English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

This week was very busy for me, having two exams, so I was not able to do too much work on the white paper project until Thursday. I began by going over all of the requirements posted on the web site a few times to make sure that our group would not miss any key features as we started to write the paper. On Thursday I contributed some possible topics via emails with my group before we decided to meet in a gmail chat on Thursday night. In the chat, I helped my group narrow down our topic choice to green energy and offered several solutions to the problem we would be focusing on.

Date: April 7, 2009
To: Professor Rivers
From: Jason Flittner, Group 1
Subject: Individual Activity Report 1

This activity report summarizes the steps taken to complete the proposal for the white paper my group has decided to create.

For this week, aside from the normal reading responses and comments, I spent the beginning of the week communicating with my group via email to decide on a topic and how we wanted to divide up the workload. We decided to do the white paper on wireless network security solutions and to use google docs to list the potential sources we found and start work on our project proposal.

During week one, I was introduced into Group 8 with a series of introduction emails. I began the week by sending an introduction email to all the group members. Once a reply email was sent from all members, we began the brain storming process for our project topic. Once a topic was selected a group member established a Google Document page and sent a link to all members. I then established a Google account using my Purdue email and began the editing of the document.

The Thompson Handbook gives a good outline of the research process that we should follow. We have already analyzed and decided on the subject we want to cover for the white paper project. The next steps will involve reviewing tests that discuss the topic and considering the elements of the issue of renewable energy. We will first want to find out what has already been said and proposed as a solution. Another important thing to gain from these texts is the knowledge of whether people are satisfied with the state of these text’s solutions.

The first week of the white paper project I introduce myself to the group member by email. Throughout the collection of emails we discuss what roles we should take part of during the project. I was elected to take control over the graphics and design elements since my major is Computer Graphics Technology. In addition to the graphically work, I will also conduct research on our topic and take part in editing.

The first couple days of this project have been spent getting organized and beginning to jump into the project. I figure it’s better to start with a clear idea of where you want the project to end up rather than figuring out as you go. The hardest part is trying to maintain the plan you have as the project progresses.

This activity report will summarize the progress I have made since the start of the English 421 White Paper Project.

This first week involved introducing myself to the other members of the group through email. I spent about 15 to 30 minutes familiarizing myself with google docs since this was the way we decided to share documents among the group.

I played the role of organizer for group 4 in this first week of the project. I contacted the other group members via email and shared my name, email, AIM s/n, and google account, and urged everybody to respond back with the same information. I also recommended we utilize google docs for this project, and am adding members of the group to have shared access to the documents. We picked a topic and split up the work: this week I would write the group activity report which was done and submitted by Friday night and we will rotate who writes this every week.

Since the beginning of the project I have done a few things. First I have created a Google group for my teammates. I made sure everyone was invited and had equal rights on the site. This means that they can post new topics or send out emails to the whole group. We are equals in the team after all. I set up page placeholders so that we can all start working on the various documents due that week. I felt that by doing this it would encourage us to start sooner rather than later.