DR.

WI LL KURLI NKUS
OCT. 9, 201 4
Reports and Presentations
Assignment 3
! [Description]: Your boss wants to draw new talent, investors, young minds, and, generally,
engage the public with the work of your field through a popular presentation of your research.
She asks you to analyze what other companies in your area are doing with popular translation
and public engagement. Your job is to present a report of three different types of popular
translations of a similar technical concept. The rhetorical translation moves you analyze
(whether it be in Radiolab, TedTalks, RSAanimate videos, Neil Degrasse Tysons Cosmos,
famous scientists tweets, comicbook translations, museum exhibits, or something else you
know about) should be specific instances (think about including quotes, screencaptures, and
pictures) and substantially different (theres no reason to present your boss with three of the
exact same tactics). In writing your reports content youll want to consider a few things:
! [Requirements]:
! 2-singlespaced pages. Not including images.
! Should be in the style of a proposal report: See examples and Kolin reading.
! Should include analyses of three different types of popular translations
! Should quote or provide images of your three sourcesquotations need to follow 2009 MLA
! Should include 2 images formatted according to our common errors worksheet and referenced
in the text
! Should end with a specific proposal of something you think your company should do? (Should
they create a podcast? What should it look like? An experiment that could travel to schools?
What should the presentation look like? Etc.)
Assignment 3 Rubric
____Translation Analyses (40 points)
! Presents pros, cons, and specific examples of three different popular translations
! Clearly presents knowledge of rhetorical/tech writing practices and ethos, pathos, and
! logos.
! Presents not only what companies are doing but discusses why you think they are using those translation tactics.
! Considers the costs (time, money, manpower) of each tactic: try to propose low cost versions of the professional translations you encounter.
____Audience Analysis (15 points)
! Somewhere in the report your niche market/audience/consumer is discussed in some detail: are you trying to recruit children, adults, college
students? How will your proposed content change depending on audience?
! Throughout your report you take into consideration how each social media tactic might positively or negatively affect that audience (you might
quote examples if specific audiences are participating/responding to the campaigns you are analyzing).
____Introduction/Conclusions (15 points)
! You briefly introduce what your report is and what its purposes/objectives are in a way that makes sense in a business setting and takes into
consideration the multiple audiences that might read your report.
! You offer some sort of summative conclusions and proposal statement about what kind of campaign your boss should consider and or avoid.
! Make sure these sections are substantive, they should not be empty gestures or redundant.
____Document Design (15 points)
! The document should be browsable with clear sections, bullets, numberings, etc.
! The documents design should be uniform and not too busyuse the same size text and font for each section. If you include bullets in one
section, include them in another. Dont go overboard with different fonts, sizes, colors, etc.
! Document should be visually interestinginclude some kind of flair. Think about some kind of color, your use of white space, and including
images, etc.
____Writing Quality (15 points)
! Should follow the genre standards of the report from Kolin.
! Writing is concise, not redundant, and clear.
! Writing doesnt contain spelling or grammatical errors.
! Writing is specific: contains specific examples and nothing is included that isnt necessary.
! See page 284 and 316 in Kolin for more considerations and a checklist.
!
______Total (100 points)
Key Parts of the Formal Business Report
! Who is your audience and how will they use your report.
! Scannability: Often your report will have multiple audiences with
multiple purposes. This is why you should create scannable reports
with headings, bulleted lists, page numbers, images, and possibly (for
longer reports) a table of contents.
! Introduction/Purpose Statement
! What is the purpose/goal of this report: What problem are you
solving? Even though you probably know your reader and they might
have asked you to write the report, still explain the purpose of the
reportthe problem it addresses and the solution you propose in the
intro. Like the lab report, avoid student/worker language. The goal of
the report is not to show your boss something but rather to illustrate
how the company can improve its outreach efforts through three
popular techniques.
Key Parts of the Formal Business Report
! Findings
! Use specific examples and illustrations of specific techniques.
State your takeaways, i.e., what we can learn from your
examples. State the pros and cons of the examples you present.
! Conclusion/Recommendations
! What do you recommend your company do with this data?
Propose a specific solution to the problem stated in the
introduction.
Ted Talks
! Amy Cuddy: Power and Body Language
! Offers the reader something immediately: a lifehack.
! Makes the audience pay attention to themselves (brings them
into the story like the narrative arc of radiolab)
! Concrete and funny examples (but still illustrative)
! Memorability and body language: use hand points; don't close
yourself; don't cover your mouth while teaching; bring in a
handout/takeaway with your contact info on it.
Ted Talks
! Amy Cuddy: Power and Body LanguageGives her
ethos (why is she an expert on this)
! Slides that you talk over--memorable images rather than just
words (unless you have one or two things per slide you want
specific attention paid to)Slides with words should be power
lines: Our bodies change our minds...our minds change our
behavior...and our behavior changes our our outcomes
! Personal story about brain injury
! Break up the data with stories, images, etc.--same is true for
writing: use images, headings, etc., to break up data
! Repeat takeaways at the end: try power posing--share the
science
Ted Talks
! David Pogue: Time Saving Tech Tips
! Starting with a numbered list (if your topic warrants it): your
presentation is immediately given a narrative ark and a build up.
Your reader gets physiologically excited towards the end.
! Popular because it provides and focuses on things people do not
know--not what they do know
! Modal redundancy is really important in talks (more so than in
written papers): provide a verbal, visual, and textual information at
once
! He's not as great at concrete examples and stories (because he is only
given 5 minutes)
! Another inherent problem with the speed and non-story of this list is
that half way through I can't remember the first ones
! B for black out w for white out
! Provides contact info
Ted Talks
! David Gallo: Underwater
! Have silenced videos to talk over: you become morgan
freeman. Look up pechakucha.---you can also use video in
non-video presentations to set tone. If you can add video add
it. Be brief but show the primary sources you interact with--
interviews, show the experiment, etc. Always caption videos.
! No matter the situation, always get out and walk around. I'm
bad at this, you shouldn't be
! Is there a point to this one besides look at these they are neat?
Doesn't give us a prefacing goal
Ted Talks
! Jane McGonigal: Games and Life (stikingly similiar
to the first one)
! Make an offer: I'm a gamer--here's my special mission for this
talk, I'm going to increase your lifespan by 7 and a half minutes
! Give your audience a secret mission or something to do--this is
what you need to pay attention to (this is what you should do
in image captions as well)
! Gives a problem to solve: what do we regret at our death beds?
Uses these regrets to structure her presentation
! I start paying attention again when she says, I wanted to die.
Personal story brings me back. You need to add these
refreshers
! Introduce or make up key terms: post traumatic growth