Today’s Plan:
- Job Ads Report Expectations
- What Can the ABO Book Tell Us About Reports?
- Reviewing Methodology Sections
- Homework
Job Ad Report Expectations
Our first major paper this semester is the Job Ad Report. Generally this report is 6-8 pages, single-spaced (including title page, table of contents, and potential appendix). It does not need a formal reference list.
Rhetorical situation: we have been hired by the UNCo Department of English to write a report that can be delivered to high school seniors, and their parents, discussing the current job market for English majors. The report will also be distributed to University Administrators and used to leverage funding for the Department. The report will be shared with faculty in the Department ahead of a round of curricular revisions.
So we have multiple audiences for this report:
- Client: English Department
- Primary Audience: High School Seniors
- Secondary Audiences: Parents (who may or may not be skeptical that English is a viable career field), Administrators (who may or may not be skeptical of investing more resources in English, particularly money on technology-driven classes/computer labs), Faculty (who may or may not still see the mission of English tied to the traditional Liberal Arts education)
What Can the ABO Book Tell Us About Reports?
I expect that, for many of you, this could be your first exposure to professional, rather than academic, writing. So let’s raid the ABO book and see what we can learn about professional writing and the report genre.
The ABO book contains sections on:
- Feasibility Reports
- Formal Reports
- Investigative Reports
- Tables and Graphs (presenting data
Look at the sample proposal on 439. Sample feasibility report, 187-188. Sample formal report 202-218. Sample investigative report 291.
Reviewing the Methodology Section
I asked you to spend the weekend drafting a methodology section, addressing the 3 central concerns of a methodology section:
- How did we collect our research objects (in this case, job ads)?
- How did we analyze our research objects (coding)?
- How did we ensure our analysis was reliable?
Let’s look at a few methodology sections from previous semesters.
Generating/Finalizing Your Data
Below is what we’ll work on in Thursday’s class–by the end of class on Thursday we should have 3 graphs you can use in your report (and complete the assignment for Canvas). If you want to get started early, then select 2 different job categories and total them in the blank template below.
Your report will contain three graphs–a tools and technology graph, a professional competencies graph, and a personal characteristics graph.
Here is a link to the code tallies we collaborated on in last Thursday’s class.
Here is a blank template to tabulate your data; we’ll use this on Thursday to make our graphs. This is set to view-only, you will need to make your own copy. File > Make a Copy). It has some sample numbers in there–be sure to delete those. Then go through your 20 jobs and simply count and record code frequency.
Once you have that data you can easily generate a graph. I want to show you how to generate a graph. Next week we will talk about creating ethical and useable visualizations of data (how to modify your graphs).
Here’s a link to documentation by google on making charts/graphs.
in Sheets.
Homework
In Thursday’s class we will work in the 1240 computer lab on the presentation of data in the report. I will show you how to generate and edit charts in Google Sheets and insert them into your Google Doc. We will also brainstorm data discussion, working together to recommend specific UNC courses for skill development.
This paper will be due next Tuesday at midnight. We’ll spend Tuesday’s class working on sentence syntax and looking at some past papers. Remember that you can earn extra labor towards an A grade by making an appointment with the Writing Center to share a draft of your report. By Thursday I will have a clean assignment sheet for the project that you can share with them.
For next Thursday’s class, I will ask you to read Jim Corder’s essay “Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love” and complete the Canvas assignment. We will discuss Corder’s essay, and then sign up for Project 2 teams (your choice: grant writing, social media, website copy/document design).
