Common End-of Semester Questions Answered

Here are answers to common end-of-semester questions:

1) Portfolios must be COMPLETELY finished by 5pm on Dec 6. I will download all the portfolio sites to my computer hard drive at that time. I will then use the downloaded material for grading. If you make changes to your site after this time, then I will not see these changes. Please to do not assume that you’ll have some extra time to complete your site before I grade it.

2) I will post final semester grades for degree candidates on Mon, 12/8.  I will post final semester grades for everyone else on Fri, 12/12. Please do not email me with questions about your final grade before this time. I will not have them calculated. Also, please do not email me with questions about your final grade after this time. I will be gone for the break (really gone, as in completely unreachable) and will not be able to help you. If you think that there is a problem with your final grade, then file a “grade appeal“. The procedure for this is described on page 12 of the TTU student handbook. We’ll then be able to deal with the problem at the beginning of next semester.

3) If you would like grading feedback on your final “portfolio” assignment, then please send me an email (with a clear subject line) anytime between Dec 6 and Dec 12. Tell me if you want just your final assignment grade or your assignment grade plus some comments and feedback. I will send you a reply at the beginning of next semester.

End-Of-Semester Office Hours

I will have a good bit of of office hour availability at the end of the semester. Here are the days and times that you can find me in room #408:

Mon, Nov 24th: 1-5pm

Mon, Dec 1st: 1-5pm

Thurs, Dec 4th: 9am-12:30pm & 1-4:30pm (ONLY to collect final graded papers and/or deal with course issues like fixing assignment grades, etc)

You can use the Nov 24th or Dec 1st office hours to come and ask me questions about the portfolio assignment, how to use wordpress.com, to get help editing or evaluating your final course assignments, or to get help from me on anything else related to the course.

Realize that my office hours on Nov 24th are likely to be very full.  That will be the day before everyone’s semester-ending group report is due, so lots of folks will undoubtedly be trying to get very last-minute editing help.  If you’re likely to be one of these folks, then here are some tips to get the most out of limited time.  First, come early.  Second, take a seat and listen to advice that other folks are getting if you have to wait.  Third, prioritize what you need.  And fourth, do SOME editing on your own before dropping something into my lap.

My office hours on Thursday, December 4th, will ONLY be to collect final papers and deal with course issues like talking about absences, fixing incorrectly recorded assignment grades, etc.  Your LAST CHANCE to get help with the final portfolio assignment is in-class work time on Tuesday, December 2nd.

EXTRA office hours

There is no class meeting on Thursday, November 20th.  I suggest on the schedule that y’all use this time to meet at the library (or any other convenient place) to work on the “feasibility/recommendation report” group assignment.  However, you can do whatever you want with this time.

For my part, I’ll use the normal Thursday class timeslot to be more availble to y’all for feedback, advice, editing help, or whatever else you want.  I will be in my office from 12:30pm to 3:30pm on Thursday, November 20th.  Feel free to come by anytime during those three hours.

Class Summary 11/11 — group presentation assignment

I talked about the group presentation assignment in class on Tuesday, November 11th.

Here is a slideshow that might help your group plan and perform an effective presentation: presentation ADVICE

Class Summary 11/6 — research and using templates

In class on Thursday, November 6th, I talked about some tips and advice for report research strategies and resources. Here are the very short slideshows that I presented:

research advice

using templates

Here is an example report template that I discussed: simple report template EXAMPLE

These slideshows will hopefully give you practical ideas for organizing the “group project report” writing very efficiently.

“Group Progress Report” GRADING

Here are some details about how I will grade the “group progress report” assignments. I will talk about this in class on Thursday, October 30th, but folks will undoubtedly want something they can re-read before the due date. So, here it is.

First, an effective progress report should have a clear goal.

You have two choices for a goal.

You can use progress reports to help the people in your group manage their work. For this type of a progress report, you would want to include details of who has done what. You would also want to include details of what still needs to be done, by who, and by when. Finally, you would want to include details about whether the overall project is ahead of, right on, or behind schedule.

You can also use progress reports to get help and advice from managers. For this type of a progress report, you would want to include details about things that you are having trouble with. You would also want to include details about how you have already tried to solve these problems. Finally, you would want to be very clear about what kind of help you need to overcome the problems.

