Writing Exercise: Interview Summary/Synthesis For this assignment, you will submit only the FINAL copy as there is no DRAFT option. This assignment is designed to help inform a topic that interests you, and the information you gather here will be used in your Proposal Letter assignment. For this assignment, you should be interviewing a person who has expertise about a topic you are interested in. Please note that you should be conducting the actual interview; you should not be summarizing an interview conducted by someone else. Part #1: Choose a Research Topic and an Interviewee You do not need to submit this portion in writing, but you do need to accomplish this in preparation for your research assignment. In preparation for your research proposal letter in the next topic, you will need to choose a topic for your proposal. This research proposal letter will be directed to an audience who can create change (Congressperson, business administrator, or other similar audience.) In the proposal, you need to suggest a change or a solution to a current problem. Examples of strong proposal topics would be things like funding ideas for an animal shelter, starting a recycling program in a community, suggesting a better plan for public transport, or another idea that interests you. You will be proposing solutions for these issues. Choose a topic that you are passionate about and for which you will be able to develop at least one solution. While this information should be enough for you to choose a topic, please consult the assignment sheet within Topic 7 if you have more questions about this assignment. Once you choose a topic, it’s time to choose a credible expert to interview on that subject. In other words, you should avoid choosing an interviewee who is a close friend or family member unless that person truly is an expert in the field. This credible expert should have 10+ years of experience in his or her discipline. Choose an interviewee who not only could offer some specific details about the problem but one who may also be able to offer suggestions of a plausible solution. Use the information contained in the lesson presentation to secure and conduct a successful interview. Part #2: Summarize and Synthesize Your Interview When you summarize and synthesize, you take the smaller pieces (the sections of the interview) and develop them into one cohesive piece. Doing this exercise will help you prepare for the research proposal letter, where you will need to incorporate at least a few ideas from the interview. To successfully summarize and synthesize, you might find it helpful to follow this sequence for your essay: Provide Background Information: In your introductory paragraph, introduce your audience to your interviewee. What is his/her name? What is his/her experience? If relevant, where is the interviewee employed? Summarize the Interview: While you want to avoid the all-too-predictable ques.

1. Writing Exercise: Interview Summary/Synthesis
For this assignment, you will submit only the FINAL copy as
there is no DRAFT option. This assignment is
designed to help inform a topic that interests you, and the
information you gather here will be used in
your Proposal Letter assignment.
For this assignment, you should be interviewing a person who
has expertise about a topic
you are interested in. Please note that you should be conducting
the actual interview; you
should not be summarizing an interview conducted by someone
else.
Part #1: Choose a Research Topic and an Interviewee
You do not need to submit this portion in writing, but you do
need to accomplish this in
preparation for your research assignment.
In preparation for your research proposal letter in the next
topic, you will need to choose a
topic for your proposal. This research proposal letter will be
directed to an audience who can
create change (Congressperson, business administrator, or other
similar audience.) In the
proposal, you need to suggest a change or a solution to a current
problem. Examples of
strong proposal topics would be things like funding ideas for an

2. animal shelter, starting a
recycling program in a community, suggesting a better plan for
public transport, or another
idea that interests you. You will be proposing solutions for
these issues. Choose a topic that
you are passionate about and for which you will be able to
develop at least one solution.
While this information should be enough for you to choose a
topic, please consult the
assignment sheet within Topic 7 if you have more questions
about this assignment.
Once you choose a topic, it’s time to choose a credible expert to
interview on that subject. In
other words, you should avoid choosing an interviewee who is a
close friend or family
member unless that person truly is an expert in the field. This
credible expert should have
10+ years of experience in his or her discipline. Choose an
interviewee who not only could
offer some specific details about the problem but one who may
also be able to offer
suggestions of a plausible solution. Use the information
contained in the lesson presentation
to secure and conduct a successful interview.
Part #2: Summarize and Synthesize Your Interview
When you summarize and synthesize, you take the smaller
pieces (the sections of the
interview) and develop them into one cohesive piece. Doing this
exercise will help you
prepare for the research proposal letter, where you will need to
incorporate at least a few
ideas from the interview.

