Select a professional document from your field. Analyze its rhetorical context and evaluate the effectiveness of that document.

Assignment Question

This project asks you to: select a professional document from your field; analyze its rhetorical context and evaluate the effectiveness of that document; revise the document by making changes to content and design that will make the document more effective and appropriate; write a short memo accompanying the document which explains and justifies your changes to content and design.

The document you select should be: An important document, one that matters to your company or organization (for example, a document that is distributed to multiple readers or that represents an organization to customers, clients, or the public). A relatively short document (say, 1–2 print pages or the electronic equivalent). A document that needs revision and that is worth revising; that is, it matters.

The document you select could be in any genre: an internal memo, a widely distributed e-mail message, a business letter, an advertisement, a Web page, a short informal report, a press release, a flyer, or a policy statement.

You may re-use the document from the Analyzing Writing Practices project or you may choose a new document. This project is related to the Analyzing Writing Practices project which you just completed. However, while that project asks you to analyze writing roles and functions, this project focuses on revising the document you have selected.