Welcome to the website for my Spring 2008 Technical Writing class. Because this site has been archived, the content-posting features have been disabled, but you're welcome to browse the syllabus, calendar, assignments and so on.

--Suzanne Black

Since we started the semester with introductions, I thought it would make sense for the final blog prompt to ask about what's next for you, professionally.

Personal stuff is fine too (e.g., I remember some people were getting married), but do remember the blog posts on this site are relatively public.* 

Due: sometime Friday, April 18

Post an update on your project. Below are some questions to get you started; feel free to skip ones that don't apply.

• What have you done since your last progress report?
• What has been your most fun/ interesting/ stress-relieving discovery of the last week?
• What tasks do you have remaining?
• Looking at your Gantt chart, are you on/ behind/ahead of schedule?
• What concerns or questions do you have about the project?
• Overall, how is it going?

Sometime on Wednesday (needn't be in class), please blog briefly about the following questions.

1. What have you done so far on your final project?
2. What do you plan to do in the next week or so?
3. What concerns or questions do you have about the project? If you've encountered any complications, please describe them.

As you finish uploading your white paper, I'd like you to blog for a couple minutes about the following:

• your most memorable (good or bad) group or teamwork experience
• the dynamics of the team involved (what made the group work well or badly, in your opinion) 

Assigned: Monday, March 17
Due: sometime this week, or by next Monday, 3/24

This week, I'd like you to think and blog a bit about possible topics for the final project. These can be topics you're personally interested in, but they can also be issues that seem relevant and that you think might interest others.    

Have a wonderful (and, unless you are a skiier, snow-free) spring break. The week we come back we will be doing project 2 presentations. There are more guidelines here:

http://www.digitalparlor.org/sp08/black1/presentation-proj2

Or feel free to email me.

Quick reminder that we will not meet this Wednesday or Friday (I am out of town giving a talk). Please work on the rough draft of your white paper and post it to your blog by the end of the week (Saturday, 3/1 at noon by the latest).

Snopes.com page on the "Tourist of Death":

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/photos/tourist.asp

The Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture
http://www.discovery.org/csc/

Here is a resource that looks like a big help for the white papers.

The Purdue Libraries is trying out a "web-based citation manager" called Ref Works that will automatically format your bibliography for you. Basically, you enter information about your sources (author, title, etc.) into a file and then the program takes care of formatting it correctly and numbering in-text citations.

If you have used EndNote, apparently RefWorks is similar. I encourage you to give it a try and let the library and me know what you think.