Writing Assignment

For Project 1a, you are doing a hybrid version of the real thing. Envision yourself as a ClearMark Award volunteer and consider the website you selected as one that was submitted by the person who created it. The person is seeking both fair judgment and useful feedback.

I think it is informative to study the questions that appear on the ClearMark Awards entry form, a copy of which is in “Print resources” in Blackboard.

Here are the questions the entrants are required to answer.

1. What is the entry trying to do or communicate? 

2. Who is the target reader?

3. Who is this entry designed for? Approximately how many people are in this group?

4. What constraints were you working under?

5. Describe any limitations or constraints the judges should consider, such as legal requirements, budget, time, or formatting guidelines.

6. Did you evaluate the entry? Describe any audience research, comprehension or usability testing, or other methods you used to determine that the audience learned, understood, and remembered what you intended them to. Describe how you used audience research findings to shape or iterate your entry.

7. What was your entry’s impact? Show how your entry increases participation or compliance, saves time or dollars, or reduce customer service calls.

Notice that questions 4-7 try to get at limitations and questions 6 and 7 are concerned with research and results. All of these are out of reach for you, but you can at least infer questions 1-3. As I have stated before, I suspect that the local government sites – which all used to look like  this  one, with a lot of hometown flair – are now being built offsite, so to speak. I say this because so many sites are structurally similar to other sites. Such an arrangement would be a considerable design constraint (questions 4 and 5), and if sites are not maintained locally, then research and evaluation (done locally) would be difficult as well.

So, by my count, the ClearMark Awards – Judging Criteria lists more than two dozen questions that are representative of the kinds of things the judges look for. In considering style, for example, the following questions are listed:

· Do the writers follow plain writing principles? (for example, short-ish sentences with active voice)

· Does the product feel credible and sincere?

· Do the tone, choice of words and conversational style convey respect for the target audience?

· Do they avoid jargon?

You can answer all of these questions although you may find yourself defining certain terms. Your website may not have a “product” per se, or maybe a “conversational style” is not preferred. (“Product,” by the way, is something of an unfortunate term. Most of you will think in terms of services or opportunities.) When you write up your evaluation, I need you to lay out what you did, and the place to do that is at the beginning. Make your terms of evaluation clear. The ClearMark Awards provide seven evaluation criteria:  understanding audience needs; style or voice; structure and content; information design and navigation; pictures, graphics and charts; evaluation; and overall. Of these, only “evaluation” is likely off out of reach to you. But the others you can use to make statements about the materials you are evaluating.

Also, remember, you are to score each criteria on a 1 to 5 scale and provide a justification or evidence for the score. (The ClearMark Awards are not graded using an A-F system like the federal report card uses.) If you award a 5 you should be able to show why something was regarded as “Excellent” based on plain language principles. If you identify a page that uses plain language principles but is otherwise uninspiring (“Some more focus could significantly improve execution”) then award it a 3 and state what could be improved.

Now, with regard to the questions about what your projects should look like, let’s not confuse form and function. A memo report is a report in a memo form. A letter report is a report in a letter form. The difference is a matter of reading situation. If the reader is internal the format would be a memo. If the reader is external the format would be a letter. Whatever format you choose, the reports should be readable and consistent. Most workplace reports of this nature are single spaced and use 12 point font with one inch margins all around. Paragraphs are short. There is plenty of white space, and headings and subheadings are common. Also, please be consistent and deliberate with enhancements such as bold and italics. Use such enhancements sparingly. Multiple-sized fonts on a page are often more of a distraction than a strategy to enhance readability. Images should be labeled and readable.