Following the directions from Sample Project Topic Ideas/Analysis of a Project Topic, please post your responses here. Posts are due on Tuesday, September 25 by 4:45 PM.
Savannah Green
9/23/2012 12:06:37 pm
Topic four is a project that needs work. First of all, the writer says his final project would be a PowerPoint presentation. The choices were a manual, technical report, or feasibility study. I would recommend a manual for this student. His topic is also too broad. Clearly, he wants success for the Washington Redskins. But he needs to hone in on something specific. A possibility is that a manual of plays that can be made for the offensive coordinator of the team in order have a better chance of winning games. This would be a good primary audience, because the offensive coordinator is the person who decides what plays his offense will make. The secondary audience for this topic could be the coach of the team because he is ultimately the one who will tell the players about the new plays and show them how they can be utilized. The tertiary audience would be the players themselves because they would be affected. They would have to learn the new plays and use the manual to improve their game.
David Weglein
9/23/2012 02:07:36 pm
Topic one looks ready to go. Everything looks well planned and the manual looks like it will address to right audience. The second topic isn’t appropriate for our purpose. We’re supposed to provide real solutions to an actual problem. Everything presented would be opinions by authors, aside from a few statistics such as demographics, and wouldn’t really be a solution to anything. There is simply no right or wrong. Topic three needs work. It is one that has probably been done many times before. The audience wasn’t right; students should be the main audience. Even then, the audience is too broad. The topic is pretty broad as well. There are a ton of study habits that would be appropriate for different situations. Topic four needs a lot of work. The description, audience, and form all looked like they weren’t planned and we written last minute. Everything needs to be more specific. The author could consider narrowing the topic range to something like “nurturing a quarterback in the NFL”.
Rachelle Chan
9/24/2012 12:13:09 pm
Topic Four, which is the improvements to the Washington Redskins, is one of the topic ideas that needs work. Although this is an idea that might be of interest to the student outside the major, the solution may not able to be fully developed within one semester. This topic is too broad to be able to find one viable solution. The student needs to work on narrowing down the topic to one area, such as the offense of the Redskins, or the defense of the team, or the coaches. The student simply states that he would like to come up with a solution that maintains a team that won’t “squander the promise of a franchise quarterback”. He doesn’t focus his attention on a certain aspect of how he will do this.
Vasant Joseph
9/24/2012 03:57:53 pm
Topic four is an idea that needs some work, largely because it is vague in nature. It discusses a need to reform the Redskins, but does not really offer a concrete solution for doing so. In the description, the researcher should include some of the methods he will use to scope out and bring in the new talent that is necessary to attract and keep a franchise quarterback. Also, it is important that the researcher adequately investigates the topic, and includes research into what scouting, recruiting, and managing methods have been successful for teams in the past. Football experts have been researching ways for teams to improve themselves for years, so the writer must gain a complete understanding of the way team management works before writing off the Redskins’ current strategy or blindly offering blanket suggestions for the team to change its plans.
Elizabeth Akede
9/24/2012 04:31:12 pm
Topic one is ready to go, the description, audience and form presented are all very specific. There is a clear audience that the topic targets as well as a practical solution to the problem presented. Topic two on the other hand is not appropriate for our purpose because the description of the topic is one based on opinion and not fact. Also for the form presented to solve the problem presented the option of a survey is not one that were are allowed to use. Topics tree and four both need work. Topic three: How to Study is one that needs work. The description given is where the major problem lays. This description is too vague, trying to target all freshmen on campus is too ambitious and not very practical. Also the topic description claims many college freshmen who have done well in high school did not develop appropriate study habits or technique, this is an opinion and not factual. Unless there is a way for the person to find out how each teacher at each high school that each individual freshmen student taught their students then this claim is not a very valid claim. Also since the study aims to fix how people study they need to take into account the different factors that may cause one student to study and succeed and another to study and fail.
Mabelyn Mijangos
9/24/2012 11:52:38 pm
Topic one looks good and ready to me. The manual has been created correctly which will benefit when read by the appropriate audience. This student has thought well into planning and it shows in this topic that they created. The solution is also apparent in the student's topic which was nice to see in comparison to topic four.
Ava Afghahi
9/25/2012 01:36:48 am
In my opinion, the fourth topic concerning the "recent woes" of the Redskins is the one that needs the most improvement. Everything including the topic itself, the audience, and even the form are too broad.
