Purpose of the Assignment:

The purpose of this assignment is to provide you a chance to practice document design alongside chart and graph production. This project builds on the skills you developed for the rhetorical analysis, as you will again be analyzing choices made by writers. This time, however, you must also make your own rhetorical choices as you present information in a new way.

Overview:

This assignment asks you to find a technical document from your profession and redesign it according to the document design principles discussed in class and the textbook. Additionally, you must either A) add at least one chart, graph or table to the text, or B) find a linguistic description of something to convert to a chart, graph, or table for the same audience (e.g.: you find a short description in an annual report on Starbucks' quarterly earnings. Convert this information to a chart, graph, or table that could be included in this report). In either case, you must use design principles from class.

Directions:

Your task is to manipulate images, change fonts, and reorganize the various elements of the original document so that it incorporates effective design principles in a way that you feel improves the overall design. There are a variety of ways to do this, but you must be prepared to justify why you made particular changes.  The following steps will walk you through the assignment:

1. Find an appropriate text to redesign (feel free to consult the professional from project 1). If you have a hard time finding a text that needs improvement, consider redesigning it for a different audience.

2. Redesign the text by applying design principles. You can use Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign, or any other software program that you feel will help you achieve the task in a professional manner.

3. Include one chart, graph or table that helps the reader visually understand a concept from the text OR, if there is nothing worth converting to a chart, graph, or table, find another technical document related to your profession/major that you can convert.

4. Write a 1-2 page single-spaced memo in which you discuss your redesign and describe why you made the changes that you did. Make sure to explain what the intended effects are of your redesign choices, and make sure to link this to purpose and audience. You MUST use terminology from the book and from lecture. Also, make sure to explain the chart, graph, or table. IF it is unrelated to your redesign, then take the time to explain (in a short paragraph) the intended purpose, audience, and strategies used.

5. turn in the following: 1) the Memo, 2) the original design (so I can see the text you chose to redesign), 3) the Redesign, 4) The Chart, Graph, or Table (if it isn't included in the redesign).