3. To successfully summarize and synthesize, you might find it
helpful to follow this sequence
for your essay:
Provide Background Information:
In your introductory paragraph, introduce your audience to your
interviewee. What is his/her
name? What is his/her experience? If relevant, where is the
interviewee employed?
Summarize the Interview:
While you want to avoid the all-too-predictable question and
answer format, you should
provide information about what you learned from the interview.
Take a look at your original
questions, group them into categories, and use those categories
to build your body
paragraph(s). Also, you may note the interviewee’s reactions in
your summary as well. Was
the interviewee nervous about answering a question? Did he/she
seem knowledgeable in the
subject matter? Make this summary work for you by including
whatever details and
responses you feel are important and will help you when you
write the research proposal.
Synthesize the Interview:
In the conclusion, synthesize the interview. To synthesize just
means you should consider all of
the information you gathered from this interview and draw
conclusions. What did you learn from

4. the interview? How did the interviewee and/or the interview
help you gain a deeper
understanding of your topic? Other findings?
No source citations are required for this assignment, but please
review the rubric to get a
better idea of you you’ll be assessed.
The guidelines for this assignment are as follows:
Length: This assignment should be a minimum of 350 words.
Header: Include a header in the upper left-hand corner of your
writing assignment with the
following information:
Format:
-style source documentation and Works Cited1
er-right corner of
each page
-spacing throughout
1 This resource may be helpful as you are making MLA
formatting decisions:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

5. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/
.doc, .rtf, or .txt
Underline your thesis statement in the introductory paragraph.
Writing Assignment: Research Proposal Letter
For this assignment, you will write your research proposal
letter. You are required to submit
only your final draft for this assignment (though we encourage
all students to take advantage of
the additional feedback a draft can provide). Use the grader’s
feedback and the rubric to make
revisions to your draft before submitting the final. Your second
draft will be graded.
This research proposal letter will be directed to an audience
who can create change
(Congressperson, business administrators, or other similar
audience.) In the proposal, you
need to suggest a change or a solution to a current problem. As
you have already chosen a

6. topic for your research proposal letter in Topic 6 and conducted
an interview that will
become one of your sources for this letter, you do not need to
choose a topic. You must use
the same topic that you began researching in Topic 6, and you
must use your interview as a
source.
Your research proposal should be presented in a letter format
including the following
information:
• Your mailing address (Note: For privacy reasons, you may opt
to not disclose your
mailing address when you submit your letter to our graders for
review; however,
should you choose to mail your letter to your chosen recipient,
you will need to
include your mailing address, as this is a customary business
letter practice.) Note
that a formal letter does not require your name in the header.
Your name will go at
the end, with your closing.
• The date you wrote the letter

7. • A name and mailing address for the individual to whom you
are writing the letter
• A greeting or salutation
• A closing and your typed name (Note: A written signature is
optional for your
submission, but should you choose to send your letter, you
would need to include
your written signature between the closing and your typed
name.)
Scroll to the end of these instructions for an idea of how you
should format this
assignment.
To organize this information, follow the format included in the
course site in the
“Assignments” area.
For your proposal, follow this organizational framework:
For your researched proposal, follow this organizational
framework:
• Introduction: The Problem
Identify the problem, including researched information to

8. explain it fully. You may
devote more than one paragraph to describe the problem if
needed. To determine
the extent of the information you must provide about the
problem, consider the
letter recipient’s understanding of the problem.
• Body: Your Proposal
Explain the specifics of your proposal. What are your solutions
to solve this problem,
step by step? What is the cost? How is this cost incurred? What
ideas do you have for
funding your proposal?
Justify your proposal. How will your proposal solve the
problem? Why is this proposal
feasible?
Concede or refute the counterarguments: Will the letter
recipient have certain
preconceived ideas about the subject? How can you address
these counterarguments
without diminishing your argument? Note: You will lose points
from the rubric if you

9. do not address the counterargument.
• Conclusion: Your Argument
Take into consideration your chosen audience and his/her
interests. Use persuasive
techniques to align your proposal to the audience’s ideals. You
may use more than
one concluding paragraph if needed.
See the end of this document for more specific information
about formatting your letter
appropriately.
You are required to use source information, including ideas you
learned from the interview
process wherever it will prove your point. In addition to the
interview itself, you should have
at least two other credible sources, for a total of at least three
sources. Note: If you do not
meet the source minimum, the rubric will automatically be
scored down.
Since this is a letter, you will use signal phrases (i.e., “As Fugle
describes...”) and omit
parenthetical citations (“Fugle”). You must include a Works
Cited page for this assignment.

10. Good, informative signal phrases will be important in order to
make sure your sources are
credited (example: “Fugle, a well-known environmental
researcher, explains the problem
by...”).
As with all college writing, you must include a strong thesis
statement and take care to avoid
logical fallacies while following the other standards for
academic writing.
You might use this as a guideline in crafting your thesis:
Valley City should (add solution suggestion), which (add how it
can be funded) and (add justification),
although (add counterargument focus).
Here is a more specific example:
Valley City should (use its largest abandoned warehouse for a
new recreational center to hold before
and after-school programs), which (can be conveniently funded
by the tax stream that was being
used to construct Main Street until this point), and will (provide
the final element—housing—in order
for local schools to also implement a before-school program(,
and although (some community

11. members do not believe before- and after-school programs are
necessary(, they should (review the
high number of students apprehended by law enforcement
during the hours before and after-school
programs would operate).
The guidelines for this assignment are as follows:
Length: This assignment should be at least 500 words.
Format:
• This assignment has a special format (letter style), so you will
not use a typical header
• Single-spacing, with a double-space between paragraphs (see
below)
• Standard 12 point font (Arial, TimesNewRoman, Calibri)
• 1” margins on all sides
• Save the file using one of the following extensions: .docx,
.doc, .rtf, or .txt
Since this is a formal letter format, you will not underline your
thesis statement.
Please scroll to the next page to see a sample letter format.

