Policy Project

project summary

Your team will handle complaints provided to you by me. You will first decide upon a course of action that you will summarize for me in a memo. Then, you must draft a policy that will prevent future complaints in this area and explain it in a report. Finally, you will write a business letter that informs the complainant of your actions and offers compensation or a resolution.

goals

Writing in Context:
  • writing for general audiences and decision makers
  • understanding the ethical dimensions of workplace communication

Process:
  • develop and understand various strategies for planning, researching, drafting, revising, and editing documents
  • respond effectively and ethically to professional situations and audiences.

Research:
  • assessing and using information resources
  • using primary research methods such as interviews, observations, focus groups, and surveys to collect data

Collaboration:
  • setting and achieving project goals
  • working as part of a writing team and/or with a client organization

Document Design:
  • understanding and implementing various principles of format and layout
  • interpreting and arguing with visual information.

deliverables

Step 1: Memo. Your group will write a memo to me (your supervisor) that explains your course of action for handling the complaint, i.e. the policy you plan to implement into our workplace and the compensation you plan to offer the complainant. The memo must explain what the complaint is, what the policy will be, and how the policy addresses the problem referred to in the complaint as well as a plan to compensate your complainant for the mistake. It should be no more than 500 words and is due on June 26th.

Step 2: Policy Report. Your group will decide upon a policy that will be submitted to me in a short informal report. The policy will call for a change in operation that will prevent future customer issues. It must be well thought out and drafted in such a way that it is not misinterpretable. The policy report as a whole will consist of a statement of the policy and an explanation of how it operates and where it applies. It should be between 750 and 1250 words and is due on July 3rd.

Step 3: Business Letter. The business letter will respond to the original customer complaint. You must assure the customer that the complaint has been addressed without giving too much specific information about the operations of our corporation or becoming excessively apologetic. This is a rhetorically tricky situation, so be careful how you write the letter. It should be no more than one page and is due on July 14th.

grading

The breakdown for each of the following components is as follows:

Step 1: Memo
 35 pts
Step 2: Policy
50 pts
Step 3: Business Letter
40 pts
Total
 125 pts

grading criteria

With this project, context is very important. I will pay careful attention to how your style shifts from the memo to the policy report to the business letter. Consider your audience when you write. I will also consider whether your policy will successfully curb future problems, if it is misinterpretable, if the business letter would satisfy the customer, etc.

revision

You will be allowed to revise the Policy Project one time after I have handed it back to you. In order to be eligible to revise, you must see me for a conference and turn in each revised deliverable no later than one week after it was returned to you. Your final grade will be the average of the grades you receive on the two drafts.

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Submitted by wjpeck on Thu, 06/05/2008 - 18:24.