INSTRUCTIONS: First, identify a leading scholarly journal in your field. By now

INSTRUCTIONS:
First, identify a leading scholarly journal in your field. By now, one or more of your professors may have assigned a variety of scholarly readings. Revisit them and pick one of the journals used, or go to the UHCL library homepage at http://www.uhcl.edu/library and click on “Databases A-Z” on the right-hand side. Type in the journal name in the OneSearch box. If you have problems finding your journal, click on the “Ask A Librarian” link. Some reliable journals might include American Journal of Public Health, Comparative Education, Journal of Physics, Scientific Programming, International Journal of Differential Equations.
Once you have found the journal, the next step is to locate two different articles—that’s different issues, not .
IF THE ARTICLES ARE FROM TWO DIFFERENT JOURNALS, YOU WILL EARN A GRADE OF 50, AND THE REMAINDER OF THE WORK FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED.
NOTE:
Articles must be from different issues of the SAME journal.
Articles should be at least four pages long.
Articles must include research (no opinion or creative pieces).
Articles may not be book reviews (which wouldn’t be long enough anyway).
Article topics do not have to be the same! (The first article is usually easy to find, but if you try to match topics, you will only give yourself an unnecessary headache.)
Now, find a memo template or create one of your own.
Your memo header will have specific parts to complete (but does not have to match this format exactly):
To: Who is your audience? (HINT: Not your instructor!!)
CC: Who should be copied on this? Who else is interested or needs to see it?
From: Your own name
Date: Use the assignment due date
RE:This is equivalent to a title, and should NOT be the name of the assignment
In the body of your memo, you will analyze the FORMATTING of both articles you have found. Use the following subtitles (each of the headers in orange below must appear in your final document) with the appropriate information. Be sure to use the citation style of your discipline (MLA, Chicago, APA, etc.) for any citations in your own writing.
Introduction
Introduce the first article, including the author(s) and the date of publication, then briefly discuss the article. In a second paragraph, introduce the second article, including the author(s) and the date of publication, then briefly discuss the article. If you are pulling two articles from the same year, you may want to include the issue number for each one, as well. Remember that your two articles cannot be from the same issue.
Article One Intended Audience
This list of questions is not meant to be exhaustive, but instead, to guide your thinking and planning. Use these questions to help you decide what to include in this section. DO NOT merely answer them as a bulleted list.
Who is/are the intended audience(s) for this article?
What beliefs and values does the audience seem to hold?
How does the writer appeal to the beliefs and values of the reader?
What level of technical knowledge does the audience have?
How much explanation of technical material does the audience require?
What are the audience’s attitudes toward the material? Toward the writer?
What objections or negative attitudes might the audience have?
What kind of evidence seems to be preferred by the audience?
Article One Descriiption of the Author(s)
Google each writer listed on the article who contributed to it (if the article has more than 5 authors, you may focus only on the first five). Don’t forget to check social media, as well. You may wish to consider some of these types of questions for this section:
Who is/are the author(s)? What did you find out about their background(s)?
Provide information about their background(s) that shows their expertise in the field—degrees attained, number of publications, etc. (DO NOT copy/paste here! This is an easy area to get caught plagiarizing, so don’t be that guy!)
What is the author’s level of technical knowledge in relation to the readers’ level of knowledge?
What effect does the author want the text to have on the reader?
How formal is the author, based on his or her relationship with the intended reader?
Article One Formatting of Text
This section will likely be several paragraphs in length. This list of questions is not meant to be exhaustive, but instead, to guide your thinking and planning. Use these questions to help you decide what to include in this section.
What is/are the purpose(s) of the text? How is/are the purpose(s) achieved?
What format elements are on the first page? Font? Size? Title Placement? Graphics? What are they?
What documentation style (APA, MLA, Chicago) is used?
How is the piece organized? Subtitles?
How difficult is the word choice? Are buzz words or jargon used?
Are the words simple and short, or are they more than two or three syllables?
Are most of the sentences relatively long or relatively short? Is there sentence variety within most paragraphs?
How long are the paragraphs? How many words are typical? How many sentences?
What is the nature of the technical material? Theory? Equations? Models? Are visuals used to present technical materials or to explain it?
What kinds of evidence are presented? Examples, personal experience, logical arguments, statistics, appeals to recognized authority?
Where are the visuals or graphics located? Do they enhance the readers understanding of the material presented to them? If there are no graphics, explain how the addition of visuals might help—must be specific and give examples.
Are the conclusions reached based on logical reasoning? Are the arguments valid and sound? Do the authors give proof/evidence for their argument? How do you know?
Article Two Intended Audience
As above, but for Article Two.
Article Two Descriiption of Author
As above, but for Article Two.
Article Two Formatting of Text
As above, but for Article Two.
Results
Did you notice any similarities or distinct differences in both articles? What were they? How do you think this relates to what the publishing company would want in terms of formatting for submission? For example, the documentation style should be the same with both articles.
Conclusion
What did you learn about your scholarly discourse community and its communication? Do you feel more confident in editing articles for publishing in this field? How will this help you in your course of study?
Works Cited or References
Make sure to list both articles, plus your research of each author in the correct format. Use the formatting style of your discipline, whether that’s APA, MLA, CSE, Chigao, Turabian, or any other. Do not simply provide a list of links.
NOTE: If your references area is only a list of links and nothing more, or just a list of links with very little other information, you could lose as many as 20 points from your grade.
TIPS FOR SUCCESS:
If your memo is only 2 pages long, then make sure that you have given enough examples to provide evidence to your claims. You need to show your reader examples of the formatting specified by the journal publisher (HINT: Some journals publish a style guide to show authors what they look for in submissions!). Although there is no minimum page length, this memo will likely be quite lengthy. Be sure to number your pages according to your citation style, except the first page, which will not be numbered (but still counts as 1).
Remember, do not simply summarize the article in any of the sections. These questions should keep you on track to stay focused on the formatting techniques used. As technical writers, this is what we are mainly concerned with, not necessarily the content. Editors of the journals will be handed the task of editing the content.