The context for any professional writing situation is rich with specific discourses, information, documents, technologies, organizations, and relationships. This project will allow you to discover more about the various rhetorical contexts of a particular professional writing career, more about your own rhetorical abilities, and how you might adapt your rhetorical skills to those contexts. There are multiple components to this project and several deliverables (deliverables are the products or documents that you will produce and deliver) which are explained below.

The initial part of the assignment is to think about the type of professional writing career that you find interesting. On August 27th, we will learn about various ways to research professional writing careers, and you will be able to target a particular area to research and study.

The second part of the assignment is to research that area thoroughly. This means that you will need to analyze and study the professional context, surveying and studying all of the elements of that specific branch of professional writing. This includes, but is not limited to the documentation, publications, professional organizations, and professional webpages of the area. In your research, you will need to talk about what these types of writers do and what types of documents they produce. You will also need to look at the online professional communities that are relevant to your field, study those communities, and act as a participant-observer to the group. In studying these communities, you should examine how individuals in your chosen area construct their identities and talk about the field. You should especially consider the rhetorical dynamics of the field, meaning the rhetorical skills that professional writers need and the rhetorical aspects of the profession itself. The first part of the project will result in a list of the resources you consulted as part of your research. This list should use appropriate APA or MLA documentation.

As a result of your research, you will produce an analytical essay of at least 1500 words in which you thoroughly discuss and analyze this professional writing community. In your essay, you will need to address the rhetorical skills and principles necessary to be a professional writer in this area, as well as how the participants of this community talk about their field—in short, the discourse conventions of the professional community. Feel free to use the rhetorical terms that we have studied in our readings and in class.

After you have finished your research and drafted your essay, the last part of the assignment is to reflect on your experience in a memo of at least 500-700 words in which you analyze your own writing practices and how you might go about developing your skills in order to fit into this community.

Deliverables:
Thursday, September 5th---Submit a list of the professional resources that you are consulting for your essay

Thursday, September 12th---Bring a preliminary draft of your essay for peer review

Thursday, September 19th---Bring a revised, full draft of your analytical essay for peer review

Thursday, September 26th---Bring a full draft of your reflective memo for peer review

Tuesday, October 1st---Revised drafts of all three deliverables due to me for review