Profile of Community Program or Organization.

OverviewThis project is your opportunity to explore an ISU campus (or community if you are off-campus) program or organization. It can broaden your range of interaction and engagement in your current community. An inquiring mind is necessary, and you will practice the ability to gather, evaluate, and express useful and relevant information. Like Assignment #3, you will find and employ source material to provide the necessary background context, but you will also explore it first-hand to form behind-the-scenes knowledge that will help you expose it to your audience. (If you are an off-campus student, you may explore a program or organization in your current community).You will perform the role of a journalist; investigating and writing a personal-interest, feature article (Links to an external site.) of your organization. Your article should not only describe what it sounds, smells, tastes, feels, and looks like to participate in the program or organization, but should also explain how it fits into its community, and how it both contributes to and reflects the collective identity of the community.Planning Your ProjectResearch for this assignment has two steps: (1) examination of the available public documents and mission statements and (2) collection of first-hand experiences, observations, and interactions. These two are further explained below:An investigation and analysis of the public documents pertaining to (a) ISU’s mission and history as a land-grant university (the background context of where the program or organization is) and (b) the goals, mission, and function of your chosen organization within its community. Public documents include but are not limited to: brochures/pamphlets, mission statements, flyers/posters, organizational governance rules and by-laws, the “About” page of a website. Guiding questions for this investigation include: What is the foundational purpose and mission of the organization? What picture of this organization does its public documents create? What do they reflect about the values of the community it is a part of?A first-hand exploration of the program or organization to deepen the audience’s understanding of it. You will be working to provide a coherent and memorable sense of your subject based on observations and interactions with that program or organization. Contact, visit, and explore your program; look at its upcoming events, talk with people involved in it – gather as much descriptive, experiential, and inside information as possible.Drafting your articleWorking from one or two dominant impressions, select and arrange your material to develop your profile. Ask these questions to help find a focus for your paper:Why might my audience be interested in reading this profile? How can I engage the audience?What do they know already and what would be insightful for them? What prior assumptions/biases do they hold about this topic?What foundational principles and goals of my campus/community place or organization are important to understand its significance to its community? How is the community identity both reflected in and formed by it?What details will help my audience understand the insider’s experience of it?What visual(s) would help my audience understand it and want to know more?Include at least one visual (captioned and credited) to help you accomplish your purpose for your chosen audience. Also, for this feature article, you may design the document with greater visual flair and creativity than a standard college essay. You may choose appropriate fonts (Links to an external site.) for headings and subheadings, select a pull-quote (Links to an external site.), and adapt your document to look more like a magazine (Links to an external site.) article. Avoid presenting too many facts irrelevant to the meaning and significance of your topic: This is not a report. Avoid a chronological order: Choose the most important and engaging aspects of your organization and its purpose to use as the organizing structure for your article. When information from sources is used, cite the source in-text using a signal phrase (as shown here (Links to an external site.) under “Informal Citation”).ContextThoughtful and perceptive treatment of topic; original approach; scope sufficiently narrow.Purpose for writing is clear (expose and inform) and consistent throughout the paper.Clear sense of audience and consistent attention to audience’s needs.Introduction engages audience’s curiosity about the topic or making use of information.SubstanceContent is fully developed, relevant, and substantial; details carefully chosen and specific.Connection to history and mission of ISU is made.Discussion includes how organization both contributes to and reflects community identity. Information comes from a mix of source material and author’s first-hand experience. Includes at least one visual to interest and engage readers.OrganizationFocuses on a precise and insightful thesis that guides development and organization.Introduction orients the audience to the organization and your main idea about it; conclusion highlights key points.Sequence follows a logical arrangement for this material appropriately organized into paragraphs.Relationship among ideas is clear and coherent; transitional devices used to guide reader.StyleExpression is clear and concise. Sentence variety and complexity is sophisticated.Good choices in use of dialogue, imagery, descriptive details, and visuals.When material is used from an outside source, it is cited in text and there is a corresponding end-of-text citation in a Works Cited (MLA) or References (APA) page. Vocabulary is precise, vivid, and appropriate. Generalities and vague language are avoided.Conventions/Correctness: Writing is free from sentence-level and word-level errors. Punctuation and capitalization rules are followed. Use of conventions as given in Everyday Writer handbook is apparent. DeliveryConsistency in typography, captioning, and headings.Visuals are integrated within text and have a caption with credit to the image creator.Appearance of document is adapted to needs and expectations of audience. Creativity of document design is apparent.