Today’s Plan:
- Apology
- Quick Affirmation
- Collaborative Writing
- Job Ad Analysis
- Questions
- Homework
An Apology to the would-be Copy Writers
I mentioned Amazon.com’s copy editing service as a potential way of gaining relevant experience. Apparently, Amazon.com closed their CreateSpace author-services department last year. I searched around for a comparative service but came up empty. But I did find copyeditor jobs on InDeed.
Quick Affirmation
Job ads can be intimidating. Don’t let them beat you down.
Project 1 Collaborative Writing Space
NOTE: We have to finish this by 2:45
Today I wanted to spend sometime in the ABO handbook and looking at a few documents. Since a big part of working as a professional writer is figuring out what you are supposed to write, I’d like us to collaboratively write an assignment sheet for the first project. Let’s review what I wrote about the project last class:
The first major assignment this semester is a combination report/proposal. You will compose a report based on your analysis of 20 job ads (to review: the 10 that I distributed last class plus 10 of your choice). I do not have a set length for the proposal; we will generate an exact list of section requirements on Thursday using the ABO handbook.
I give you liberty in your choice of ads, though I would suggest not choosing more than 5 of one kind and not more than 3 different kinds of ads (so that you can strike a balance between depth and breadth). You will code these ads using the scheme we use in class. You will then collate your data into meaningful tables (using the Brumberger and Lauer information as a model).
If possible, I will encourage you to “team up” and work collaboratively (on both crafting the report/proposal and learning a skill). Having a partner can both help keep you accountable and provide a soundboard for difficulties, frustrations, and victories.
For the proposal portion of the report, you will identify a job skill that you would like to develop. You will research methods for gaining said skill and layout a 3 week course of study (how many hours per week will you dedicate to the activity, how can you document those hours spent, what tutorials/readings will you do, etc). This portion should include a calendar along with deliverables.
Scanning the ABO table of contents, I see a few sections that might help us flush out what this assignment should look like. Let’s start by looking at reports on page 469.
So in ABO we’ve got:
- Feasibility Reports
- Formal Reports
- Investigative Reports
- Tables
A few other resources:
- David McMurrey, Recommendation and Feasibility Report</li>
- Untold Content, How to Write a Recommendation Report
- Hloom, Sample Proposal Templates
- We will work on creating a project timeline and/or GANTT chart next week
We’ve also got to look at the section on Proposals (429). We can consider this a Formal Internal Proposal. Let’s look at proposals.
Let’s also look at this Google Doc.
Job Ad Analysis
For today’s class I’ve asked you to code five of your job ads. Looking in our collective Google Doc at 11:36am, I can see that we’ve got 43 jobs in there.
I’ve gone through and hyperlinked to the job ad. I’d like you to code those ads. What we are doing here is measuring inter-rater-reliability (seeing if two people see the same things). So:
- If you see something in an ad that the first person didn’t, add it in green text
- If you don’t see something in an ad that the person did, change the text color to red
Homework
If things went well today, then we have a pretty good template and clear expectations for what your Report/Proposal should look like. A rough draft of that proposal is due next Thursday for peer review. A final draft of that proposal will be due next weekend. So, for next class, I’d like you to finish coding your job ads and start drafting your proposal.
Also we have a Reading Response post due on Tuesday–Herrick’s “An Overview of Rhetoric.” It is a bit long (25 pages), but I think it is quite accessible. It took me about 40 minutes to read.