Jennifer L. Winkler
9/25/2012 02:28:32 am
Topic 1 – good to go
Owen Barton
9/25/2012 04:24:49 am
For the “How to Study” topic, I would say that it needs work because it is a broad, and would be more effective if it was targeted to a specific major. Although freshmen do take similar introductory level courses, each curriculum is different and may require focus on different areas. For example, study habits for an engineering major may differ from those of a theater major, or even a biology major. Freshmen would benefit most not by learning how to study for freshmen level courses, but by developing study habits that would benefit them in their major for the duration of their academic career. A significant part of being successful in college is learning how to prioritize, and different areas of study generally have different priorities. A manual meant for use by all freshmen may be helpful at times, however a more specific manual, tailored to students of a certain major would be even more helpful. Simply finding a broad way to study for a test may only be helpful in the short-term. Engineers should be taught to study as well as to put skills and techniques learned in the classroom to use in their free time, in order to develop qualities that engineering recruiters seek. Also, many engineering exams are problem-solving tests. Study habits that tailor to this purpose would provide longevity through the students’ career. A theater or dance major on the other hand may occasionally use problem-solving techniques in few classes, however, attending and participating in performances is a major component of their curriculum. Also, essay writing and reading are large components of learning and grading for those types of majors. Tests for performance majors may be weighed differently and also they may be different kinds of tests based on memorization rather than problem solving tests that engineers take. For freshmen level courses, the topic of “How to study” could be improved by more specifically targeting a certain major and highlighting techniques that could be used throughout the students’ career.
Laura Friedman
9/25/2012 06:04:34 am
Topic one is good. Topic two is a broad topic with a very narrow audience and it needs work. Topic three needs work, too, since college freshman at the university if a large group of people. Topic four also needs significant work. First, the goal is very unrealistic. The audience is not going to listen to a fan in college who just wants to see a Super Bowl championship. Even if they were willing to listen, it would be very difficult to get the general manager to a meeting where this presentation would occur. Also, the form of the project is not appropriate for this class. The class is about technical writing, and the forms for the project include manuals, technical reports and feasibility studies. A Powerpoint presentation does not fit into any of these categories, especially when it is not coming from a place based on fact. It is possible to narrow this down, though. If this student was a business major, they could write a technical report on an advertisement or marketing suggestion. The current project, though, includes changing an entire professional football team, which is a goal that is not appropriate for this class. Little research can go into this, too. The topic is too broad and generalized for there to be specific evidence. It is feasible to find marketing evidence on how one approach can be more successful than another or how one idea can generate a lot of revenue, so that idea is more likely to occur. If this person is really passionate about football, they can also try to address a problem on a smaller scale, such as the University team or a high school team. This would be a more accessible task, although the general basis still may not be appropriate for the class. Overall, Topic four needs a lot of changes in the problem, audience, and form in order to make it work for this assignment.
Anthony Minnich
9/25/2012 06:07:30 am
Anthony Minnich
Jeremy Knipple
9/25/2012 06:22:51 am
The topic that sticks out to me as one that needs a large amount of work in order to be ready for a semester long topic. I would like to first start out by saying that this students topic is one that is planned for a powerpoint presentation, and not one of the acceptable formats, such as a manual, technical report, or feasibility study. Although this student can use a powerpoint to aid in his project, it should not be used alone. Also, I notice that he is obviously a Washington Redskins fan and wants success for his team. The student needs to localize some of the major problems and state how he/she will go about fixing these problems. The student is so vague that the words “something needs to be done” rather than stating what he/she would do to fix it. One way might be to suggest a completely new playbook for the offense and defense. Another way could be to draft players and trade for players who are efficient and cheap so the salary cap is not exceeded. Lastly, the student could propose that the team undergo many training sessions to help study an offense or a defense of other teams so they can win more games. The student could also go on to say that the coaching staff of the Redskins would be the secondary audience and that the tertiary audience would, of course, be the players for the Washington Redskins. The primary audience would be a correct audience (barring he remove the “someone else at the front office,” however this is a very unrealistic audience. How could a college student with no professional experience or formal teaching of this business get their manual approved by the general manager of an NFL team? Why not try for his/her local high school football team. After these changes have been made this topic would be greatly improved and realistically feasible to complete.
Nick Smith
9/25/2012 06:28:30 am
Topic four, regarding the recent issues of the Washington Redskins is without a doubt the topic that is in need of the most improvement. The issue and the audience are all way too broad. Besides drafting the franchise quarterback, the General Manager often has little responsibility towards nurturing the quarterback to ensure he becomes successful. Operating a professional sports franchise with success takes years of experience through out the entire franchise, it is extremely unrealistic that a student could present a reasonable report or PowerPoint in one semester that any professional franchise would take serious. If the writer narrowed the improvement of the franchise to a more specific area of issue, such as drafting or improving play calling would be more feasible.
