In this project, you will investigate texts at a participant’s work, with special focus on time and project management.
Choosing a Project
When choosing a project, think in the following terms:
Access. You need to be able to gain access to the work or complex activity of a willing participant who is active in at least one organization or workplace. Think in terms of these sorts of participants:
- Participants to which which you already have a personal connection (e.g., your mentor; members of your fraternity or sorority, social organization, or advocacy group; your roommates or friends)
- Participants who hold a job you would like to someday hold -- in which case this assignment can also function as "shadowing" so that you can be better prepared for your career
- Participants who have already expressed frustration with their current ways of managing time and projects -- those who say they are being drowned in details, for instance
Time period. Ideally, you'll be able to conduct an investigation quickly -- within a month.
Conducting the Investigation
You will investigate the participant's work in the following ways:
- Shadowing. You'll observe them working at different points and take notes, asking questions if possible.
- Interviewing. You'll also ask them questions about their work and how they manage it. Ask about
- their self-mediational tools (software, checklists, folders, handwritten notes, etc.)
- their organization systems (filing cabinets, databases, stacks, etc.)
- their communication systems (email, IM, phone, etc.)
If possible, record the interview. You can use a tape recorder, voice recorder, camcorder, or perhaps features on your mobile phone.
- Collecting texts. When possible, get samples of these sorts of texts for further analysis. You might get web addresses, photocopies, electronic copies, or photographs.
You'll develop a detailed plan (methodology) for investigating the workplace.
Writing the Research Report
Based on your investigation, you will write a research report that describes your findings and their implications. It will have the following sections:
- Introduction, which introduces the project in one sentence and forecasts the rest of the report.
- Background, which introduces us to the participant and her/his work.
- Methods, which describes how you investigated the participant's work.
- Observations
- Interviews
- Texts
- Results, which summarizes and describes what you discovered.
- Overall description of system (genre ecology diagram)
- Major functions of the system (based on major categories from the card sorting exercise, supported with reasons and evidence from table)
- Discussion, which interprets your results. What do they mean? What patterns have you discovered? Where is the participant's system of work particularly strong and where is it weak?
- Claims from table. These can be
- Descriptive: Here's how the system works.
- Evaluative: Here's where the system works/doesn't work well
- Proposal: Here's what the user should do to improve the system
- Works Cited, in which you list any references for your paper. Citations should be in APA, MLA, or Chicago style. I've generated citations for our class readings in APA format.
Turning in your Research Report
Turn in your P1 by sharing your Google Docs document with me.