The document provides instructions for completing a three-step assignment analyzing a professional's writing practices: 1. Interview a professional to discuss how much and what types of writing they do, and what tools they use. 2. Conduct a rhetorical analysis of one of the professional's documents. 3. Write a memo report summarizing the interview and analysis in three sections - introduction, body, and conclusion - following guidelines for memo format, design, and readability.

1. How to do the
Analyzing Professional Writing
Practices
assignment

2. There are three steps to this project.
• Step 1: Interview a current professional.
A. How much and how often do they write in their job?
B. What kinds of things do they write?
C. Do a tools inventory. What writing and communication tools
do they use in their job?
• Step 2: Do a rhetorical analysis of a document
produced by that person.
• Step 3: Write your memo report.
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3. Step 1: Interview a professional about their
writing practices.
A. How much do they write?
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• Get a general overview of how the person
you’re interviewing uses writing in their job:
• How much and how often do they write?
• Do they typically write alone or as part of a
team?
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4. B. What do they write?
• What kind of documents do they typically write?
• What are the purposes of these documents?
• Who do they write for? Do they have multiple
audiences?
• How have their writing practices changed since
they’ve been in this profession?
• What writing advice would they give to people new
to the workplace?

5. B. How do they write? (tools
inventory)
Find out if and how the person you interview
currently uses the following professional
communication tools (see the following slides for
more detailed explanations of each):
• Email
• Texting/Voice Mail
• Social Media
• Word Processing Software
• Collaboration Software
• Image Editing Software
• Web Authoring Software
• File Backup
• Anything else??
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6. Email Communication
• how often do they use email?
• how do they handle emails in terms of record
keeping?
• how often do they send email from this program
and to what audiences?
• does their email have a signature line?
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7. Texting /Voice Mail
• Aside from their personal texting and/or use of voice
mail, how often does the person you’re interviewing use
the phone to communicate for professional purposes?
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8. Social Media
• Aside from personal use, does the person you’re
interviewing use social media for professional purposes?
• Do they have a LinkedIn profile? If so, how often do they
update it?
• Do they have an e-portfolio? If so, how often do they
update it?
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9. Word Processing Software
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• What software do they use for word processing?
• What features do they use most often?
• How often do they do any of the following?
• Change margins, page orientation, and page size
• Inserting an automatic table of contents
• Using style sheets
• Using references
• Inserting images and wrapping text
• Inserting columns

10. Collaboration Software
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• How much of their writing work is done collaboratively,
in a team?
• What collaborative software (examples include Doodle,
Slack, Skype, and Google Docs) do they use when
they write with others?
• If they haven't used such software when working in a
group, how does their team members decided when to
meet, how to communicate with one another, etc.?

11. Image Editing Software
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• Do they create or edit images as part of their job? If
so, for what purpose?
• If so, what software do they use to edit images /
photos?

12. Multimedia Products
• For their job, do they ever create videos such as
screencasts, slidecasts, or audio-only podcasts? If so,
ask them to explain what they have done, for what
purpose, and using what tools.
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13. Web Authoring Software
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• Have they created websites, blogged, or done
other web authoring? If so, ask them to explain
what they have done, for what purpose, and using
what tools.

14. File Backup
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• How do they save their work? (On their computer or
using cloud computing backup products such as Drop
Box? Google Drive? One Drive?)
• Have they ever lost work because they didn’t have a
system for backing it up?

15. Step 2:
Do a Rhetorical Analysis of a
Professional Document
For this part of the assignment, you will
do a rhetorical analysis of a document
produced by the person you interviewed
(or by a team that they were part of).
Ask the professional you interviewed to
share a substantive document that
they’ve had a part in producing. (Explain
that you’ll be doing an analysis of it for
this assignment.)
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16. What is the purpose of the document?
• Explain why this document was written (note
that there may be hidden purposes as well -
e.g., this document may be meant to create a
“paper trail” or as a “CYA” measure?).
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17. • Who is the document explicitly written for?
• What relation does the named recipient have to the
writer(s)?
• What will the named audience do with the
information in this document?
• What is at stake for the audience in this document?
(How/why does this information matter to them?)
• Are there implicit recipients other than the named
audience?
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Who is the audience for the document?

18. How does/will the document circulate?
• How will this document be distributed?
• Are there any restrictions on how the document can be
distributed? (I.e., is it governed by specific
company/organization policies?)
• How will it be saved or archived?
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19. What prose style does the document use?
• Use the slidedoc Prose Style to analyze the writing in
the document. Does it uphold the principles of
professional prose style?
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20. Step 3:
Write the
Memo Report
• The next slides will cover guidelines and
requirements for writing the report.
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21. Use Memo Report Format
• Use the guidelines covered
in the slidedoc Format,
Document Design and
Readability to format your
document according to
standard conventions as a
memo report and apply
document design principles
as you compose the
content.
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© Karen L. Thompson Department of English University of Idaho
FORMAT,
DOCUMENT DESIGN &
READABILITY

22. Writing the Introduction
• When someone requests information from you, a
standard rhetorical move is to remind the reader of
the request and add a forecasting statement to let the
reader know how you have organized the information.
• Example:
• Here is the information you requested about X.
Included in this memo are A, B, and C.
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23. In these examples, the writers used standard conventions
to format the memo report and applied document design
principles to enhance readability.
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Notice how format and
document design in
these examples are
similar but also a bit
different.
The same is true for how
the writer’s applied a
rhetorical move to write
their introductions.

24. Writing the Body
• Use Headings and Apply Visual Hierarchy
It’s a good choice to use a level 2 heading for the
names of the audit steps and level 3 headings as
needed to increase the readability of sections you
write within each step (see the slidedoc on Format and
document Design).
• Avoid rewriting the questions for each section of the
audit and responding to those. Instead compose
short paragraph responses.
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25. Writing the Conclusion
• What did you learn?
• What questions or concerns do you have?
• What goals have you set for yourself?
• The idea in a conclusion is not to end the audit
report abruptly.
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