Continuing on from earlier work (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), I mean to narrate my process for compiling a final draft of a researched paper. (I offer it even though the session has ended when I began the project.) As before, I’ll not be using the template provided by the University, though my results will be similar, given the formatting constraints placed on it. I hope that my students and others’ will find my continued efforts to be of help.

For the assignment, students are asked to compile a conference-length paper of approximately 2500 words (excluding title page and reference list) that incorporates illustrative graphics. It is a fairly standard final assignment for second-semester composition classes, and the requirements of the University present no unusual challenges for it.

Since the final draft is supposed to be a reworking of the earlier materials, I began by opening the earlier documents and reincorporating the main text of the labeled first draft into that of the second. Prewriting and references were excepted from the copy-over, the former due to irrelevance, the latter due to already being in the second draft’s materials. The file-name and title were changed, too, to reflect the current exercise.

Reviewing the materials I had showed me that I was somewhat short of requirements for the exercise–a page or two, in the event. As such, I knew that I needed to develop more material for presentation, and a direction to move for doing so suggested itself quickly. I am in a community band, and began looking into support for such ensembles in part because I am in one. Applying my findings to my own situation was an obvious step to take to do expand my paper, and offering something of a prospective test case is a common motion made by academic papers, of which the overall course project for ENGL 135 is supposed to be an example.

Consequently, I stubbed out a place for me to make such a presentation and left the paper itself aside for a bit; I knew I would need more information to present the test case, as well as to develop another graphic (because I recalled the assignment asking for two; the template provided to students includes two, for example). Data regarding the population in my local communities and regarding charitable work done in the area seemed to me to be good places to start looking, so I delved into the local municipal and county websites and records, as well as a directory of charitable organizations with which I am familiar from other work I do (GuideStar, to be specific). US Census Bureau data was also incorporated. Income and assets information was pulled out and made accessible (including graphical representation) before being explained in terms of how it conduces to the idea of local support being ideal for my own community band.

With the content compiled, the formatting was re-checked to ensure ease of reading. A review of content for style was conducted, as was proofreading. All that done, the document was rendered into an accessible format, presented here: G. Elliott Sample Final Draft September 2018.

I find that I have some comments to make about revisiting my old practice of composing sample assignments for my students. I think they will go into the reflective comments on the session that are forthcoming. I hope they will be of some value to my students and others in time to come.

Help me help my students move forward?

Continuing on from earlier work (here, here, here, here, here, and here), I mean to narrate my process for putting together a presentation of the sort my students are asked to compose during the sixth week of the session. There is not a template available for the students, but I am hopeful that my work will provide them something they can use to guide their own work–and something that will be helpful for others, as well.

For the assignment, students are asked to develop a five- to seven-minute slide presentation with embedded audio and slides that follow basic design principles. The presentation should give an overview of the project as a whole, since a full read of a conference-length paper will generally take eighteen to twenty minutes; students are encouraged to frame their issue, present their thesis, and support that thesis before offering a conclusion and a slide displaying their references in APA citation style.

In putting together a slide presentation, it is necessary to have a consistent color scheme that allows for easy reading and that conveys an appropriate impression. Working in this webspace fortunately gives me the basis of an easy one to use; I mean for my sample work to reflect my other work, as well as to travel with me if and when I must go elsewhere. (I remain contingent “visiting” faculty at DeVry.) I had earlier developed a color scheme working from that of this blog, adding complementary colors according to common design principles and using the tools available at Paletton.com.

Color scheme in place, I opened the earlier exercises to cull information from them. Following the recommendations made to students, I copied my thesis and major arguments over to another document, as well as my references list. I also copied my title over before adjusting it to suit the present exercise; consistency across the project suggests itself as something useful to maintain. And as I did the copy-over work, using the fact of the ongoing project as justification for doing so, I arranged my materials for presentation on individual or related slides. The order differs from that presented in the paper itself, something that the shift in medium seems to warrant.

That done, it remained but to generate and populate the slides. I first generated a title slide, coloring it in the accent color I had chosen and filling in title and authorial information. I next developed a blank content slide, establishing it as a basic pattern for use in the rest of the presentation. Looking at my notes, I determined that I would need a slide for a presentation overview, at least six for content, and at least one for references, totaling at least eight slides; I consequently made as many, duplicating my pattern slide until I had enough to start. I also left one blank at the end in case I would need to add or insert others later.

With the basic presentation set up, I saved my work and began to insert text into the slides. First, I worked to insert my references, knowing that I would have to make adjustments to formatting and the like to make them legible but not overpowering. Having them ready to hand helped, as well. At length, I was able to get all of them into the presentation, although it took several slides to do so; the first of them got an audio note explaining matters, one swiftly followed by an audio note on my title slide. I determined I would position the audio cues consistently on slides throughout my presentation, making it easier to find them for my audience and presenting a more uniform–thus more polished–appearance.