You can write progress reports designed to meet either one or both of these general goals.

Second, an effective progress report should help the group to save time and effort.

Use these reports as tools to solve problems. Also try to be efficient. If you can, try to organize them so that you can use parts of these reports in your final group recommendation report. You can do this pretty easily if you are creative. At the least, you can write each individual progress report to talk about a different issue. This will help the group to cover a lot of ground in the progress reports without having to do a lot of individual writing. Each progress report does not have to talk about the exact same things.

Third, THESE progress reports need to follow directions and be very well edited.

The assignment directions are very specific about who has to write what. The directions are very specific about header formatting. The directions say nothing about how you must edit the overall assignment.

You’ll need to figure out a strategy for effectively editing a document that has been written by everyone in the group. This will be practice for editing the group recommendation report.

calculating grades

I’ve had a couple questions about how to calculate course grades.  Since I don’t calculate course grades until the end of the semester, I cannot simply say “your average is BLAH.”  However, since you have all the same assignment grade info that I have, you can easily calculate your course average yourself.

Here’s how I do it.  At the end of the semester, I simply multiply each individual assignment grade by its fractional value.  Then, I add up all the points and divide by the total number of possible points.

So, let’s say that I have a “90″ grade on the syllabus quiz, a “90″ grade on the Ch1 HW, a “90″ grade on the Ch11 HW, a “90″ grade on the Ch2 HW, a “90″ on the Ch9 HW, a “90″ on the Ch3 HW, and a “90″ on the committee progress email report assignment.  Since there are 21 total HW assignments worth a total of 18%, each one of those is worth 0.857% of the final grade.  All the other assignment percentages are right on the “assignments & grading” page of the online syllabus.

Here’s what I would plug into a calculator to figure my course average to that point in the semester:

90×0.00857 + 90×0.00857 + 90×0.00857 + 90×0.00857 + 90×0.00857 + 90×0.00857 + 90×0.06 = 10.0278 / 11.142 (total possible points) = 90

It’s usually easiest and quickest to make an xcel spreadsheet for this.  Once you set up the formula to calcuate an average from all the individual grades, you can keep instant track of you course average by simply typing in your assignment grades as you get them.

“Group Report Work Plan” GRADING

Here is some additional information about how I will grade the “Group Report Work Plan” assignment. I talked about this in class on Thursday, October 23rd, but some folks have asked for additional details.  In addition to no-brainer criteria like FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS (especially for the header — FOLLOW DIRECTIONS!!!), here is some additional advice.

FIRST, remember I emphasized that planning reports need to be practically useful.

They need to help people in the group work effectively. They also need to help managers offer useful advice and support. Therefore, these are the two general criteria that I will use to evaluate your reports. I will ask myself two questions: Does this report help the group work effectively? Does this report help me to offer useful advice and support?

SECOND, here are some specific things to think about when you brainstorm content for the planning report.

To help people in the group work effectively, you’ll need to describe exactly who is going to do exactly what by exactly when. You might also need to describe how the group will do things like run meetings, stay in touch, share files, etc. All this will require breaking the major deadlines (like “report due on Nov 25th”) down into a series of practical interim deadlines that you will need to hit in order to make the major deadlines happen (like “finish research by Nov 11th”, “finish rough draft by Nov 18th”, “finish editing by Nov 24th”, etc). This will also require being very specific about what each person in the group is responsible for. You’ll probably need lists, some schedules, maybe a timeline, etc.

To help me offer useful advice and support, you’ll need to describe what y’all think the report goals will be. You might also need to describe some things about your client and/or actually ask explicit questions in the report. All this will require putting yourselves in my shoes and predicting what information will help me to really clearly understand your project goals.

THIRD, here are some specific things to think about when you edit the planning report.

Since this is an internal report, it is not absolutely vital (like in an external proposal) that the editing be perfect. I already have a working relationship with you. A few grammar or formatting problems aren’t going to destroy your credibility with me. However, you don’t want a report filled with spelling errors, typos, and/or really obvious editing problems. Typos will hurt your credibility. Therefore, do your best as a group to edit the report very quickly and fairly effectively. Don’t kill yourselves trying to fix every little grammar problem, but do edit for clear typos.

