English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

The readings for this week all focused on research and applying research in literature. I was not looking forward to starting my research for this project, but the tips offered in these chapters makes it seem a little more manageable. As I begin my research this week, I think I will begin by doing some preliminary research. I want to spend my first day of research getting comfortable with the keywords associated with our topic and try to find as many sources of credible information as possible. I will make a list of all of these sources so that I can easily go back to each one.

Individual Work Blog
Date: April 5, 2009
To: Professor Tirrell
From: Zebulon Rouse, Group 7
Subject: Individual Activity Report 1

This report is the summary of the progress toward the White Paper project, starting from the initial date (March 30) to today (April 5).
Throughout this week, I have sent out an email initiating the communication process among the group. From that point we had submitted topics which we were interested in.

Date: 4/5/2009
To: Professor Rivers
From: Chris Kirkwood, Group 3
Subject: Individual Activity Report 1

Date: April 5, 2009
To: Jeremy Tirrell, Instructor
From: Joe Davies, Group 5
Subject: Individual Activity Report 1

This week I did my best to help the group get started on our project. During the first few days we wanted to brainstorm a few ideas for a topic, so I took a look at http://www.bitpipe.com/ and other resources to see what might be feasible. The main page gives several popular topics, and I suggested about four of them that were of interest to me.

The first week of the group white paper project focused mainly on getting acquainted with the assignment and the group. We decided rather early on that we would split the major deliverables up, with each one of us being primarily responsible for one aspect of the project. A Google Docs account was created for our group to use, and we have already begun to utilize it by adding to, editing, and commenting on our initial proposal. We are also looking into ways to send messages through Google Docs so out inboxes will not become overly cluttered with emails back and forth.

During the first week of the White Paper Project, I took the responsibility to initiate productivity. By sending out an email and compiling a list serve of my group, I was able to get thoughts exchanged between members. Having past teamwork experience, it was important to me to see that we got start early and offer a few ideas I already had. I began the first email on Wednesday, April 1st, to organize our team’s responsibilities and get everyone on the same page. I explained what we needed to get done and asked everyone’s opinions before we got started.

Well to start the week off, we had to first communicate to each other and figure out exactly what we wanted to do. Once we started emailing each other, I decided to ask everybody to write out some of their thoughts on what to do for this project. After everyone had replied, I asked them to narrow it down to their top three favorite choices. From there, it was pretty obvious what we were going to end up doing for our project. Pretty much everybody in my group had the cell phone topic in their top three, so we all just decided that we were going to do that topic.

The first week of this project was focused on getting started. I began by participating in discussions over email with the rest of my team. We emailed ideas for the topic of the project to each other. After everyone sent in their feedback, I tallied up the results and discovered that everyone voted for smart phones. This is how we chose our topic.

My primary focus this week was on reading about how to create a successful white paper. I have never written a white paper so I decided I would need this knowledge to help me start the process. I also looked over the example white papers. I used Google to search for a few other examples to make sure that I had a good idea of what I was shooting for. I also contacted my group members early in the week asking if anybody had a topic idea. I shared my contact information with my group members so that we have various ways that we can communicate.

The following is my individual report of work from March 30through April 5.