COMM 396: Collaborative Writing Assignment

Major Assignment: Collaborative Writing Assignment for Public View

Background:

The goal of this assignment is for you to consider and evaluate the role of private corporations
in addressing current ethical and social issues. You will address an important social issue and
develop a meaningful and ethical response from the lens of a given organization, probably a
corporation, industry association or non-profit. You’ll work in groups of three or four to
conceive, plan, pitch and execute your idea.

You will learn how to write in a team and produce content that is of publishable quality, ready
for consumption by an external audience. That means there are no grammatical errors, the
content represents your entity appropriately in tone and voice, and ultimately, it tells a story of
your organization and its values. You may write one document, but more likely you will write a
number of documents that together will form some or all of a communications campaign
which has some key differences from a marketing campaign. Marketing is intended to create
sales; your purpose is to explore an issue and publicly articulate your values. Because you’ll
work collaboratively, all members of your group will get the same grade for this assignment
(except those who do not contribute equally, see “teamwork” below).

Details:

Business and trade associations, such as the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade and the
Chartered Professional Accountants of BC or the Tourism Industry Association of BC, exist to
promote and accelerate the interests and responsibilities of a given group of professionals.
They can do so through advocacy and public policy initiatives, professional development
programs, event-planning and community consultations.

Your group could respond to an issue in either your respective field or geographic region
through participation in a business or trade association. You could also produce content for one
of the companies someone in your group is representing, perhaps a website or a blog post. Or
you could choose a non-profit or advocacy group. You will address a current social issue in the
news, e.g. Black Lives Matter, mental health checks by police, Indigenous land rights, lack of
representation in leadership roles, the opioid crisis, etc. You will work to raise awareness about
this issue and may also attempt to offer some solutions and/or an industry response. What will
your organization do to be part of the solution?

Your team will probably be comprised of people who have chosen similar positions or whose
entities are facing similar issues. They may range from small privately-held companies to large,
public companies or the public sector. Together, you will identify a problem or opportunity,
devise a communications strategy and then respond to it through writing. Your documents

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 COMM 396: Collaborative Writing Assignment

could take the form of a website, blog, Wikipedia page-entry(s), white paper, social media
campaign, podcast (include transcript), earned media or something else entirely. Most likely
you will write a number of documents; they could be the same or a different format but you
want to avoid them being repetitive and at least one should be of sufficient depth to reflect a
senior university level. E.g. you might write an article for the Economist, in addition to a blog
post and some social media posts.
If you want to do your project as a podcast, here are some guidelines:
Write and record a 15-20 minute podcast. The podcast can take the format of a panel
discussion, a series of short interviews or some other format, recording only the members of
your team who will pose as representatives of various perspectives. You can include people
effected, experts, corporate or government representatives or other relevant participants. You
will need at least one person to be a host. The podcast can be completely or partially scripted,
but do make sure the final recording sounds natural. You will submit a transcript of your
podcast as well as an audio version. (If you record your podcast on zoom, it will create a
transcript for you.)
Include a short editorial note on the Canvas assignment page to provide context.
‘News magazine’ shows will serve as a good model for your podcast. The Current, Front Burner,
and At Issue by the CBC, and The Daily by the New York Times are very good examples; these
are produced daily or even three times daily. The New Yorker podcasts are produced weekly
and are often of even higher quality.

Getting Started
• Step One: Read the assignment
• Step Two: Decide on an industry issue
• Step Three: Decide on the document(s) you will write
• Step Four: Get started on the memo (outlined below)

Preparation & teamwork: Identify all key deliverables as well as the major tasks required within
each deliverable. Identify the team lead(s) and deadline for each task including an early due
date for all final drafts ready for robust editing. You should also set date and time for meetings.