Since y’all have a limited amount of time to produce this report, don’t worry about the visuals looking perfect. I would like y’all to spend time planning and putting detailed information into the report. I would not like y’all to waste time doing busywork to make every visual look perfect. Also remember that I’m fine with handwritten notes to me in the body of reports. If there’s something you want to communicate and you can’t figure out how to make word do it, then simply WRITE it into the report by hand.

Finally, remember the deadline changes.

You can hand the report in at the end of class on Tuesday, October 28th. Alternatively, you can get the report to me during my office hours on Wednesday, October 29th. Either way, you’ll have a good chunk of in-class work time on Tuesday.

Editing Suggestions and MORE!

Here is a sixteen-step (yes, that’s SIXTEEN different steps) guide to writing good proposal reports: report writing GUIDE

I talked about this guide in class on Tuesday, Oct 14th. It might seem like overkill to you at first, but remember that proposals are really important documents. They make money for your organizaiton. Therefore, they need to be REALLY clearly written and REALLY well edited.

Following each step of a good practical writing and editing guide (like the one I’ve posted here) will help to maximize the chances that your proposal will be successful.

Class Summary10/14 — MOST IMPORTANT proposal editing issues

In class on Tuesday, Oct 14th, I talked about the THREE MOST COMMON editing problems in proposals. I also talked about WHY THESE PROBLEMS very often cause a proposal to be REJECTED immediately by the folks reviewing it.

#1 - TYPOS: the most serious mistake you can make in a proposal. CLEARLY shows that the person or people who put the proposal together didn’t care enough to read through it carefully before sending it off OR didn’t have enough time to read through it carefully before sending it off. Either way, it calls into question the validity of the entire proposal.

If the people who wrote proposal didn’t have the time or inclination to do something really incredibly basic like check the spelling carefully, then why would they do other very basic things like estimate the budget carefully? Typos will cause readers to not believe the things that you say in a proposal.

#2 - GRAMMAR & CLARITY PROBLEMS: the second most serious type of mistake you can make in a proposal. Aside from making life more difficult for readers, it STRONGLY SUGGESTS that the person or people who put the proposal together either didn’t care enough to get it effectively edited or didn’t have enough time to get it effectively edited. Either way, this also calls into question the validity of the entire proposal.

Grammar and clarity problems are not the huge red flags that typos are, but they are definitely important red flags that a good proposal evaluator will use to judge how believable the entire document is. Grammar and clarity problems will cause readers to doubt the things that you say in a proposal.

#3 - VAGUE or UNEVEN LEVEL OF DETAIL: the third most serious type of mistake you can make in a proposal. This type of mistake comes in three forms.

First, the entire proposal can be significantly (and suspiciously) more vague than the reader is expecting. This can cause the reader to question the validity of the proposal. For example, imagine that you describe a budget but don’t say anything about how you estimated the budget numbers. If the reader was expecting a detailed proposal, then this can cause the reader to suspect that maybe you don’t have any detailed budget estimate info in the first place. Maybe you simply guessed the budget numbers, so that’s why you don’t give details.

Second, one or more specific sections of the proposal can be significantly (and suspiciously ) less detailed than other sections. For example, imagine that you write really detailed budget and schedule and qualifications sections, but you write a really vague safety section. If the reader was expecting a consistent level of detail (which most readers do), then this can cause the reader to suspect that you might be hiding something. Maybe your safety record simply isn’t good, so that’s why you don’t give details on this.

Third, a specific section of the proposal can be significantly (and suspiciously) more detailed than other sections. For example, imagine that you write a generally vague overall proposal, but that you write a really super-detailed safety section. This can cause the reader to suspect that you might be hiding something. Maybe you had safety problems in the past, so that’s why you give excessive details on this.

