Project 1 handout for face-to-face ENGL 202, Fall 2019

1. English 202 Introduction to Professional Writing Page 1 of 2
Project 1: Analyzing Professional Writing Practices
You might think of a specific workplace - like an engineering firm - as a place where people
do, well, engineering. But while of course engineering skills are important if one is
employed as an engineer, it turns out that writing and communication skills are just as, if
not more critical – because the only way anybody can know what’s happening,
engineering-wise, is by being able to communicate that through writing. (When people find
out I teach writing, they often lament that if they’d known how much of their job was
devoted to writing, they would have worked harder in their college writing classes.)
Not coincidentally, this is why English majors are so sought after by employers – because
they’ve developed the critical thinking and communication skills that are so important to
the contemporary workplace. (Hooray for English majors!)
In this assignment, you will have three tasks to accomplish:
1. Interview a current professional about how much and how often they write in their
job, and what kinds of writing and communication tools they use.
2. Analyze a document that this professional has produced in order to understand the
audience, purpose, and investments of this professional context. (Note: the
document can be something they worked on as part of a team.)
3. Synthesize what you’ve learned about writing in a particular professional context
from doing both of the above tasks.
You’ll write up the findings from your interview and document analysis in a common
internal workplace communication genre (a memo report). Your report will include two
appendices:
 Appendix 1 will be a transcript or detailed summary of your interview.
 Appendix 2 will be the document you used as the basis for your analysis of the
writing conventions, audience, and communication style of this profession.
In class, I’ll explain more about how to do the interview and analysis, how to write a memo
report, and how to apply principles of document design to produce professional
documents.
Project Deliverable: Memo Report, about 1000 words (not including appendices)i.
Audience: Your classmates and I will be the audience for your report.
Purpose: To present the findings from your interview and analysis.
Criteria for Evaluation
 Content: Presents a clear, informative, well-developed portrait of the typical writing
practices of a professional community, as well as the rhetorical dimensions of their work.
 Formatting: The memo report is divided into appropriate sections, with headings and
white space between sections.

2. ENGL 202 Intro to Professional Writing Page 2 of 2
 Document-level style: Sections have clear introductions, well-developed ideas;
paragraphs begin with strong topic sentences. There are clear transitions between
paragraphs and ideas.
 Sentence-level style: Mostly written in active voice; clear, lively prose, using active
verbs and few vague pronouns; concise statement of ideas.
i Page lengths and word counts in this course are based on 12 pt., single-spaced, left-justified text for
paragraphs (no paragraph indent) with a blank line inserted between paragraphs and the use of document
design principles such as heading levels and white space. Never write to meet a word count or page length. If,
however, you are significantly over or under guidelines for these, let me know.