Kristi Lund

December 2003

Technical Writing Practicum Report

1. Improve and gain experience with general writing and proofreading skills.
2. Gain experience on page design and layout.
3. Gain efficiency with time management skills.
4. Improve on fundamentals of writing.

The main duties to fulfill the practicum were to:

• Research, develop, write, and revise the public relations plan for the Administrative and Student Life Services office.
• Plan, research, design, revise, and print brochure for division office.
• Research, compile, write and submit various press releases for ASLS division.

The first step in the process was to create a plan for the division office. The purpose of the plan and implementing the plan was to create awareness of division events, duties, and contributions to the campus and Menomonie community. I began by developing a public relations plan worksheet to act as a facilitative tool to create the actual plan. I began by researching plans and worksheets online. This was a time consuming task. Unfortunately the web has a plethora of information and a lot of it isn’t reliable and the helpful resources aren’t always free. I spent approximately two hours searching the internet and textbook resources trying to find a worksheet or help on planning a worksheet for a public relations plan. I did not find a solid worksheet that would properly facilitate discussion for the division office. I developed a worksheet from various sources and ideas that I had that I thought would be helpful. The worksheet is document A-1. Once the worksheet was developed, it was time to fill in the worksheet. I organized a focus group session of the employees of the division office. I facilitated the meeting using the worksheet and easels to brainstorm our ideas. One of our first steps was to identify what our office currently does to meet our goals. After we established those, we brainstormed where we wanted to go and how we would accomplish those ideas. I took the notes from this session and implemented them into the worksheet, see document A-2. The completed worksheet essentially acted as an outline to work off of to develop the final public relations plan.

Once the worksheet was completed, the public relations plan needed to be developed. I created a template that summarized the information for the worksheet. The template for the plan took the detailed information from the worksheet and put it into key sections that were more generalized. The template for the plan is document A-3. This template was easier to develop since I had gained more knowledge of the elements of the plan while doing research. After the template was completed, the template needed to be completed to complete the public relations plan. The most challenging part of the plan was to take the ideas developed in the brainstorming meeting and express them in a way that was clear for internal and external stakeholders. The Administrative and Student Life Services division has four directors, so it is important that not only the division office works to meet the goals, but the directors and the various departments within the division work to meet the same goals. The plan needed to be prepared so that it would be easy to follow and the goals of the division plan would be clearly communicated. The key themes of the plan are to increase visibility of division to target audience and increase the knowledge of division activities. In the end, the plan, worksheet, and facilitative meetings were a great tool to know where we currently are, where we want to go, and how we are going to get there. Without these key items, we could have spent time repeating events that we are currently doing or targeting the wrong items. The completed public relations plan is document A-4. With all the planning, revisions, and meetings the public relations plan took 13 hours to complete. The end result is a beneficial one; it gave the division a direction in where it needed to go and how to get there.

Completing the public relations plan was a beneficial learning experience for me and I think it was extremely useful when implementing phases of the plan. Since I had a strong background in the goal of the plan I was able to keep the objectives of the division in mind when developing documents for the public relation plan. It was also more challenging than I anticipated. Since I had no prior experience with public relations plan it was all new to me. I learned a great deal through research and by completing the plan.

One of the main ways to accomplish the objectives of the public relations plan was to write press releases on a regular basis for release to local media outlets. This portion of my outlined duties I was most apprehensive about. I have had experience preparing reports for classes and work, but these were going to be press releases for the division, campus, and local communities. Needless to say, that I felt that while these weren’t going to be in-depth news releases, it could be the most challenging of all my tasks. Each press release developed spontaneously; there were no sit down meeting to brainstorm topics to write about. Usually Vice Chancellor Moen would come across some sort of documentation that would prompt her to request a press release. This could be an email about an event, article, or just a thought that came to her. She would then send me a note or forward me an email that would state the basic facts of what topic she wanted a press release written on. Once I received the topic, it was my job to determine any additional information that may be needed, get that information, and if necessary, schedule for a press photo to be taken. At first, I felt like I needed to be guided on what information needed to be included. I knew the message that the division wanted to convey, (communicate our role as valuable members of Stout and the Menomonie community) but I didn’t necessarily know how to convey our message. At first, I would write, re-read, and re-write a paragraph several times over. I wasn’t quite clear what need to be spelled out for the audience, what was assumed, and what details were repetitive. I think my fear of not effectively conveying the message of the release really hampered me in the beginning. I had been so use to writing long reports with specific details for classes; it was hard for me to find the right balance for press releases. For the first few press releases I would make sure that I took a draft to Diane and ask questions about what she thought about the release. After a couple meetings, I began feeling more comfortable and got a better sense of what was expected. Towards the end, the actual writing of the release took less time then organizing the information to include in the release. Some of the releases took considerable effort in gathering data, researching additional information, and arranging for press photos, while other press releases only took 15 minutes to draft. On average, each press release took one half hour to complete. Once the press release was complete, I would email the release to the University Relations office. From there they would release it to the local media outlets, it was then in the local paper’s hands on what they wanted to do with it. Every press release that I completed was either published in the Dunn County News or the Stout Community News. The press releases are documents B1-B7.