Afterwards, working through the content slides, I made sure to work with bulleted text only, eschewing complex sentences and more erudite vocabulary in favor of ease of reading and orientation. And, because I was working in PowerPoint, I made sure to save my work repeatedly as I went along, not wanting to have to go back and re-do work if it could be avoided.

I worked through the slides in order afterwards, moving from the presentation overview through the thesis into content and the conclusion. Along the way, I inserted the text before inserting audio, using the former as a guide while I put in the latter. And, again, I saved my progress after each component of each slide. I have had to reconstruct work before, and it never goes as well the second time as the first.

The materials compiled and saved, it remained but to put them where they can hopefully serve as a helpful example for my students and others’. To wit: G. Elliott Sample Presentation September 2018. (It is a PowerPoint presentation, so it requires software that can open a .pptx file to view.)

Please help support me as I support my students’ learning.

Continuing on from earlier work (here, here, here, here, and here), I mean to narrate my process for putting together a draft of the sort students are asked to compose in their fifth week of the session. As before, I’ll not explicitly use the template provided by the University, though the results will still hopefully be similar enough to what the school requires that my students–and others’–will find my efforts helpful.

For the assignment, students are asked not so much to revise what they have already submitted as to add onto it, completing the paper begun in the first draft. As such, the assignment title is something of a misnomer; it is a second first draft rather than a second draft, as such.

Rather than starting a new document and formatting it, I added onto the document I had generated for the first draft, making sure to save the new version under a different name (i.e., replacing “First Draft” with “Second Draft” in the file name). I made similar adjustments to my title page and first page of actual text, ensuring consistency across the material being developed. I also marked the prewriting for deletion from the current exercise, as it is not called for in the putative second draft, but I retained it at the outset of development due to its notes for expansion.

I then moved to the end of the already-written text, placing the notes for expansion I had on hand where I could use them most readily. Noting that doing so brought up a source for which I had an annotation but had not yet included in my document, I made sure to enter that source’s citation into my references list, ensuring that I would not forget to do so. The citation came, as had several others, from my earlier annotated bibliography–and, since I was working on that part of the paper already, I decided to develop that idea for a bit (working from the summary and earlier discussion in the annotated bibliography, as well as from the original article) to see how it could work.

That source introduced and put to the service of my stated thesis, I moved back up the page and addressed the other development note I had brought down from the first draft of the paper. Its source was already in my references list, so I had nothing to do on that score, but I did pull up the original article again to be sure I all of the information available from it that I would need. Or I attempted to do so; library services disallowed access to the article I needed, despite my having logged into the University’s library. I was obliged to put that part of the work aside for a time as a result, which rankled.

Fortunately, there was much else for me to do. I realized swiftly that I had exhausted my previously-acquired resources and, given the difficulties I had had with the University library, I turned to an open online search to help fill the void. Doing so led me to Google Scholar, where I searched for “supporting community organizations,” restricting the initial search to pieces published after 2010. Unfortunately, the results that came up were located behind paywalls, but I recalled that my local library has database access, so I ran a similar search on its databases, adding restrictions to articles, book chapters, and case studies. One article suggested itself for inclusion in short order; information was integrated from it.

That done, I used my local library resource to pull up the article I had earlier searched for in the University library. I was able to bring it up without any trouble, and so I integrated the materials I needed from it into my essay, as well. As doing so took me to the end of my notes from earlier, I deleted the prewriting materials; they had outlived their utility to my present purpose.

Still needing more support to make the case, and needing information more narrowly targeted to the specific thesis with which I was working, I ran another outside search. It was a simple Google search for “community band.” More than 693 million results were returned, but the first page offered enough material–or a gateway to enough material–to make a reasonable case. Information was culled from websites to make the necessary case–as well as to generate the graphic for which the overall assignment calls. (The second draft in itself does not, but it is not a bad thing to look ahead when composing a project in explicit stages.) The information was entered into an Excel spreadsheet and used to generate a graphic that was subsequently cut-and-pasted into the Word document in which I did my composition. Necessary figure data was incorporated, as well, and citations for the sources for my graphic’s data were integrated into the references list.

As I reviewed assignment guidelines to ensure that my work would continue to serve as a useful guide for my students, I noted comments that only the latter sections needed to be developed in the second draft. To align my work more fully thereto, I deleted the text I had developed for the first draft–although I did not adjust the references list further.

Looking at the document at that point, I noted that I had enough material developed to move on to a conclusion. My earlier materials had pointed towards final remarks looking for a call to action. I drafted my conclusion with an eye towards my own purposes and my own ensemble; I have an idea for how I might further expand it for a final draft, if I find I need or want to do so.

With the content compiled and directions for further development set, the formatting was re-checked to ensure ease of reading. A review of content for style was conducted, as was proofreading. All that done, the document was rendered into an accessible format, presented here: G. Elliott Sample Second Draft September 2018.

Your help continues to be appreciated. Please give.