405.1.4 : Foundations of Technical Communication
The graduate integrates basic elements of professional discourse, including audience analysis, the writing process, correct grammar, and appropriate design elements, into technical communication artifacts.
405.1.5 : Communication Style
The graduate makes strategic and appropriate communication decisions based on the audience.
405.1.6 : Applications of Technical Writing
The graduate creates various technically written artifacts using appropriate technical communication concepts.
You have recently been hired to work in your current field of study. Your new manager has informed you that the organization values innovation and asks that new employees write a white paper on an emerging technology, practice, or process in the field they studied in college. Once your manager reviews and approves the white paper, you will be asked to create several additional communications for different audiences: an executive summary for senior leadership, a press release and an FAQ that will both be distributed company-wide, and a multimedia presentation that you will deliver to colleagues in your department who share your level of technical expertise. You will also need to write an email inviting your colleagues to your multimedia presentation.
Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. The similarity report that is provided when you submit your task can be used as a guide.
You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.
Tasks may not be submitted as cloud links, such as links to Google Docs, Google Slides, OneDrive, etc., unless specified in the task requirements. All other submissions must be file types that are uploaded and submitted as attachments (e.g., .docx, .pdf, .ppt).
A. Describe your organization, including the following information:
1. The products or services your organization produces
2. The size of your organization and its number of locations
3. The industry of which your organization is a part
B. Identify the emerging technology, practice, or process that will be the subject of your white paper, and then review at least three works that have been written about your subject in the past five years. You will use this research to inform your white paper.
Note: These other works may include interviews, white papers, research studies, or other types of work by industry professionals.
1. Write a summary for each of the three works that you reviewed. Each summary should identify the title of the source, include a discussion of the main topics, and explain why the information is important.
C. Create a white paper, as defined in the learning resource for this course, that discusses an emerging technology, practice, or philosophy that is related to your academic field of study. This white paper will be reviewed by your immediate supervisor, as well as several thought leaders in your organization. The white paper should be 2–3 pages long and must include the following:
1. A thorough explanation of your chosen emerging technology, practice, or process, based on your research
2. A compelling argument discussing how the emerging technology, practice, or process could benefit your organization
D. Explain how the diction in the white paper is appropriate for its audience.
E. Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
F. Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.
Note: Do not move on to Task 2 since Task 2 will not be evaluated until after you pass Task 1.
File size limit: 200 MB
File types allowed: doc, docx, rtf, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, odt, pdf, csv, txt, qt, mov, mpg, avi, mp3, wav, mp4, wma, flv, asf, mpeg, wmv, m4v, svg, tif, tiff, jpeg, jpg, gif, png, zip, rar, tar, 7z