Much technical writing concerns itself with the processes by which workplaces operate. Accordingly, a technical writing class should pay some attention to the discussion of processes. As such, students in ENG 202 are required to examine, explicate, and evaluate a professional process related to their majors.
Students are to select a professional process related to their majors. After observing it carefully and in detail, they are to perform the following actions:
Write a single-paragraph identification of the process, naming it and situating it within a professional context. The paragraph should follow common essay formatting, standards for which should be familiar to students from having completed the prerequisite courses for ENG 202 and which appear as "General Paper Formatting Instructions 20110831.pdf", here.
Present after the single-paragraph identification a set of instructions by which an uninformed reader can perform the process in question. The uninformed reader can be assumed to be literate in academic English and to have basic skills in the use of standard household hand tools, but not to have had any training beyond introductory-level college coursework in the field most closely related to the process.
Present after the instructions a two- to three-page evaluation of the process, noting its primary strengths and primary weaknesses, and offering a summative opinion of the relative value of the process. The evaluation needs to take the form and format of a standard essay, like the single-paragraph identification.
The assignment will be graded based on 1) intelligibility of instruction formatting, 2) adherence to the formatting standards established for the paragraph and essay, 3) completeness and accuracy of information throughout, and 4) adherence to the conventions of edited academic American English as discussed in the current edition of the MLA style guides throughout. (Please see the Purdue University Online Writing Lab for more information regarding those standards, here; be sure to follow MLA rules.) Each category will be assigned a grade, A+ through 0, and the average of those category grades will be recorded as the total assignment grade.
The assignment must be submitted as an attachment via email to geoffrey.b.elliott@gmail.com prior to the beginning of class on the day the course calendar indicates the assignment is due. Acceptable file formats for the attachment are limited to Rich Text Format (.rtf) and Microsoft Word documents (.doc or .docx); no other file formats will be accepted. Typed hard copies may be submitted only with PRIOR approval of the instructor, offered on a case-by-case basis by direct consultation. Handwritten copies are not acceptable in any case. Failure to follow stated submission guidelines will result in the submitted assignment being discarded.
Students are reminded that appropriate citation must be provided for any externally referenced information, and all included information must be justified. That is, any time external information is included, there must be a reason, expressed along with that information, for its inclusion. Such materials must also be appropriately integrated into the student's writing. Acceptable standards for doing so appear on the Purdue University Online Writing Lab, here; be sure to follow MLA rules. FAILURE TO ACCOUNT FOR SOURCES IS PLAGIARISM AND WILL BE DEALT WITH HARSHLY.
A sample process analysis and evaluation appears as a PDF document, below.