In general, you can never go wrong by simply explaining to the reader why you are giving them a specific level of detail for each section of a proposal. If you have a good reason for writing a generally vague proposal, then simply explain this to the reader in a cover letter or in the proposal introduction. If you have a good reason for making a specific section of the proposal significantly more or less detailed than the rest of the document, then simply explain this to the reader in a brief paragraph at the beginning of that particular section. If you have additional information but don’t want to include it in the proposal for a specific reason, then simply tell the reader that you can give them more information if they ask for it. This will prevent the reader from assuming that you simply pulled specific numbers or conclusions out of thin air.

Class Summary 10/2 — proposal basics

In class on Thursday, Oct 2nd, I talked about the proposal report genre and introduced the “mowing proposal report” assignment.

First, I talked about how the specific format and content of proposals will always depend on the specific situation. There is no one standard “correct” format for a proposal. Instead, you will need to analyze the specific audience and goal. There are several steps to this: 1) follow any specific directions that the audience provides, 2) include information that the audience will need to quickly and completely evaluate your offer, 3) include information that will eliminate any audience fears about your offer, 4) format the document so the audience will be able to easily read it quickly and easily use it conveniently, and 5) decide what specific sections (budget, qualifications, schedule, etc) to put in your report.

Second, I presented the “do, know, FEAR” slideshow and then we brainstormed some obvious fears that a city government audience is likely to have about contracting out mowing services.  For example, what if the contractor goes over budget?  What if they cause damage to city property?  What if they do a really horrible job?  What if they annoy registered voters, or don’t stick to a convenient schedule, or violate state or federal laws or regulations, or hurt someone, or . . . .

You (hopefully) get the point.  It is rarely the cheapest bid that wins a proposal competition.  Instead, the winning proposal is almost always the one that makes the evaluators feel safest.  Winning proposals successfully respond to audience fears.  That is your writing challenge for this assignment.

Here is something that I did not talk about last class.

There are some important differences between a “solicited” and an “unsolicited” proposal. In a solicited proposal, the audience already knows that there is a problem or an opportunity. This is why they’re asking for help in the first place. In an unsolicited situation, the audience does not already know that there is a problem or an opportunity that they could use help with. Therefore, an unsolicited proposal must begin by clearly defining and describing why the audience should even consider doing the work you describe.  This is why I put a link to the “Information Management: A Proposal” hypertext proposal on the schedule for 10/2.  It is a REALLY GOOD example of how to begin an unsolicited proposal.

The “mowing proposal report” assignment directions describe a solicited proposal situation. However, you can still practice unsolicited proposal skills in this assignment if you want to. You could, for example, write a proposal that offers to do some additional work besides the basic mowing services that the city explicitly asks for. This would require clearly defining what this extra work would be and clearly describing why the city should consider contracting with you for additional mowing or landscaping services in the first place.

Class Summary 9/25 — document tone

In class on Thursday, Sept 25th, I talked about document tone.

We looked at the “snow policy” memos for “Comapny A” and “Company B”. Y’all had very different reactions to the two memos. Since the policies themselves were identical, the reactions were the result of the way that each memo was worded. Therefore, this highlighted the importance of editing carefully for tone to control how your audience feels after reading a memo, or a report, or a letter, or any other technical document.

Finally, we brainstormed what some of the differences were between the two memos. Some key differences included:

* Point of View (one was written from the employees’ point of view, and the other was written from the managers’ point of view)

* Emphasis (one emphasized what employees could choose to do, while the other emphasized what employees were required to do)

* Layout and Formatting (one used short paragraphs and descriptive headings along with bullet lists, while the other used very long block paragraphs with no lists)

Think about these things when you edit your own documents.

Class Summary 9/4 — grading, etc

I talked about four different things in class on Thursday, Sept 4th.

First, I talked about grading. The slideshow linked to the schedule describes (as clearly and explicitly as I can) the general philosophy and specific guidelines that I will apply to each major writing assignment. It also shows what all the comment abbreviations mean. Please think about these guidelines as you outline, write, and edit your writing assignments. Also please USE my feedback to help improve the readability, clarity, correctness, and general usefulness of future assignments. Doing both of these things will help you to better succeed in the course.

