celebrating the birth of the religion’s founder, Master Wallace Fard Muhammad, on Feburary 26.

If you observe these holidays and need me to adjust your due dates, send me a message in Canvas.

Objectives for this Module

After completing this week’s activities, you address the following course objectives:

• 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]

Activities to Complete

📚 To Read This Week

1. Chapter 20 of Markel & Selber, “Writing Definitions, Descriptions, & Instructions”
2. Chapter 11 of Markel & Selber, “Designing Print & Online Documents”
3. Student examples linked in the Technical Description Assignment and the Instructions Assignment

📝 To Write This Week

• Finish work on the Technical Description Assignment, using these additional resources:
  • Technical Description Criteria
  • Tip Sheet: Technical Description of an Object
  • Technical Description Self-Check
• Finish work on the Instructions Assignment, using these additional resources:
  • Instructions Project Criteria
  • Tip Sheet: Instructions
  • Instructions Self-Check
• Try out strategies from the course by submitting these activities:
  • Try-It #11: Calculating Readability Statistics (Tuesday)
  • Try-It #12: Analyzing Design in Your Instructions (Thursday)

💬 To Discuss This Week

• Optional ways to discuss class issues:
  • Post public questions in the General Q&A Discussion in Canvas if it can be shared with the class.
    
  • If you have a private question, send me a message with the Canvas Inbox.
  • Ask a question or make a suggestion anonymously with the Anonymous Questions & Suggestions form.

 

📓 To Check-In This Week

• Fill out the Week 6 Check-In Survey to let me know how you are doing in the course.

 

 

Photo credit: Research process by Raul Pacheco-Vega on Flickr, used under a CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.