Recommendation Report Assignment Options
August 7, 2023
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A recommendation
If you are currently having an affair with a sibling of your spouse, embezzling funds from a children’s charity, and emotionally abusing your pet, “Help I have a headache” might provide only a temporary solution to your headache. If you would like a more permanent solution for your headache, may we suggest you end the affair with the sibling of your spouse, stop embezzling funds from children’s charities, and treat your pets kindly.
As I have worked on my plans for fall, I knew that I wanted to change the topic for the recommendation report. To help with that decision, I gathered the following list of potential topics for the report. It seemed useful to write up what I have so far to share and refer back to as I work on the progression of assignments for the fall course.
I haven’t decided whether to go with one of these or something else. I’m still brainstorming.
Assignments I Used Previously
- Choose a website and analyze its use of audience awareness, ethical considerations, plain language, and document design, with the following focuses:
- Choose one of the divisions of Student Affairs and make recommendations to the Vice President of Student Affairs. (2013 assignment link)
- Analyze a genre of writing relevant to your field/major, and recommend the best way to compose such a document. (Building on an assignment of Paul Heilker’s. My 2019 version assignment link.)
- Choose a Fortune 500 website and make recommendations to the CIO on how to increase the site’s diversity and inclusion. (2020 assignment link)
- Choose a local website, defined as in Montgomery County, Blacksburg, Christiansburg, or Radford. Make recommendations to the appropriate stakeholder(s) at the relevant company, nonprofit, or organization. (2021 assignment link)
- Identify a dangerous or inconvenient area or situation on campus, in a workplace, or in your community (endless cafeteria lines, an unsafe walkway, slippery stairs, a bad campus intersection). You may also identify a problematic online resource (an inaccessible corporate website, for instance). Analyze the situation and recommend the actions to take in order to improve it. (2020 assignment link)
- Identify a food-related challenge that Virginia Tech students face, investigate solutions, and make a recommendation to an appropriate audience (such as Virginia Tech students, the Dean of Students, or the President). (2022 Topic Overview Link)
Assignments Found in Online Searches
I’ve noted the sources when I could relocate them.
- Digital Divide Solutions, particularly focusing on Internet access and community needs. Including access needed for K12 students to do their homework. (A NC report on the topic)
- Choosing a philanthropy for the company to support. Similarly recommending ways to support the philanthropy. (Found on CourseHero)
- Recommendations for avoiding risks of machine risk, for machines in your major.
- Review 2 or 3 introductory textbooks in your field/major, and recommend use of one for incoming students. (Found on ATTW Blog)
- Ways to increase online community and engagement, from post-COVID (Algonquin College)
- Appropriate or reasonable recommendations for social media and teens.
- Review work your group did in the past and recommend the grade you should receive.
- Funding recommendations for the campus. Choose a set amount and have students recommend how the money should be spent.
- Recommend a conference or meeting venue for a specific event. Related recommend location for course meet-up.
- Recommend an item that the company needs to purchase, setting relevant criteria for the item and evaluating at least 3 options.
Topics I’m Considering
- Recommend ways that someone in your intended field or career could use AI ethically and legally to address a need or solve a problem.
- Recommend most effective social media strategies to use for a specific organization’s goals (e.g., to raise money for a specific cause, to increase membership, to encourage public participation in a special event).
- Write a recommendation report that “Advocate[s] for the inclusion of the spaces [‘nclusion of a nursing mothers’ room and a gender-neutral bathroom in the renovation plans for a new office building’] at the direction of an executive board who has already made the decision after hearing an oral presentation of the proposal and associated research. It positions the student writers as needing to document the research and deliberation process in a report and work to educate employees about the intended purpose and clarify the proper use of each space, establishing policies and expectations where necessary.” (Shelton, Cecilia (2020). Shifting Out of Neutral: Centering Difference, Bias, and Social Justice in a Business Writing Course. Technical Communication Quarterly, 29(1), 18–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2019.1640287)