Due to time constraints, we were not able to workshop our websites in class, so this project gave us much more leeway in setting our own schedules for completion. That being said, I was able to use Thanksgiving Break to slowly edit my project each day. I kept a log of my work in my bullet journal, but I have outlined the highlights of the work below:

November 4: created draft resume

November 8: revised and uploaded an updated resume

November 17: created design draft of website via WordPress

November 19: created a design draft via Wix

November 21: Imported Resume information into website

November 22: Created text for Home page of website

November 25: Created Text for Projects page of website

November 28: Added pictures to website pages

December 1: Edited content of website

December 6: made final design choices and edits on website

Breaking the project up into little pieces proved to be very effective for me because I tend to clump an entire project into one week. By taking time in between edits, I was able to think about my design choices and research problems when they arose, like how to attach a link. Originally, I had chosen to use WordPress to create my site, but ended up choosing Wix. Although i don’t particularly like Wix, I was having difficulty password protecting my site. I chose to password protect my site for two reasons. First, because I have only been at my new job for a few months, I did not want it to seem like I was already looking for another job if anyone were to google me. Second, I can continue to edit the content of my site for the next few months in password protected mode, without publishing any content. Third, the Wix site can serve as a mockup draft that I can use when i create my own website at a personal domain (mirandamendicino.net) in the future.

In terms of the rhetorical situation, this project was unique because it will be used long after Technical Writing class is over. The purpose of the project is to create an online professional presence to display our experience and body of work in a design-based format. In terms of audience, the audience of the project can be anyone: future employers, clients, or colleagues, so it is extremely important to maintain professionalism on the website. For example, linking a satirical twitter account to a website would not be a professional move. The context for the project is that I am a senior who will be looking for full time employment after graduation soon. This website will be a valuable asset in my job search, as it would stand out on a resume or on my LinkedIn profile.

I am so glad that we created a professional profile in this class. I think it is a perfect avenue to display our work. I also like that a website can be a “working document,” in which I can update it with recent projects and project progress. Overall, I think that all of our projects in Technical Writing have been so beneficial to me. I feel like I have learned so much about multimodal communication and have expanded my breadth of skills significantly. I would recommend Technical Writing to any student of any major! This was by far my favorite class this semester.

Progress Report:

Chelsea: Created design template and color scheme via Piktochart for copywriters (Shademah & I) to follow.

Johnathan: Currently collecting additional research for the three unfinished signs.

Shademah: Currently deciding on which information to include in the Trauma Care/Awareness sign.

Miranda (Me): Completed Emergency sign and inputted text into design template. Completed text of Healthcare sign and Renovation Newsletter sign.

Group Meeting Overview (Chelsea, Johnathan, & Miranda)

1. Discussed design template and decided as a group on several format changes, including photos & paragraph layout.
2. Discussed potential information for Johnathan to seek out via his research, including examples of infographics hung in high occupancy facilities and infographics of emergency procedures.
3. Discussed rhetorical situation for each of the signs, and how, as a copywriter, I should not present the information in each sign the same way. For example, the Renovation sign will include more pathos-based content, while the Emergency sign is more instructional.

Action Plan:

Chelsea: As she has completed our template and color scheme, her next tasks are to assist Shademah & me in inputting our completed sign texts into the template if necessary and make any other format changes to the signs once the full text is inputted into Piktochart.

Johnathan: Next, he will gather relevant sources for the remaining signs and pass them along to Shademah & me, in order to insure that we have addressed all relevant information in our sign texts.

Shademah: She will use her compiled research along with Johnathan’s to construct the text of the Trauma Care/Awareness sign, then input the text into the Piktochart template.

Me: As I have completed one sign entirely and have completed the text for two other signs, I need to input the remaining texts into the Piktochart template. From there, I will work with Chelsea on any formatting changes that will need to be made, and run final grammar checks of the text. I also need to write an additional document via Microsoft Word that would give suggestions on where each sign should be posted in the shelter, how many copies of each sign should be printed, and what size they should be.

Looking Ahead:

By Tonight:

Drafts of Emergency sign, Healthcare sign, & Renovation sign will be completed and inputted into Piktochart.

By Wednesday:

Draft of Trauma Care/ Awareness will be completed and inputted into Piktochart. Instructional document will also be completed.

By Thursday:

Draft of Signage will be submitted to Dr. Wharton via a link to Piktochart. Draft of instructions will be submitted via link to Dropbox.

By Friday:

Drafts sent to Dr. Wharton will be emailed to Sabine at Our House.

For my model social media profile, I chose my current boss’s LinkedIn profile. She is an experienced lawyer and tax professional in the philanthropy sector, and her profile does a great job of displaying the breadth of her skills and expertise. I also want to be a lawyer, but with a different area of practice than hers, but I still think that her profile is a great model.

