MEMORANDUM
To: Your Name, Assistant Travel Manager
From: Wendy Takeoff, Manager - Travel Department
Subject: Travel data needed for the site location of our new regional office
As you know, the Site Selection Committee is in the process of selecting a location for our new eastern regional office. We have been asked by the Committee to provide input on the travel portion of the proposed site locations. It is expected that there will be considerable commercial air travel between our headquarters in Houston and the location of the regional office. Total travel between the two cities will probably amount to over 1,000 round trips per year. Approximately one-half of the tickets will be advanced purchase (two plus weeks prior to departure) and one-half will be for immediate travel (typically within a couple of days of purchasing the ticket). All data should be for nonstop flights. It is rare that any of our personnel travel over the weekend since most trips are completed between Sunday evening and Saturday morning of the same week. The expected volume of travel will allow us to negotiate a fare plan with one, or more, of the air carriers that serve both Houston and the selected city. That negotiation, however, is in the future.
The finalist cities for our new eastern regional office are
• Charlotte, NC
• Philadelphia, PAA
• Atlanta, GA.
For convenience, these airports are known in the business by their three letter designations; Charlotte = CLT
Philadelphia = PHL:
Atlanta = ATL
Houston Hobby = HOU
Houston Bush Intercontinental = IAH
Right now we just need to know which city provides the most advantageous travel conditions.The criteria we are to use for the travel portion of the site selection are:
1. High percentage of on time flights at the selected city's major commercial airport
2. Low cost of tickets, both for advanced purchase tickets (two or more weeks prior to departure) and immediate travel tickets.
Reading for the Week
1) For the short assignment on tables, Read Chapter 12 (Creating Graphics), pp. 294-316 see the Guidelines for Tables in Markel, pp. 306-312 & Tech Tip, p. 314
2) For the assignment on Documentation, read Appendix, Part B: "Documenting Your Sources", pp. 614-616 & either pp. 616-632 (on APA documentation format) or pp. 641-657 (MLA documentation format)
Assignment: Submit final version of Application Letter
Review peer feedback and Markel's checldist on the letter on p. 416. Post your final revision of your application letter by Tuesday, Feb 16 (include also a copy of the resume you posted earlier, in case I have questions about the letter content while grading.)
Short Assignment 1 (due Saturday): Data Tables for the
Assistant Travel Manager
There are three purposes for this assignment.
• To provide experience in locating large amounts of data on the Internet, then reducing the data to a useable format for the reader
• To provide practice in correctly creating tables using Excel or Word
• To document your table sources using APA or MLA documentation format
A primary difference between writing technical communication in the workplace and the essay format you may have learned in high school and in English Composition is the use of data analysis and clear writing that supports and explains your analysis and conclusions. A key tool in these kinds of workplace writing is the use of text clear, readable tables and charts, accompanied by clear text that explains how to interpret the data tables or charts.
Characteristics of tables and charts
While this week's assignment only requires a table, there are a number of characteristics tables and charts that are similar. You should be familiar with these characteristics if you will be presenting information in table or chart form in future assignments. What are the defining characteristics of tables and charts?
All tables and charts must have the following four characteristics. (See the example in Markel on p. 321)
• A descriptive title. The title should tell the reader what is contained in the table.
• Descriptive labels for both the vertical and horizontal axis
• The units of measurements defined
• The data source identified
In a long report (like the one you will write for the semester's major report assignment) each table and chart should be numbered, include APA/MLA documentation of its source, and should appear in the report's table of contents.
Short Assignment i: "Table for the Assistant Travel Manager"
One of the challenges of writing in the workplace is to determine in what format you should present information. This week's assignment entitled "Memo to the Assistant Travel Manager" provides you with some practice in presenting information to the reader in table format. It asks you to locate flight information, including costs and flight delays, and arrange the data inside a table, in order to answer a business question (where to locate a business center). For details of this short assignment, see the link to the Assignment "Table for the Assistant
Travel Manager
Creating a table in Excel
If you need some help in creating a table in Excel
• you should review the document on the Handouts page titled, "Introduction to Excel and Tables". This document will provide step by step instructions on using Excel to create tables.
For other help on constructing tables, see also
• the Guidelines for Tables in Markel, pp. 310-312
• Markers "Tech Tip" for How to Create Tables in Word on p. 314
• you can also use "Skillport", an online tutorial tool available through the University of Houston System. A link to the Skillport is available on the Bb Web Links page
Submit your Excel or Word table to the Assignment entitled--Memo to the Assistant Travel Manager
This assignment will be due Saturday (Feb 20) and will be graded as a short assignment.
Short Assignment 2: Documenting Internet Sources
Documentation Assignment
The purpose of the "Documentation" assignment is to provide each member of the class with practice locating sources of information both in the Library and on the Internet and documenting these sources as they should be documented when writing a research paper. Documentation allows the reader to locate the source of the information the writer has used in writing the research paper. Documentation of sources has two parts.
1 One part is to provide a citation in the text of the research paper. This citation will identify for the reader the specific author of the material being cited and the page number in the book, periodical or other printed material that was used as a source, or the author and other identifying information of the online source that is being cited.
2. The second part of the documentation is a Bibliography, usually titled a "References" (in APA citation format) or "Works Cited" (MLA citation format), or Reference List (IEEE citation format) and usually appears on a page at the end of the research paper. This bibliography or Works Cited part of the documentation format tells the reader how to locate every book, article in a periodical, monograph, or online source where the citation is published.
To avoid plagiarism (see Chapter 2 and the first part of Appendix B in Markel), students must cite all sources used in their academic writing, no matter whether you quote, summarize, or paraphrase (restate in your own words) the source. Students often mistakenly believe only quotations must be cited to avoid plagiarism, which is results in plagiarism: any uncited sections within a paragraph that may contain summary or paraphrase from a source is assumed to be your original ideas--unless the source is cited immediately after your summary or paraphrase. The rule, then, in writing in academia is to correctly cite within the text of an essay or report all sources and list them with problem formatting (according to the citation format) in a bibligraphy at the end.