12. Your own address (or a fake address if
you don’t want to reveal this)
Spacing: 2 lines
Spacing: 2 lines
Spacing: 2 lines
Spacing: 2 lines
Recipient’s
name and
mailing address
Greeting or
Salutation,
followed by a
colon
Notice: Paragraphs are not indented
Spacing: 2 lines between body paragraphs
Spacing: 2 lines
Spacing: 4 lines. This is where you signature would go

13. Writing Assignment: Media Analysis
You are required to submit the FINAL copy of this assignment,
but you may first submit an optional
DRAFT. This will allow you to receive qualitative feedback that
can inform your revision. You should
always avoid focusing solely on the grader’s DRAFT feedback;
use the feedback as a supplement to the
course lessons and your own revision ideas. Always expect to
revise beyond what the DRAFT grader
specifically notes if you want to improve your score.
For this media analysis, you will analyze how one part affects
the whole media production.
Note that you should select only a single piece of media; you
should not be discussing more
than one film, for example. You should choose one1 of the
following parts to explore:
genre.
instance) affects the
overall production.
from the production.
themselves enhance or

14. detract from the production.
affects the overall
production.
the music enhances or detracts from the
media production.
detract from the
production.
how they affect the viewing
experience.
be chosen if the film you
chose is also in print form.) How are the book and film similar?
How are they
different? Which is better, and why?
Your purpose in this assignment is to explain how or why
something works; therefore, you
should not include a full summary of the media production.
Instead, you can provide context
where needed so the reader understands what is happening. The
body of the essay must
1 Please review the rubric and note that you will not earn full
credit if you analyze more than one of these
components.

15. focus on your analysis. You can use the ideas contained in the
Media Analysis lesson
presentation and the Writer’s Handbook link to help you.
As with all college writing, your essay should have a strong
thesis statement in addition to an
introduction, body, and conclusion.
Other than your chosen film, television show, and/or book, you
are required to cite at least
one other credible2 source for this essay. This resource from the
course will help you
understand more about evaluating sources. Moreover, if you use
specific information from
the media production and/or print source, such as a quotations,
you should include your
chosen media source on your Works Cited page, too. Use proper
parenthetical citations or
signal phrases, and be sure to include MLA documentation and
a Works Cited page for this
assignment (this resource from the course will help).
Review the rubric to see how your work will be assessed on this
assignment.
Thesis hints: You might use these guidelines in crafting your
thesis:
If you are analyzing elements in a production:
In (add your one chosen production), (add character 1), (add
character 2), and (add character 3) were
used to (add how they enhanced the production or explained the

16. production’s message).
OR
If you are comparing/contrasting a book and film:
(Add book) contained (add one aspect that made the book better
than the film), but (add film) used
(add one aspect that made the film better than the book) and
(add a second aspect that made the
film better than the book) to better capture the reader’s
imagination.
Here are more specific thesis guidelines:
If you are analyzing elements in a production:
In the movie The Lorax, the characters Lorax, Once-ler, and
Alocius O'Hare were used to show how
environmentalists are fighting against profit-driven industries
that are harming the environment and
depleting natural resources.
2 Please note: Basic dictionary sources, user-edited websites
(e.g., Wikipedia, eHow, etc.), and sites that house
databases of quotations are not considered “credible” sources.
You will lose points in the Research category of the
rubric if your sources aren’t credible.
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/553/01/

17. https://s3.amazonaws.com/StraighterLine/Docs/MLA+Unit.pdf
OR
If you are comparing/contrasting a book and film:
Even though the characters were portrayed mostly the same
across the book and the movie in
Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, the setting in the movie was much
more detailed, which made the movie
a much better overall experience compared to the book.
The guidelines for this assignment are as follows:
Length: This assignment should be at least 500 words.
Header: Include a header in the upper left-hand corner of your
writing assignment with the
following information:
rst and last name
Format:
-style source documentation and Works Cited3
-right corner of
each page
-spacing throughout

18. .doc, .rtf, or .txt
Underline your thesis statement in the introductory paragraph.
3 This resource may be helpful as you are making MLA
formatting decisions:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/