it is business class writing. let me know if u have any questions.
“…[employees] care more than ever before about the values of the companies that they work for … social responsibility is high on the list of desired qualities … diversity and inclusion initiatives have been well documented as smart, lucrative business models, and companies are increasingly held accountable for meeting certain benchmarks.” — C. D. Shelton “Shifting Out of Neutral: Centering Difference, Bias, and Social Justice in a Business Writing Course” Project 2 Researched Backgrounder Report Objective Plan, research, and compose a short backgrounder report or “white paper” for a general audience of students like you. The backgrounder should introduce the core values and potential career opportunities available with a range of organizations related to your major or your ultimate career goals. In addition to giving you practice in research and report writing, the pieces of this project are designed to build transferable skills in: ✓ considering empathy and inclusion as keys to good communication and good business ✓ anticipating and responding to audience needs and expectations in context ✓ learning and applying conventions in new genres ✓ conducting credible and robust research in a professional setting ✓ documenting and justifying your use of secondary research sources ✓ designing business documents for rhetorical effectiveness ✓ cultivating an authoritative voice and strong professional ethos in writing Details As our textbook and other readings discuss, an organization’s values can shape not only the policies and practices of the organization as a whole, but also its members’ behaviors and the opportunities they have access to within and beyond the organization itself. This project invites you to think specifically and deeply about how such values and policies are communicated. As a prelude to the researched backgrounder that is the main focus of this project, you’ll write a shorter policy report as if for an internal company audience. This will be a chance for us to familiarize ourselves with report- writing conventions and remind us that business communications can have important implications for how employees live their lives, both at work and outside of work. For the backgrounder report, your task will be to research and write informatively about non-profit organizations related to your chosen major or career path (or other field of interest). Your audience will be other students in similar majors (or with similar interests) who want to know about career or internships opportunities with these organizations, what their values are, and how they contribute to their communities. Your backgrounder should present a relatively in-depth, informative summary of at least 4 unique organizations using a direct, clear, and professional style. You will search out credible information about the organizations and then carefully choose what information to present and how to shape that information for its intended audience. Creating this report will involve thinking not only about the content, but the design of the document as well. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10572252.2019.1640287 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10572252.2019.1640287 Dr. Chesley | Com 222 | Fall semester 2020 2 Project 2 Preparations Attend class (according to your cohort’s schedule) during Weeks 6–9 and participate in discussions about organizational values, non-profit businesses, research, and genre conventions. Take time to plan and conduct research. You may want to add research to your short internal policy report to justify the new company policy to those reading. For your larger external report, research will help you discover the non-profit organizations you’ll ultimately write about. You’ll also conduct research into each organization’s values and ethos. Read and Review WS4B chapters— 8: Solving Problems and Writing Proposals 9: Conducting Business Research 10: Writing Business Reports 99% Invisible podcast, “Where do we go from here?” Freakonomics podcast, “Failure Is Your Friend” Hall, “What Really Keeps…” (PDF also on SharePoint) Young, “Garbage Language” (PDF also on SharePoint) ZigZag podcast, “We’re Rethinking What Success Looks Like” Examples of short reports & white papers Project 2 Deliverables (28 pts total) As with Project 1, there will be many drafts and pieces of this project and we will move quickly from proposal to drafts and revisions. Below are all the required elements of Project 2, along with the point values and due dates for each. Project 2 planning email (2 pts) due 1 October, by email Send Dr. Chesley a professional email articulating your plans and ideas for this project’s deliverables. Review the expectations below for each deliverable and make decisions about how you’ll approach each. Which new company policy or policies will you write about for your internal policy document? Which field or discipline will you focus on for the researched backgrounder? Which organizations will you write about? What do you already know about the product or process, and what do you think you need to do more research on? Where and how will you start your research? In this email, you may also ask any questions you may have about Project 2 that aren’t answered by the assignment sheet. Internal policy document (2 pts) due 6 October, on Canvas Practice communicating professionally about new (and potentially controversial) company policies. Imagine that the board of directors of the growing tech company you work for has adopted the following new policies for your workplace. Your supervisor has asked you to compose a document announcing one or more (your choice) of the following four policy changes. - Mandatory Awareness, Inclusion, and Advocacy Training: The company will require all hypothetical employees to attend an annual half-day workshop focused on raising awareness and sensitivity around topics of diversity and inclusion. Topics will include issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and/or religion. - Gender-neutral bathrooms: All bathrooms in the company office building will be converted to gender- neutral spaces. