Unit #1 Situation Report

(due Thursday, January 29)

Once your topic has been approved, you will begin to collect research from your site to identify the possible causes of your problem and the effects that might come about if the problem goes unaddressed. Your research might include personal observations, Internet research on similar problems in other organizations, informal conversations with members of the organization, formal interviews with organization leaders, and surveys/questionnaires completed by organization members and outside stakeholders. (If you have questions about how to conduct your research, please see me during office hours or email me to set up an appointment at a different time.)

From this research, you will write up a 2-page (or longer), single-spaced description of the current situation and problem/opportunity at your project site, with at least 4 contributing sources. Using the information in chapters 3 and 4 of Writing Proposals, you will take a causal, effects, or narrative approach (or some combination of these approaches) and detail the situation at the organization using observations, specific comments, and examples to prove the point that a problem/opportunity exists. You should NOT yet provide any solution to the problem. You will treat this as a research report to your primary audience and will thus cite any quotes or information that came directly from someone you spoke to. If done well, you should be able to add a large portion of this document into your final full proposal with a little modification.

Please upload the file to the class website before class on Thursday. In addition, please bring make sure you have access to the file in the lab on Thursday.