Brandon Carter
9/25/2012 06:29:21 am
The topic that I looked at was “Imagine No Religion”. Though it is a hot topic, a topic which can vary drastically depending who you are and where you come from, it is a topic that even though it focuses on the U.S it is still too broad. Maybe the focus could be shifted to college students at the University of Maryland College Park. On thing that will have to be emphasized is that the audience you're focusing on has to be open minded. This topic is specifically for a person who wants to know both sides of the argument and have an open mind and ability to change there mind the way they see fit. This can be a very touchy subject but if handled the right way, can be very beneficial into giving insight into other people's minds and lives. As a secondary topic one should also focus on bridging the gab between the two sides, thus making UMD as a whole stronger and willing to support one another. This can be done by showing common characteristics and goals that everyone shares no matter what there religion. Also the topic has to focus on a specific religion. There are so many religions out there is it very hard to focus on just one. Also this topic can not take a biased side. In that I mean that even if the speaker is religious or atheist that speaker cannot try and pursued the argument to there side. Again this can be very tricky in that something one might see as non biased may in fact be biased and in that the topic is now compromised. So in conclusion in order to change the topic to be successful the audience has to be narrowed down significantly, the speaker has to be unbiased, the decision maker has to be of an open mind (religious or atheist) and a secondary focus on using this information to help with people getting to know others.
Tyler Alexander
9/25/2012 06:34:27 am
Topic one seems well-aimed, with a clear goal and a viable audience. There is a method that will achieve something and the problem it addresses is relevant. I think topic two needs the most work in many senses. Generally speaking, it is too broad and it is too personal to be sincerely viewed as an honest problem. Topic three is a bit of a strange “problem” to try and tackle and it’s much too subjective to the student to be worth “solving.” And topic four is a bit too inappropriate and unrealistic to truly be considered.
Eric Roller
9/25/2012 06:35:56 am
The one topic that seems to have the most flaws is topic number 4. This topic states that the Washington Redskins need improvement as they have problems "maintaining a team that won’t squander the promise of a franchise quarterback." Overall, this topic is far to general. To attack the problem of the entire team would be outside of the scope of this project. Instead, the topic should focus on a single element of the game. Whether it be offense, defense, special teams, or coaching, the student would be better able to attend to a single problem. The topic also implies that a solution can be found to bring a superbowl victory to Washington, DC. Years of professional analysis go into professional football. A single semester will not give the student appropriate time to find a accurate solution to such a complex problem, even if the subject falls within the students major.
Nathan Bakirci
9/25/2012 06:42:13 am
Topic Two is one that I thought needs work. The target audience is huge, basically every religiously raised person in America which is millions. This audience is way too broad and practically unreachable. The student needs to narrow down their audience, maybe to religiously raised residents of College Park only so that it would be plausible to actually access their audience. Also, to make the topic more technical instead of opinionated, the project should probably be aimed at new religious parents specifically. That way, the student can be focused on researching specific factors of secular vs religious upbringings which can be used to create a technical report that compares the two. This method is better than the survey format which is described by the student which could turn out more opinionated than factual and is more relevant to the specific audience.
Angel Torres
9/25/2012 06:45:58 am
Topic 3 shows an understanding of audience and presents a legitimate concern that can be addressed. However, the topic is too broad to be applied effectively. A manual would be a good medium to present good study habits, but I would suggest narrowing it to specific majors. Studying for a calculus exam is much different than studying for a literature exam. This would be an ideal topic to implement in a group setting, where each person can focus on one major.
Constance Moyo
9/25/2012 07:59:29 am
Topic two is my favorite topic most likely because I like philosophy especially debates on the existence of God and Christians but again it is too broad and difficult to narrow. Also, it is a topic that is extremely opinionated and subjective so it would really be difficult to write a manual or even a report on it. The other problem I see with this is the audience. It is extremely broad and needs to be narrowed extensively and that too can be an issue. Topic three seems to be another good one to me because it addresses a legitimate problem that many freshman students in colleges face so having a manual that can be presented to them during their orientation of first day on campus would be good. This manual can definitely help them know where to look for resources, for help and tutoring when they need it and also some research could be done and the traditionally hard classes that are difficult to pass could be listed and if they are told how to go about these courses I am sure their grades and stress level will be better. The audience here is also well defined although it is broad, it seems to be a good audience to target.
David Wilks
10/2/2012 11:16:22 am
Topic four is a very broad subject that has an unreasonable audience to consider. An owner and general manager of a team are knowledgeable and understand what the team dynamics are. They are usually highly educated and know the inner workings of running a business. An undergraduate student will most likely not offer any reasonable insight to the team that they have not already thought of or are possible to undergo. The audience would need to be Bruce Allen’s assistant or someone lower on the totem pole that would be able to pass the project up if they feel it is appropriate. The form they will present it in is not appropriate either and would not fall into the guidelines set beforehand. Comments are closed.
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Technical WritingUniversity of Maryland |