Memorandum Regarding Analysis of Prior Writing

Writing to Achieve a Technical Prose Style
In this project, you will analyze some of your prior writing to determine the level of readability and create a podcast. Your deliverables are:
Memo Report write-up of findings from the analysis, about 3 pages.
Learning Outcomes:
Learn the principle behind achieving an effective, readable, technical prose style.
Learn the elements of effective document design.
Learn standard formatting conventions for one of the most common forms of workplace communication.
Determine how readable your style is by analyzing your prior writing.
Gain practice in writing a memo report.
Overview
Style concerns the artful expression of ideas. If invention (finding what to say) addresses what is to be said, style addresses how this will be said. From a rhetorical perspective style is not incidental, superficial, or supplementary: style names how ideas are embodied in language and customized to communicative contexts. Style involves not just the words you use, but the order or structure in which you use them, and includes elements of layout/design and, in many instances, the use of illustration.
All writing should aim at being readable, but in technical writing, “readable” refers to specific aspects of style. Technical documents are frequently aimed at multiple audiences with varying levels of technical expertise, sometimes in the same document. Meeting the needs of multiple readers in a single document is challenging and requires close attention to both style and structure.
In addition, if your technical prose style is unclear, misunderstandings can occur which not only reflect poorly on the writer, but may place an audience in danger, such as a poorly placed warning on a set of instructions.
For this assignment, you will apply the concepts for achieving an effective technical prose style by analyzing at least 500 words of your prior writing.
Guidelines for Deliverable #1: The Memo
Audience for Memo
Address your memo report to me. I need to know how well you understand and are able to execute prose style concepts.
Format: Memo
Length: About 2-3 pages
Selecting Prior Writing
You may analyze any writing you have done previously as long as it is non-fiction. Creative writing will not work for this assignment because it plays by entirely different rules. If you have written reports for science and engineering courses, these may be the best choice, but don’t be concerned if you have not written these types of documents. Any academic paper will work as long as it is non-fiction. You may want to combine your analysis between several types of non-fiction writing you have done such as lab reports, essays, and longer papers.
Conducting the Analysis
Analyze your writing for the concepts discussed in the prose style lectures (located in the Project 1: Module). Although you do not need to analyze your prose for all of these concepts, you will want to demonstrate a range of concepts. Most students who do this assignment find room for improvement, but if your prose style is excellent, then point that out in your analysis. If not, concentrate on what is not working well.
Writing up the Findings from Your Analysis
After you have analyzed your writing, decide what areas you need to work-on and write-up your findings in a memo of about 2-3 pages. In this write-up, you should refer to the concepts using the same terminology as in the course materials. An analytical report such as this one requires you to make claims (a statement you assert to be true). All claims you make about your writing will need supporting examples (short excerpts from your prior writing) with enough explanation to reveal your understanding of the concept you are applying. Remember that, with a memo, each paragraph should be focused on one specific item or concept. Keep that in mind - it will make building this report much easier. Although some revision may be necessary to demonstrate your understanding of a concept, be certain to emphasize analysis and not revisionin your report. Be sure to see 1.4 for examples of former students' work. A good rule of thumb here is to build each paragraph deliberately. Focus on one concept. Introduce the concept and what you found, show an example, and then analyze it.
Examples
You can find many examples in the Project 1 Lecture Slides. Here are a few more.
Writer 1
In this example, the writer chose to analyze the abstract of a report he wrote for a group project in another course.
Wordiness
My writing often contains unnecessary words. For example, in this sentence I highlighted words that could easily be eliminated to sharpen the prose:
“Methods used for the collecting and baiting of aquatic fungi specifically those used for hyphomycetes were followed exactly according to the procedures as described by both Dix and Webster (1995).”
Writer 2
In this example, the writer chose to analyze a paper written for an environmental science course. Notice how this writer chose to revise the original in order to demonstrate how vague and unclear her writing was compared to the revision, but she also clearly explained what did not work. In other words, she is emphasizing analysis and not relying on the revised text to be “self-evident” as improved over the original.

Being clear and specific. I discovered in doing this analysis that my opening paragraph for this paper contained facts that were irrelevant and the paper lacked a clear and specific thesis. In my revision, I clearly state the main environmental problems and explain why these are difficult to solve.
Original. Niger is located in Western Africa bordering Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, and is roughly twice the size of Texas. The capital of Niger is Niamey. The landscape consists of four-fifths desert plain and one fifth savanna. Niger is one of the hottest countries in the world with a desert and tropical climate. Due to the extreme landscape, the country relies on limited agriculture as their main form of economy.

Revision. Niger faces several environmental problems: overgrazing, soil erosion, deforestation, desertification, and diminishing wildlife populations. These environmental problems are difficult to solve because of political corruption and the low standard of living in this country.