This page describes the objectives, project details, recommended approaches, hints and tips, submission guidelines, and evaluation standards for the Public Health Project.
The Public Health Project (PHP) crafts an argument (e.g., article, report, web site) about a topic or issue relevant to the health industry, and directs that argument to an audience of patients, clients, or members of the public.
Document type: memo, public health document (see below)
Document length: 250 words (memo), 1500 to 2000 words (document)
Project value: 250 points (50, draft; 200 final)
Evaluation rubric: _RPW520_Eval_PublicHealthProject.pdf
The Public Health Project (PHP) results in a document (e.g., report, article, brochure, web site) that presents an issue or topic to a general audience relevant to your work in the industry. Audiences might be relatively straightforward (e.g., clients, patients, members of the general public), or they might represent a combination of such groups. The PHP challenges you to consider your responsibilities to less-knowledgeable audiences from your position as an expert in the health industry.
Your project submission will include the following elements:
A memo of transmittal introduces the accompanying document to its audience(s). Your memo should be addressed from you to me, and should introduce the accompanying project. Your memo should incorporate the following content elements.
This project offers you an opportunity to take a position of authority while exploring an issue or topic relevant to your area of professional expertise.
Your document should include the following content sections or elements.
Recommended tool(s): Microsoft Word; Adobe Dreamweaver / Wix.com; scanning device
This section offers guidance for how to interpret the project, and for how to proceed with your work on it. Therefore, as you work, consider the following three strategies:
The credentials you have already earned position you as experts in some manner. The credentials you seek will ultimately expand upon that expertise. Speak from a position of authority. Define that expertise with readers early. Speak from a position of authority throughout your project document.
State the purpose of your document to readers early. Remind yourself of that purpose as you draft the document, as you refine the document, and as you prepare it for final submission. Repeatedly challenge yourself to stay on task, and on topic.
Research the document you create as a genre. You have ample tools and resources for doing so. Develop a design that supports your content effectively, and that establishes a strong professional ethos.
This section is designed to help you anticipate and avoid problems as you work on this project. Therefore, as you work, consider the following four hints and tips:
Go in with a strong plan. Although you may refine that plan as you go, it is best to go in with a strong sense of purpose, and with a detailed approach to developing the document that drives this project.
Remind yourself often who you imagine as your audience for the project. If you know individuals personally, or if you have the opportunity to connect directly with people who represent your core audience, talk to them about the project. Explain to them what you are doing, and why. Ask them what they would want to know about the topic. Ask them what they already know about the topic. Use that dialog to drive your work.
Too often, writers put off the visual components to projects such as this one. However, strong visual content can become an anchor for development. For documents directed at a general audience, strong visual content often becomes the foundation for the whole project. Gather or create quality visuals that are audience-appropriate and that fit the document. Build around those components.
The more specific you are in discussing each discussion point, the better quality understanding others will get from your work.
Read and attend carefully to these submission guidelines. Failure to do so may result in delays in receiving feedback on the draft of your project, or in points lost on the final evaluation of your project.
Create a project folder inside your shared class folder on Dropbox.com. Remember, I can only view files that you place inside the shared folder. Until you place files in that space, you have not in practice submitted them.
Name the folder Public Health Project.
Make sure the files listed below are available to me in the project folder by the draft deadline. Model your filenames on the listed examples:
Make sure the files listed below are available to me in the project folder by the final deadline. Model your filenames on the listed examples:
Note that the Feedback file is one you receive from me in response to your draft submission. Move it into your project folder when you assemble your final submission.
This section describes the standards by which your draft and final submissions will be evaluated.
There are 50 possible points for this project draft. I will award points according to the following standard.
There are 200 possible points for the final project. You will earn points according to the standard described on the policies page (40% content development, 20% design execution, and 20% professionalism & attention to detail, and 20% impact of revision; see Policies). The specific areas of emphasis for this project are drawn from the description and discussion of the project, and are detailed in the evaluation rubric (_RPW520_Eval_PublicHealthProject.pdf).
Remember that I will only post the point values for projects on the Grades page in SVSU Canvas. I will post the details relevant to that evaluation in your class folder in a project-specific file.
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