• Time Required
• 8–10 hours, including reading time

Welcome to Week Eight of the course. This week we continue collaborating on the final projects of the term. Specifically, this week you’ll work with your group to write the portions of your group proposal, which pitches the topic for your recommendation report.

All of the work from now on in the course requires interacting with your group, so it’s important that you keep in touch with your group and meet the deadlines that your group has set.

Holidays & Events This Week

• Indigenous Peoples’ Day is Monday, October 9. Virginia Tech has several events marking the day.
• Thanksgiving takes place on Monday, October 9 in Canada.
• Ada Lovelace Day, a celebration of the contributions of women to STEM fields, occurs on Tuesday, October 10. Go Women!
• Pitru Paksha, a Hindu celebration of ancestors, continues this week. Lasting 16 days, the celebration ends on Saturday, October 14.
• Fire Prevention Week takes place this week. Check the batteries in your smoke detector.
• Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated from through October 15. There are several related events at Virginia Tech.
• Breast Cancer Awareness Month lasts the entire month of October.

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

 

Objectives for this Module

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

• Identify and define a problem or subject related to your particular field (or another specific problem according to your assignment’s directions) and assemble and analyze research related to this problem. [CLO 1]
• Analyze the context of this problem or subject and determine appropriate audiences for the unit’s deliverables. [CLO 2]
• Practice workplace genres associated with a team-based research project: a research proposal, meeting minutes, a progress report, a recommendation report or an informational report for non-expert readers, a slide deck presentation of the report, and a video presentation. [CLO 3]
• Practice team and collaborative work in all phases of project management. [CLO 4]
• Design strategies for evaluating the overall effectiveness of the suggested approaches to the researched problem. [CLO 5]
• Illustrate the ethical and human implications of the solutions proposed for solving the problem. [CLO 6]

Activities to Complete

📚 To Read This Week

• Group Writing
• Resource Modules:
  • Research Proposals
  • Visual Aids
  • Persuasive Writing
  • Correspondence
  • Technical Reports
• Proposals from Technical Writing
  All sections in one Module OR click the individual pages below:
  • 3.1 Some preliminaries
  • 3.2 Types of proposals
  • 3.3 Typical scenarios for the proposal
  • 3.4 Common sections in proposals
  • 3.5 Special assignment requirements
  • 3.6 Proposals and audience
  • 3.7 Revision checklist for proposals

📝 To Do This Week

• Continue work on your Proposal Assignment, completing tasks as decided by your group. The target due date of October 20. Use the these resources:
  • Proposal Assignment
  • Proposal Criteria
  • Proposal Self-Check
• Try out strategies from the course by submitting these activities:
  • Try-It #15: Group Project Audience Analysis (Tuesday, Grace Period ends Wed, 10/18)
  • Try-It #16: Group Updates Discussion (Thursday, Grace Period ends Wed, 10/18)

💬 To Ask Questions (Optional)

• 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 8 Check-In Survey to let me know how you are doing in the course.

 

 

Photo credit: Brainstorming by amnestystudent on Flickr, used under a CC-BY 2.0 license.