How to do the Communications Self-Audit

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Table of Contents

Four Steps to this Project ............................................................................................................................... 3

Step 1: Take a Tools Inventory ................................................................................................................... 4-13 Step 2: Try Something New ........................................................................................................................ 14-17 Step 3: Check Your Prose Style .................................................................................................................. 18 Step 4: How to Write the Communications Self-Audit Report ............................................................... 19-24

Use Memo Format and Document Design .................................................................................... 20 Writing the Introduction .................................................................................................................... 21-22 Writing the Body ................................................................................................................................ 23 Writing the Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 24

There are four steps to this project.• Step 1: Take a Tools Inventory

• Step 2: Try Something New

• Step 3: Check Your Prose Style

• Step 4: Write the CommunicationsSelf-Audit Report

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The following slides explain each step. For steps 1-3 take notes, and use those notes to do step 4.

Step 1: Tools InventoryEvaluate how you currently use the following professional communication tools.

• Email• Texting/Voice Mail• Social Media• Word Processing Software• Collaboration Software• Image Editing Software• Web Authoring Software• File Backup

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UI Vandal Email• how often do you check this email program?

• how do you handle the email in terms of record keeping?

• how often do you send email from this program and to what audiences?

• does your email have a signature line? If not, consider creating one.

• If you use email in a job, use the above questions to evaluate how you use your work email and include both your use of vandal email and work email.

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Texting /Voice Mail

• Aside from your personal texting and/or use of voice mail, have you used your phone for academic work such as:

• contacting other students for projects?• contacting instructors? • and/or for a job?

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Social Media

• Aside from personal use, do you use social media for academic purposes and/or for a job?

• Do you have a LinkedIn profile? If so, how often do you update it? If not, have you ever considered joining LinkedIn?

• Do you have an e-portfolio? If so, how often do you update it? If not, have you ever considered building one?

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Word Processing Software

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• What software do you use for word processing?

• What features do you use most often?

• Do you know how to do any of the following?• Change margins, page orientation, and page size• Inserting an automatic table of contents• Using style sheets• Using references• Inserting images and wrapping text• Inserting columns

Collaboration Software

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• Have you used collaborative software such as Doodle, Skype, and/or Google Docs when collaborating with others?

• If you haven't used such software when working in a group, how have team members decided when to meet, how to communicate with one another etc.?

Image Editing Software

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• What software do you use to edit images / photos?

• Consider the features you use, and if you use more than one type of editor.

• For example, you might use a free image editor to change the size of an image, but you also might have skills in using Adobe Photoshop or Gimp, so explain what type of images you have created and for what purpose.

Multimedia Products

• Have you ever created videos such as screencasts, slidecasts, or audio-only podcasts?

• Explain what you have done, for what purpose, and using what tools.

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Web Authoring Software

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• Have you created websites, blogged, or done other web authoring?

• Explain what you have done, for what purpose, and using what tools.

File Backup

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• How do you save course work that you have done?

• Have you ever lost work because you didn’t have a system for backing it up?

• Are you familiar with and/or have you used cloud computing backup products such as Drop Box? Google Drive? One Drive?

Step 2: Try Something New

In this step, you will try a new professional communication tool

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feature of a tool you currently use but have never used before.

The next slides suggest ideas for what to try.

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What to try:• Try a new feature you have never used in your

Word Processing software such as:• Creating an automatic table of contents,• Using the automatic reference feature to generate

citations and a bibliography,• Using Style sheets,• Creating tables.

Use an image editor to edit the size of an image; insert it in a document file; label and caption the image; and wrap text around it.

see next slide for more ideas

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Ideas continued.

• Enlist three friends and try out a collaboration tool like Doodle.

• Do a search for "best free apps for students" and try an app you haven't used before.

• These are just a few ideas.....

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Tips:• Do a search for video tutorials on how to do

something you would like to try or use a product’s Help/Support section.

• Consider usability. • If a tool is easy to use, take some notes about why you

found it easy / intuitive etc. • If a tool frustrates you or a feature is hard to use or the

tutorial / help sections don’t help, take some notes about those problems.

• In your report for this project, you will be writing about what happened as you tried to learn something new.

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Step 3: Check Your Prose Style• Find some prior non-fiction writing you have done

such as an essay, paper, or report etc.

• Use the slidedoc Prose Style and check your writing for the three concepts.

• Explain in your report if your prose style is weak and/or strong in these areas and, if needed, set some goals to improve your style.

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Step 4:Write the Communications Self-Audit Report

• The next slides will cover guidelines and requirements for writing the report.

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Use Memo Report Format

• Use the guidelines covered in the slidedoc Format, Document Design and Readability to format your document according to standard conventions as a memo report and apply document design principles as you compose the content.

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©Karen L. Thompson Department of English University of Idaho

FORMAT,DOCUMENT DESIGN & READABILITY

Writing the Introduction

• When someone requests information from you, a standard rhetorical move is to remind the reader of the request and add a forecasting statement to let the reader know how you have organized the information.

• Example: • Here is the information you requested about X.

Included in this memo are A, B, and C.

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In these examples, the writers used standard conventions to format the memo report and applied document design principles to enhance readability.

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Notice how format and document design in these examples are similar but also a bit different.

The same is true for how the writer’s applied a rhetorical move to write their introductions.

Writing the Body• Use Headings and Apply Visual Hierarchy

It’s a good choice to use a level 2 heading for the names of the audit steps and level 3 headings as needed to increase the readability of sections you write within each step (see the slidedoc on Format and document Design).

• Avoid rewriting the questions for each section of the audit and responding to those. Instead compose short paragraph responses.

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Writing the Conclusion

• What did you learn?

• What questions or concerns do you have?

• What goals have you set for yourself?

• The idea in a conclusion is not to end the audit report abruptly.

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