Overall, I gained valuable experience and confidence writing for external audiences and for a completely different medium than I had been accustomed to. I learned a lot about wording paragraphs so that they flow easily and get to the point. I also learned that wordiness and length does not make up for substance. I also believe that the best tool for learning these items is experience and learning from mistakes. While this was extremely challenging from me, I learned a lot by putting forth the effort and trying to improve my writing skills. I think this could be a very important skill to have in whatever field I end up in. It isn’t something that necessarily takes a lot of commitment, but can make a significant impact in a company’s relationship with its stakeholders, employees, and communities.

The development of the brochure was challenging in different ways from the press releases. The fact that the concept of the brochure has been shaky and uncertain from the beginning was the most difficult obstacle. The idea of the brochure was to create an informational tool for the division and departments within the division to use to communicate different topics. The most time consuming part of the process was determining the best format for the brochure. This included researching, gathering examples, and trying to create something on the computer that would turn out a good final product. There were several challenges with this task from the beginning. How, when, and where the brochure were to be used was uncertain. In addition to the challenge of a vague design of the brochure, the brochure needed to meet several audiences. The audiences included division employees, campus employees, members of the community, and new employees. With several departments in the division, there is bound to be a lot of information to be communicated and each department having different information to communicate. After hours of brainstorming different designs and how the brochure would function, it was decided that I needed to move forward to create some sort of design. Even though, we hadn’t decided key items I had to move forward. I began working with plain paper to draw out the basic layout for the brochure. I measured, cut, and tested different sizes of paper. I came up with a basic layout, document C-1. The design for the brochure was to be a mini-folder with different cards for each department. From there I needed to take my measurements and put them into a program and try to get the program to do what I needed it to do. I began trying out PageMaker. I have heard several people use this program for many projects, I thought it would be a nice fit for what I wanted to accomplish. However, I was wrong. I hadn’t used PageMaker and it ended up to be a challenge. I tried for five hours working with the program to get a basic page layout and template on the program to no avail. After that, I decided that I needed to switch programs after unsuccessfully consulting manuals and online help. This was one of the most frustrating parts of the process. In the past, I have had no problem picking up new programs very easily and several of them Adobe software. Unfortunately, I decided that trying to figure out the program was not the best use of my time. This is especially true since the whole basis of this project was shaky and once I came up with a basic design it was not certain what would be done with the brochure and how it would function. I switched to PhotoDraw 2 to create the different sizes and test printing on both sides. This took an additional three hours and many recycled pieces of paper. After that I had document C-2, a layout with no content. During this time, I had several more meetings to discuss the role of the brochure with the Vice Chancellor. Each time, it was determined that while a lot of it is uncertain, I needed to come up with some content for each department. Once that was completed, the directors would review the brochure and decide whether or not the brochure would be beneficial and meet the objectives of the public relations plan. The next step in the process was to determine what information to include on the different cards. I focused on two departments initially. I spent several hours surfing their WebPages, reading reports and documentation about their respective departments. I did this to find valuable content to include on their cards. At the time of this report, I completed two cards one card for Human Resources and the other for Budget, Planning, and Analysis. Document C-3.

The most challenging part of the brochure was the time it took for this project to progress. When you rely on many other people to decide on what needs to be accomplished, it is difficult to move at a pace that you feel comfortable with. With this project it was especially difficult since the whole concept was very shaky. Once I complete the content for the remaining departments, the brochure will be presented to the directors. From there, they will decide what they see the brochure functioning as, where it will be used, and ultimately they may choose to scrap the information I chose to include on their card and put what they feel is important.

I think this project was challenging in a different aspect than any other projects I have faced. The idea that you put so much work into something that may not be used is hard to keep the motivation to produce quality work. However, if the brochure is successfully implemented, it will be even that much rewarding knowing the obstacles that were faced to complete it.

I think I accomplished all of the goals, or at least made progress on all of my goals. I improved my writing skills and felt comfortable enough to submit press releases. I also improved my time management skills and planning skills. When you have several projects you are working on at the same time, it is important to balance the work out and use your time wisely. Time management is essential, since prioritizing of projects doesn’t work. You can’t label something as "important" or "not-important", when all the projects need to be accomplished. I also gained experience on page layout and design. The whole process of determining the brochure layout was a great experience. It allowed me to come up with a design outside of what most people would think of as a standard brochure. I think this is important to keep your mind open to new ideas. I think that people can get into a rut when doing similar projects, so it is important to challenge yourself to try different things.

This was a wonderful experience for me. I think it really gave me an opportunity to do different projects than I have ever done before. I also faced some new challenges. These include learning how to do tasks that I hadn’t encountered before and that when you are in an office environment and you need to rely on others to complete a task it doesn’t always flow as smoothly as you like. Finally, I learned that even though I put a lot of time and effort into the brochure and it may not be successful, it was still a beneficial experience and a learning experience.