Second, I talked about the example “practice professional email” that I created for the HW assignment. In case you didn’t notice, the assignment could be much more complicated than it first appeared to be. You could have written a very simple last-minute recommendation request in only a few lines. However, writing a request that is persuasive, informative, and that saves everyone involved the most time and effort possible is much more complicated. Writing a REALLY useful request required putting yourself in the audience’s shoes to ask (and ANSWER) questions like these: do I know who this person is? did I like them? do I have the time to write this for them? how would I format it? what would I write about? what exactly would I do with it once I wrote it? Remember that audience analysis is the most critical part of effective report writing.

Third, I reminded y’all that the way I use the course textbook, present inormation in class, and offer feedback and advice on your work are ALL DESIGNED TO HELP YOU FOLKS PRACTICE USING NEW SKILLS AND CONCEPTS IN YOUR MAJOR REPORT WRITING PROJECTS. If you hand in writing assignments that do not reflect course material, then you will not achieve good assignment grades.

Finally, I talked about the end-of-semester portfolio assignment. I really REALLY recommend that you start on this assignment now. You can play around with wordpress to figure out how to use the interface, and you can start building your portfolio right from the day you get feedback on your “committee progress email report” assignment. Waiting ’till the end of the semester to begin your portfolio is a near-certain recipe for frustration.

Class Summary 9/2 — email

I talked about professional email conventions, tips, and advice in class on Tuesday, Sept 2nd.

The slideshow I presented contains lots of specific advice. In general, my professional email advice boils down to this: understand that writing and sending an email within a professional organizational context just like you’re text messaging a best bud IS A VERY BAD IDEA. For example, if you send me an email that contains spelling mistakes and typos, that contains basic grammar mistakes (ESPECIALLY things like no punctuation, no capitalizations, etc), that is not clear, or that has a vague or uninformative header then I will not take you seriously. I will assume that you are probably a dope, and I will try my best to not work with you on projects.

Don’t be a dope. Write, edit, and send people emails that are useful to them and that make people think that you are an effective and conscientious professional.

Class Summary 8/28 — report basics, audience analysis, & assignment expectations

I talked about three main things in class on Thursday, Aug 28th.

First, I talked through some example short progress reports (linked to the schedule) to help y’all think about what you can do for the first “committee progress report” writing assignment. All three of the example progress reports are organized very differently, and they all contain different types of information. There is no one specific formula for how a progress report must be organized or for what a progress report must contain. Instead, a successful progress report must simply be useful for the specific audience you’re creating it for and the specific goal you’re trying to achieve. EVERYTHING depends on audience and goal.

Second, I talked about the “defining objectives” sheet that you’ll need to complete (either by printing it out and filling it out in longhand or by downloading it and typing answers to the questions — I don’t care which) for the first “committee progress report” writing assignment. The directions for this first major assignment are very vague. That is intentional. The “defining objectives” sheet is your tool for defining the writing project yourself. It will help you to create a specific audience and define a specific goal for your report, and it will help me to evaluate what you submit for the assignment. If this confuses you, then you need to ask questions until you understand what I’m asking you to do with the “defining objectives” sheet and how it relates to the “committee progress report” writing assignment.

Third, I talked about audience analysis and why it is most often necessary to go beyond literal instructions to produce really useful reports. Almost always, audiences will not have the time, patience, or self-awareness to describe every little specific detail about the very exact and specific content and format that they need in a report. Instead, they will almost always only provide quite vague directions like “get me a progress report on the committee reassignments” and leave the details up to you. It’ll be your job as an effective professional TO PREDICT the exact report goal, report content, and report format that will be most helpful to and appreciated by the audience. The “basic audience analysis” slideshow described how you can begin the process of creating very useful progress reports by performing thoughtful audience and goal analysis as the first step of planning and organizing any effective report writing project.

Finally, I talked a bit about what makes the difference between “A”, “B”, and “C” writing projects in my sections of 3365. We’ll talk about this more next week when I show the “grading basics” slideshow. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t look ahead at this slideshow to get a jump on planning assignments or asking questions.

Class Summary 8/26 — course overview

In class on Tuesday, Aug 26th, I talked about the “course overview” slideshow describing my background, teaching style and goals, and what to expect from the sections of Engl 3365 that I’ll teach this semester. Think about this slideshow carefully (and review the course syllabus, assignment descriptions, etc) before committing to these 3365 sections.