First off, although many LinkedIn users, she actually makes posts. Her two latest posts, which are displayed at the top of her profile are about planned giving funds and trusts. In her article-like posts, she discusses how gifts are structured and the tax implications of the gift. Next, she lists her breadth of relevant professional experience. However, one area that really stood out is her skills that she lists. First, she lists the general skills that she has, that are relevant to her current job, including tax law, planned giving, estate planning, and major gift development. Under that, it notes that she “also knows about” grant writing and fundraising. Her skills look especially credible because her connections have endorsed her. For example, she has 76 endorsements for tax law! Below that, her educational experience and certifications, including a JD, an LLM degree and an analytics certification. Her profile also includes “recommendations,” in which she has written about her colleagues and a list of memberships she is in, such as the Georgia Bar, the Junior League of Atlanta, and the Dekalb League of Women Voters.

In order to step my game up on Instagram and model my profile after hers, I first need to increase my connections to at least 500. Currently, I have 425 connections, so I am close. However, I do not want to just go add as many people as I can. I should think about all of the 50 people in my office and people I have worked with and interned with previously. These people I have work experience with would be likely to endorse me for the skills I have included on my profile, which would give me serious credibility points. Also, I should consider all of the tasks I have been responsible for in my professional experience, in order to add more relevant skills to my profile. I may not have the credibility to write and post my own articles like her, but i should actively engage by commenting and circulating articles that are of interest to me and relevant to my professional goals. I also believe that I should write a recommendation for a few of my colleagues that I have enjoyed working with, which would help them and show that, like my boss, I am a team player and have great collaborative skills. To round out my profile, I should consider joining more professional organizations like she has, in order to network, advocate for causes that i care about, and to learn from other legal professionals.

Hi Sabine!

I hope you are doing well! Since our presentation, my group and I have discussed deliverable ideas with Dr. Wharton. As you and Brandy have discussed, environmental safety during the shelter renovation is a top priority. That being said, we believe that the best way to execute our project is by focusing on signage related to environmental safety. Below, I have outlined our service learning project with a short description of each potential sign as well as a general schedule overview. Feel free to let us know if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions. Thanks again for the opportunity to work with Our House!

Signage Descriptions:

Child Safety Sign: Based off of Johnathan’s portion of the presentation, this sign would outline important child safety tips, such as the importance of putting infants to sleep on their back and guidelines regarding choking hazards of small toys. These would potentially be displayed in common areas and in the bedrooms.

Emergency Procedure Sign: Based off of my portion of the presentation, this sign would provide instructions for evacuation and protocol in emergency situations such as a fire or a lockdown; it would also include directions to the nearest fire extinguishers and alarms. These would be displayed in the bedrooms and in stairwells.

Trauma Awareness Sign: Based off of Shademah’s portion of the presentation, this sign would include instructions for seeking help in trauma-related situations as well as general advice for mothers experiencing PTSD and similar circumstances. These would be displayed in the common area and in the caseworkers’ offices.

Renovation Newsletter Sign: Based off of Chelsea’s portion of the presentation, this sign would provide residents with an update of the renovation process, what the shelter will look like post-renovation, and how the renovation will affect them in the upcoming months. This would be displayed in the common area.

Service Learning Project Schedule:

Again, feel free to contact me with any commentary or questions you may have. We look forward to continuing this project with Our House!

Thank you so much!

Miranda Mendicino

Chelsea Cooper

Johnathan Worsham

Shademah Neal

Researcher: Johnathan

The researcher will collect and compile sources relevant to our signage. For example, they will find relevant sources regarding trauma care in shelters for the common area sign. Also, they will fact-check via research any of the information we use on signage.

Copywriters: Miranda & Shademah

The copywriters will be the primary authors of the content in the signage. Specifically, they will take the compiled reference material from the researcher to create the sign texts.  They will also edit all texts for grammar, political correctness, and style.

Design: Chelsea

The designer will ensure that every sign is in alignment with a style, color scheme, and format that reflects the Our House website, mission statement, and goals. For example, the designer will make sure that all of our signs use the exact colors as the Our House logo, and will use design tools to create signs that follow a flyer format rather than a typical word document format.

