MEMORANDUM
To: UWP 104A Students
From: Dr. Andy Jones, Instructor
Date: October 25th, 2010
Subject: COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PROJECT—PROBLEM STATEMENT
Your team’s first written assignment for the collaborative research project will be a memo addressed to me that defines to the best of your ability the problem that you plan to research for the formal report. This assignment will help your team better understand the context surrounding the problem and help me get you off to a successful start on your research.
Assignment
Your problem statement should answer the questions that determine whether a problem exists:
- What is the problem?
- How has the problem harmed the department, organization, neighborhood, or community?
- What is lacking and/or unknown about the problem (e.g., knowledge, evidence, information, awareness, causes, effects)?
- Who feels the need for and will benefit from an address or solution to the problem?
- What will happen if the problem remains unresolved?
Before you address the questions above, consider the following strategies for defining problems:
- Define from more than one perspective
- Define multiple problems that contribute to one
- Define the nature of and limits to the problem
- Define who or what is affected by the problem
- Identify what benefits would result from a solution to it
Your problem statement is due at the end of class today. Please post your problem statement in the “Assignments” tool on our course SmartSite (using our file naming conventions). After addressing the questions above, your team may also list any concerns or questions you have about your research problem.
Assignment Requirements
Your team problem statement should be in memo format and be about a page in length. Please see the entry “memos” in the Handbook of Technical Writing. Your statement should be single-spaced (double-spaced between paragraphs), have an overview/introduction statement, and use headings as appropriate.
TIP: Your overview/introduction statement should be one sentence. In this sentence, state what you are writing about and why. This is the “direct pattern” of organization. The opening sentence of the sample memo on page 282 of the Handbook of Technical Writing is a good example of this pattern.
Problem Statement
Content
/60%
- Content
- Opening, closing
- Questions addressed
- Organization (logical? coherent?)
- Development, support
- Persuasiveness
- Completeness
- Tone, goodwill effect
- Conciseness, clarity
Format
/25%
- Memo format
- Header (complete?)
- Descriptive subject line
- Headings (as appropriate)
Mechanics
/15%
- Spelling, typos,
- grammar, punctuation
Total Percentage
/100%