Memo (this is not graded, but is meant to help you organize your work):
Write a 1-2 page Memo to your instructor identifying:
o A description of the organization(s)/population you will represent with a
rationale as to why you chose it.
o The issue(s) you will research and write about. Include the reason you chose
it.
o The documents you will write for your campaign with a short rationale and
where they will be published and who the audience will be.

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o Any challenges you expect to encounter.

o A process for checking each other’s work. Be sure it is realistic. Include a
date, at least a week before the final due date, when all deliverables are due
and the robust editing process begins.

Due: Monday, April 8 in class & to Canvas (only one submission per group) – I will review your
memos with you in class.

Written Project
Prepare the content for a publishable document or, more likely, a series of documents
(approximately 2,000 words total) which addresses the issue you’ve selected with your group.
You can consider this a communications campaign, but it is also a genuine attempt to provoke
change. The emphasis is on quality over quantity. You are free to develop it as your team sees
fit, keeping in mind the ultimate objective is to convince any given audience to take action or
change their opinions and behaviour. Your document must include visuals, such as photos,
tables, charts or infographics to help your potential audience understand the information. Use
appropriate headings to break up the text.

As always, be specific. For example, if your campaign involves reducing your members’ carbon
footprints, set specific targets and explain how companies will be incentivized to meet those
targets (for example, executive compensation could be tied to meeting targets).

For each document include an editorial note outlining who is the hypothetical author, who they
represent, who is the intended audience and where it will be published. If you are proposing a
response, perhaps from a company or industry association, also provide an editorial comment
from your team suggesting how likely, in your opinion, they are to respond as you suggest. You
may suggest that your document be included in a real publication such as the Wall Street
Journal or a specific website or blog site, or you could suggest that it be published in something
similar. E.g. “You can find similar work on websites such as hrexaminer.com or
digitalhrtech.com.”

As this is an academic assignment, citations are required. Use APA style or similar. In business
there is no set way to reference, but typically we use an in-text citation with the website name,
then source it properly in the bibliography.

Due: Sunday, April 14 by 11:59 p.m. to Turnitin AND Canvas. No extensions offered. Late
assignments will be penalized 10% per day. Note: only one person can submit to Turnitin,
otherwise you will have a total plagiarism score.

You will submit the content to Turnitin and Canvas, but you can also provide a link to a website,
blog or other digital channel.

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Submission/Marking
Only one member of your group needs to submit the final version of your documents which will
be submitted all in one document. It must be submitted on the due date in the manner
prescribed in class.

The assignment will be graded using the standard marking rubric. All members of the group are
expected to contribute equally and will receive the same grade for the assignment. However, if
the group unanimously determines that an individual’s contribution is unsatisfactory to the
extent that it negatively affects team performance or results, or causes other group members
to carry that individual’s load, the underperforming group member will receive a lower
individual grade.

Grade:
Written project: ___/30

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. Ethics: consider and evaluate an important and contemporary social issue.
2. Critical Thinking: evaluate a social issue and develop an appropriate response to
promote greater fairness and equity.
3. Sustainability: in addition to profitability, consider measures of success such as
sustainability and ethics.
4. Research & Reading: interpret primary source material, such as a company website and
audited financials, to determine issues and solutions that will be appropriate for the
company in question.
5. Applied Learning: apply what you’ve learned at Sauder to a real world businesses.
6. Group Work: work effectively in a team to come to a common conclusion and deliver
one high quality project.

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This is a collaborative project, so all members of your group are expected to contribute
equally to preparing, writing, and presenting the plan. While each member of the team
should take on a role that makes effective use of their capabilities, everyone should
contribute substantially to the writing of the assignment submission.
One objective of this assignment is for you to develop teamwork skills, part of this is
learning how to deal with members who don’t contribute equally. If this is the case, you
may need to:
• Discuss it with the member
• Use persuasion to motivate the member
• Seek assistance from me
• Ask the member to leave the project
Members who are asked to leave a group because they haven’t done their share of the
work will have to come up with their own venture and complete the assignment
themselves.