Document Development Exposition: Workplace Correspondence

Explain in detail your document’s development from planning to finish, describing your
challenges, how you overcame them, and what you learned.

Planning
This assignment consisted of two documents, so there was more planning than some of the other
assignments. The biggest part of the planning was figuring out who to write to and what to write
about. I chose to write to the NSF Funding board about allocating more funds to research concerning
the melting of polar ice and global warming. I read a lot about how the structure of an email and a
memo should be, and what the similarities and the differences between the two were.

First Draft (for peer editing)

The first draft consisted mainly of simply writing down whatever felt right. I then went back and
reordered my ideas into a better format so that the document flowed better. Lastly, I added
headings and footers necessary for the document. This assignment allowed me to put to use
everything I had learned about the structure and style of emails and memos.

Second Draft (for your packet)

In this draft, I went back and added some more headers where necessary in the document. I also
changed some of the old headers to make them more fitting. Lastly, I changed some of the wording
and structure of sentences. The product was documents that flowed better and were more
interesting to read. There were also a few changes to grammar that needed to be made.

Final Draft (for your portfolio)

My biggest problem with the first two documents was that they were not internal and therefore not
addressed to a specific person. This had to be changed. In this draft, I made sure to make it obvious
that the documents were written to a member of the NSF Funding board and were written by
another fellow member of the board. In the email, I added a few sentences outlining next steps and
also created a signature block. In the memo, I added steps that the audience should take.