This workshop offers an opportunity to practice editing strategies at the paragraph and sentence level. More specifically, this workshop challenges you to revise an existing document to make it more readable and more effective at meeting its audiences' needs and expectations. Your revision strategies may also include refining the design of the document to better support the visible organization of content.
Your work on this assignment will result in a revised document and a summary report.
For the complete details about how to submit your work, see Submission Requirements.
The primary focus of this workshop is to practice strategies for improving the clarity and quality of expression and the overall effectiveness of a working document. This work offers us an opportunity to explore the effectiveness of smart tools for assisting with the revision process.
As was the case with the first editing workshop, this assignment directly supports your professional development in 2 specific areas: assisting colleagues with writing and design (what we often categorize as peer review), and refining strategies for improving your own writing and design.
Now that we are adding strategies for revising writing to the toolkit, it makes sense to examine the effectiveness of smart tools for assisting in that process as well. Apps such as Grammarly and Microsoft Word have implemented artificially intelligent tools in the background for many years. With AI getting so much press and attention but not a lot of intelligent implementation, the time is prime for you to tinker with smart tools in this context.
Even the most sophisticated of smart tools are nowhere near the level of refinement necessary to produce a quality document like the assessment report I have challenged you to build during this course. The content demands are just too complex. The few students who have attempted to have a tool write the report for them returned dismally bad results. Large Language Models (LLMs, the algorithms on which apps such as OpenAI ChatGPT are built) are adequate for small segments of formulaic text. They are by design not capable of interpreting data without a LOT of direction and a lot of trial and error tinkering with scripts. They are by design not capable of crafting meaningful or refined arguments in any context.
However, smart tools can edit some kinds of text reasonably well, as long as you do not ask the tools to do too much. This workshop offers you a chance to experiment with and assess ChatGPT (or another tool , if you have others you prefer to work with) to determine your level of trust with it.
This workshop requires you to assess and revise an existing document that is poorly written and poorly designed. You may complete this workshop independently or in collaboration with up to 2 classmates. If you choose to work with others and also to work remotely, I recommend that you use Microsoft Teams or some other live chat/video conference tool to conduct the workshop.
The workshop has 6 stages.
If you do not already have an OpenAI ChatGPT account, create one for this workshop. If you have an account with a different smart app that is capable of providing editing assistance, you are welcome to use it instead. However, if you have no such account, I recommend that you use ChatGPT for now. Note that you do not need a paid account for this work. Stick with OpenAI's free level of support.
Retrieve and read the 3 workshop documents from SVSU Canvas that are linked in the module. There are two articles (e.g., Enslen, Herman) and a document that I created (e.g., Williamson). Collectively, these resources introduce content and strategies for editing documents that will prove useful during this workshop as well as during your work for the remainder of the semester and beyond. Do not skip this step.
Open a new document in Google Docs to use during the workshop.
If you have access to a software package with which you can create a one-page poster, be prepared to use it during the workshop. If you do not have such a package already loaded onto your machine, consider creating an account with Canva. Canva offers free accounts, and that level of service should meet your needs for this workshop as well as for the remainder of the course.
Finally, retrieve the working document for the workshop from SVSU Canvas (see Workshop Support). The document is a memo (Baines - ServiceCallMemo).
Begin with your own assessment of what you would expect from this document if you were impacted by it. Consider what (in general) you would expect of any document that directs you to act or complete a task. What kind of information do you need to be able to follow through? Reflect as well upon who you think the audiences are for this specific memo, and the purpose(s) you think it serves. How many different audience categories can you think of for this memo? What are the needs and expectations of each audience category?
Move on to consider the following question: What has the memo's author done so far to meet the needs and expectations of audiences? Identify any strategies the author uses that you think are useful and successful. Identify content that you think is presented well. Identify places where you get confused by the meaning or the intent of the information. Identify as many content areas as you can that you would argue could be improved, and discuss the changes you would make to improve those trouble spots.
Think about design as well. Does the visual logic of the document support the organization of the written content? Does the memo look professional? What recommendations might you offer the author to present content more effectively and more professionally?
Before you try to revise the memo yourself, see what ChatGPT can do with it. For this application of the tool, I strongly recommend that you work with the web based or desktop version of the app.
When you have a prompt window open in the app, type (or copy and paste) the following text into the window.
Work in the role of technical writer. Revise the following memo to make the meaning more clear to readers:
Before you hit the RETURN key to launch the process, copy and paste the full text of the memo into the window after the prompt you just entered. Once you have all of that content in the window, let ChatGPT go to work.
Copy the text of the revised memo from your web browser into your Google Doc. Reformat it if necessary to meet the specifications for a memo. (Review the Memo content I have provided through Canvas Files in the Project Support folder, if necessary.)
It should have only taken ChatGPT a few seconds to return a revised version of the memo. When I did this, the results were ok. The ChatGPT version was much better than the original memo, but not without flaws of its own. I could easily work to further improve the document.
But what do you think? In what ways is the content of the memo more clear, more understandable? In what ways is the content structured more effectively? In what ways might the memo be refined further?
The original memo would be much more effective if it were revised into 2 separate documents. That is what you'll do next. More specifically, you'll pull from the memo text the information relevant to different kinds of service calls so you can repackage it as a one-page poster. You'll use the remaining content to craft a memo that introduces the poster.
Use Canva to create your poster. As you design it, consider how to best organize the content. How might you signal the 2 kinds of service calls: emergencies, job orders? How might you present that content to make it easy to process?
Craft the memo in your Google Doc. Add a page break to avoid the content from the two memos running together on the same page. Add the poster to the second memo.
Once you have completed all other stages of the workshop, craft your summary report. That report should include the following details.
Think about design as you construct your report. Write your report directly in the Canvas Discussion forum designated for the workshop. Doing so limits your design choices, but still highlights the need to use basic design principles to make your content more accessible to readers.
Present your report in 5 separate sections that correspond to the report description above. Within sections, separate individual ideas/discussion points into their own paragraphs or list entries. Signal the beginning of each discussion section with an appropriate heading.
Post your summary report to the forum dedicated to this workshop on Canvas Discussions.
Provide a functioning link to the Google Doc where you worked on revising content.
This section describes the standards by which your work will be evaluated for this workshop. Attend carefully to these details. If you do so, you will earn full credit for the workshop.
There are 50 possible points for this workshop. I will award points according to this standard.
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