This document provides the assignment instructions for Project 1 in an English 317 Technical Writing course. Students are asked to analyze a sample of their own prior writing to identify where it demonstrates or does not demonstrate the prose style expectations of technical writing, specifically conciseness, precision, directness, and correctness. They must then write a 4-6 page memo report presenting their findings and addressing each element of prose style by defining it, making a claim about strengths and weaknesses found, providing evidence from excerpts, and connecting the claim to the evidence. The goal is for students to become familiar with technical writing prose style and how it differs from other genres like academic writing.

1. ENGL 317 Technical Writing Page 1 of 2
Project 1 Assignment Sheet:
Memo Report on Technical Prose Style Analysis
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to become familiar with the prose style
expectations of technical writing and how they differ from the expectations of other
genres, particularly academic writing. (Prose style simply refers to the rhetorical
choices writers make when constructing sentences and paragraphs to meet
audience needs and writers’ purposes.) You will be practicing close reading of your
own writing in order to help you recognize and revise for technical prose style in the
rest of your projects for this course and future professional writing tasks. You will
present your findings in the form of a memo report, which provides experience in
composing and formatting a common workplace genre.
Learning Objectives
• Apply prose style concepts to achieve maximum readability in technical writing.
• Follow genre formatting conventions to compose memo reports.
• Apply principles of document design to enhance readability of documents.
Project Deliverable
Memo Report (submitted as a Word or PDF file)
Length: 4 – 6 pages1
Audience: Victoria Arthur
Purpose: To present findings from analyzing your writing for style and grammar
Steps
1. Choose a sample of your prior writing. It must be non-fiction and at least 750
words (to give you enough text to work with).
2. Using the information about style and grammar from this unit, analyze your text in
regard to prose style expectations of technical writing. Identify areas where your
text does or does not demonstrate conciseness, precision, directness, and
correctness.
3. Write up a summary of your findings as a memo report directed to me. (See
Slidedoc 4 for guidance.)
3.1 For each element of prose style from step 2 (conciseness, precision,
directness, and correctness),
i. define the concept (to demonstrate your understanding),
1 Page lengths and word counts in this course are based on 12 pt., single-spaced, left-justified text with the use
of document design principles such as heading levels and white space. Never write to meet a word count or
page length; they are provided to give you a sense of the level of development and detail you should aim for.

2. ENGL 317 Technical Writing Page 2 of 2
ii. make a claim about each strength and weakness you found in your
sample writing (to demonstrate your ability to apply the concept
correctly),
iii. provide evidence of your claim by including excerpts from your text
that you identified in step 1, and
iv. connect the claim to the evidence by explaining how the excerpt
illustrates your claim.
3.2 Conclude with a discussion of what you learned about your prose style
and/or what you plan to work on to improve it.