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/where-do-we-go-from-here/ https://freakonomics.com/2014/06/04/failure-is-your-friend-full-transcript/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2019/08/11/what-really-keeps-the-best-employees-at-their-companies/ https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/spread-of-corporate-speak.html https://zigzagpod.com/2019/09/12/s4-ep12-were-rethinking-what-success-looks-like/ Dr. Chesley | Com 222 | Fall semester 2020 3 - Free childcare program: Beginning in January, the company will provide free childcare services for employees with children under the age of 5. Childcare facilities will be located near the company’s main reception area and will operate from 7am – 5:30pm each workday. - Inclusive parental leave: The company will offer 3 months of parental leave to all new parents, regardless of biological sex, sexual orientation, or gender expression. The policy will also apply to parents adopting young children (i.e. under the age of 5). Be creative with your report while following the conventions of the genre and keeping in mind audience expectations for clarity, directness, and layout. Submit your report as a PDF file. Bibliography with brief annotations (2 pts) due 8 October on SharePoint As you prepare to draft your external backgrounder report, keep track of all the sources you use and the important bibliographic information for each (author, title, publication date, publication venue, URL, and so on). In your bibliography, list all of the sources you have consulted so far for your research and include annotations for each. Your annotations should summarize and evaluate the sources you have used. What are the main message and goal of each source? Consider and explain how reliable the information is, and how you know you and your readers can trust this information. What makes each source a useful one for the purposes of your report? Submit your bibliography via SharePoint. Backgrounder draft (2 pts) due 13 October, on SharePoint Choose a professional discipline or field that interests you (it could be related to your major in some way if you like) and compose a detailed report covering at least 4 local or global non-profit organizations related to that field. Your backgrounder report should… ✓ describe how the organizations you’ve chosen to write about relate to the field you are interested in ✓ outline the kinds of opportunities available to those who might like to work with them ✓ articulate what particular organizational goals and values your readers should know about. ✓ include research from at least 8 credible sources Include an introduction and overview of your chosen organizations, background details about each, and a brief conclusion. Structure the report with an awareness of audience and rhetoric demonstrated through written and visual means. Design and write your backgrounder using plain language and an easy to read format. Use headings, subheadings, and visuals if necessary. Aim for a length of about 4 single-spaced pages or 1,200 words. Peer review workshops (4 pts) due by 18 October, via SharePoint Evaluate at least 2 peers’ draft reports and respond with constructive comments on how they could revise to more fully meet or exceed the expectations of this assignment. Include specific in-line comments on the details of their drafts, as necessary, and summarize your most important suggestions in a top-of-page comment in SharePoint. Use your own judgement as a student reader along with the Project 2 evaluation criteria (see below) to frame and justify your feedback. Complete Backgrounder Portfolio (16 pts) due 20 October, on Canvas Use all the feedback you received (from your peers and from me) to revise and polish your backgrounder report. Update and polish your annotated bibliography to reflect the sources you ultimately decided to use in your report. These drafts should be significantly improved and almost perfectly polished documents that you would be proud to show to an employer. Work on major, noticeable revisions, not merely superficial, grammatical or mechanical fixes. Finally, combine your revised drafts with your earlier work on this project. Your full Project 2 portfolio should be saved and uploaded as a single PDF, and include in this order: Dr. Chesley | Com 222 | Fall semester 2020 4 ✓ Cover page and brief introduction (2 pts) ✓ Bibliography with annotations draft (2 pts) ✓ Backgrounder draft (2 pts) ✓ Revised bibliography with annotations (4 pts) ✓ Revised backgrounder report (4 pts) ✓ Reflection (2 pts) For the reflection portion of your portfolio, write 2-3 paragraphs about your overall experience with this project, from beginning to end. Look back at the decisions you made as you completed the preliminary deliverables and