your choice, but for your own sanity, it's best to choose something already familiar to you. you might even choose something familiar to virtually everybody-shoveling snow, taking out the trash, decanting the perfect glass of beer-but you have to provide a realistic context: when would instructions for shoveling snow be necessary, for what audience, in what context, etc.?

 

a technical document. period. the rest is completely up to you; in fact, part of the assignment is to choose an appropriate format for the task or object you document. but a quick reference card or job card is probably the most manageable.

you should include a brief rationale with your project: in particular, you should specify the audience that would use your document and the context in which it would be used (are there other documents? has the user been trained in some way? is it snowing? ),-factors which are crucial for your design decisions.

 
it depends on the genre, but if it runs much over ten pages, you're probably getting too ambitious for the assignment.
 
given the focus of the course, design issues and graphic incorporation will be weighted most heavily, but i'll be assuming a fairly high level of writing competence as well.

 

the groups will be assigned by the end of may. you will have plenty of time to develop your ideas and coördinate your efforts. but i expect that time and effort to be reflected in the project.

necessary qualities:
"we need a strong individual who's also capable of being a team player. a sense of humour is a must. they have to be adaptable to unusual and stressful environments: humidity; heat; cramped, close quarters with no privacy at all. they need good judgment and just a dash of self-analysis-too much may lead to depression. we need someone with good language skills, who thrives on cultural diversity and who has strong social and interpersonal skills" that's dr. al holland, the chief nasa psychologist, describing the appropriate personality for astronauts going to mars. it's not a 392a group-member description. your requirements are higher. you need all of that, and some design sense too.

you'll have to manage your time well; aside from some brief discussions and possibly overlapping projects, no class or workshop time will be allocated to the projects.

 
i encourage you very strongly to make this a real-world project. it's going to have inevitably the taint of the transcript about it, since we're all trapped on campus and you're trying to escape with a piece of paper that makes prospective employers sit up and beg, if not lie down and roll over. but try to find an existing programme, product, or place that needs documentation, and supply it. if you sign contracts and collect filthy lucre for this project outside of class, so much the better.

 
 the topic is your choice, but it would be a very good idea to discuss it with me before going ahead.

 
a technical document. period. the rest is completely up to you; in fact, part of the assignment is to choose an appropriate format for the task or object you document. you should include a brief rationale (yes, another written object) with your project: in particular, you should specify the audience that would use your document and the context in which it would be used (are there other documents? has the user been trained in some way? is it snowing? ),-factors which are crucial for your design decisions.

 
it depends on the genre, but if it runs much over ten pages, you're probably getting too ambitious for the assignment.

 
by 11 july, you should have your genre and topic worked out. come to class, sit as a group, give us an outline, and we will kick ideas around as a class.

 
your group will present your document to the class-what you did, why you did it, how it will change the world
 

given the focus of the course, design issues will be weighted most heavily, but i'll be assuming a fairly high level of writing competence, accuracy, and usability as well.

half of your mark will come from the other group members' assessments of your contributions (see below).

 

everybody in the group must submit a memo assigning an individual grade for participation to every one else in the group, along with at least sixty words justifying that grade. if you do not submit this memo, you will get either an f- or an inc, at my discretion. this memo should be similar to the course participation memo, with more specificity, something like:

fred derf, A+
he surprised the hell out of me. i always thought he was a bonehead, but he knows everything there is to know about granite, and provided virtually all the technical material. he worked very hard, especially on the last-minute layout problems, and was relentlessly encouraging to everyone. can we get him to solve the balkan crisis?

wilma amliw, F-
a complete washout. she missed meetings, fought with us about trivial issues (or, worse, matters we'd already decided) when she did show up, and blew her deadlines. in the end, we gave her some small jobs, writing some of the copy, but nobody was happy with that, and we had to group-edit it. if i meet her five yeras from now, and find that she graduated and got a stable job, i'll drop dead of apoplexy.

dino onid B,
a good team player. he never seemed to go out of his way, and his contributions weren't particularly inspired. he pulled his weight, though, and brought his sections in on time. he clearly wanted the project to proceed, but was happy to let others do the main work.