Team:

Miranda, Chelsea, Shademah, Jonathan

Potential Roles: Design, Copywriter, Research

Focus: Signage

Areas of Interest: Child Safety, Illness Control, Emergency Safety, Trauma Care, and Renovation News

Child Safety: Bedroom sign, common area sign

Illness Control: Restroom sign

Emergency Safety: Bedroom sign (back of door), hallway sign

Trauma Care: Bedroom sign, common area sign

Renovation News: Hallway sign

October 18: assign group roles in class

October 19: review Our House’s new website, logo, and color scheme (updated by Our House on October 17)

October 20th: have rough concepts of each sign

October 21: email memorandum of understanding to Our House

October 21-24: create cohesive sign design/layout

October 24-28: create first drafts of signage

October 31: meet with Dr. Wharton to review drafts

November 1-3: edit and create second drafts of signage

November 4: email Our House for feedback on second drafts

November 5-9: edit and create third drafts of signage and compile into first packet draft

November 10: workshop packet draft in class

November 11-15: edit and create second draft of packet

November 16: meet with Dr. Wharton to review packet draft

November 17-December 2: make final changes to packet

December 2: submit final packet to Dr. Wharton

December 3-4: complete individual reflection on service learning packet

When I sign up for elective courses, I try to choose classes that differ from my pre-law courses, but could still benefit me in real-world settings. That being said, I signed up for technical writing knowing that it is an excellent skill to have in the legal field, but I still was not 100% sure of what to expect in the class. In my academic career so far, I have grown pretty comfortable with research papers and lengthy essays, so technical writing has been a fresh perspective on writing for me. Although it was intimidating for the first week or so, I have really enjoyed learning about the importance and non-linear methods of technical communication.

I am a little biased because it is my favorite course this semester, but I really do appreciate the points system of the course. Because we receive points based on our effort and work we put into the course, I feel comfortable venturing out of my comfort zone and trying new multimodal things on our major projects because if my new strategies fail, I can always make up the points. Without the system, I feel like I would definitely “play it safe” more on assignments and miss out on some of the most interesting aspects of technical communication. So far, I have really liked completing the reading annotations. At the beginning of the units, I read the articles as individual readings, but as I begin annotating, I gain a greater insight on the non-linear connections between the assignments. I also love how the reading annotations allow us to make connections to issues outside of class, such as “wicked problems.”

In my first two annotations, I lost points for not including different modes in my article notes. I also wrote those annotations while subconsciously viewing myself as both the author and the audience, most likely because most annotations I had done before the class were simple personal notes. For annotations three and four, I constructed an imaginary audience of my peers. In doing so, my annotations were more catered to providing supplemental information and connections that would be helpful for peers reading the articles. Instead of using sources to base my annotations off of and then referencing the sources, I added websites and infographics to my annotations after I had written them, that way they would supplement my own ideas and provide peers with a “help guide” to the texts.

Going forward in the course, I am looking forward to diving right in to designing the signage for the Our House project. Through the service learning project, I am hoping to learn more about the entire technical writing process in a group setting, as it would reflect real-world work settings. I hope that my group and I can make quality pieces that would look professional enough to be used in my online professional portfolio that we will create later in the semester. I think the professional portfolio could be used after this class as a way to display my breadth of work as I am starting off in the workforce. When we begin working on the portfolios/profiles later in the semester, I would like to learn ways to include other technical work that I have done in jobs outside of school, such as pieces I have written for donors on gift-planning strategies, alongside my academic assignments. Because I would like to put in my best effort in this course, I would also like to complete as many extra credit assignments as I possibly can, in order to get a good grade and to get the most out of what we are learning.

When we initially met with our contact, Sabine, at Our House, she advised us to be as creative as we wanted to in addressing the shelter renovations. That being said, we were all extremely grateful for the flexibility, but we were also faced with a challenge because the project could go in all kinds of directions. As a Political Science major, I am not as well-versed in rhetoric as many of my peers, so addressing the rhetorical situation while simultaneously utilizing design technology, seemed like a pretty scary concept. That being said, I opted to address the building codes and emergency regulations that Our House would need to consider when they renovate this year. I researched fire and construction codes and compiled the most important ones for Our House to consider into an interoffice memo. My speech presentation was then based off of the guidelines of the memo, as well as public health considerations such as disease eradication.

Although I was extremely nervous to give the speech, I have gotten to know the mission of Our House over the past couple of weeks through discussions with Sabine as well as their partnership with the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta (where I work), so I knew that a relaxed, friendly speech would get farther than a stiff, memorized presentation. The days prior to my speech, I rehearsed off of an outline and with my presentation slides, but I never wrote a draft of my speech, which worked to my benefit, as I had to really know my topic, rather than just read off of my slides. However, I think that the greatest strength of my presentation was that it was a part of a single presentation with my group. In utilizing that format, we were each able to address issues that we were passionate about or interested in. I felt that each group member was well-prepared and professional. After giving our presentation together, I was able to better understand the entirety of our service learning project, and going forward, we will collaborate even more with one another to create a cohesive packet of deliverables.

For my individual portion of the pitch presentation, I created an interoffice memo (linked below) with some general guidelines for the renovated building. I chose to adhere to regulations for apartment buildings, rather than shelter regulations because Sabine has shown us that Our House is a real home for these women and not merely a shelter.

fire-code-memo