Content Engineering Case 1


Choose something related to your blog topic where there are at least 3 different choices that someone could make.

For example, if your blog is about cooking pancakes, there might be 3 different types of spatula that someone could use, or 3 different brands of pancake mix, or three different meals to eat pancakes in (What's the Best Meal for Pancakes:  Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner?).  If your blog is about teaching kindergarten, there might be 3 different strategies for introducing kindergarteners to the concept of subtraction, or 3 different songs to sing for nap time, or 3 different schools of thought on the right way to discipline the children.  If your blog is about a certain movie director, there might be 3 popular choices for the first movie to show a friend as an introduction to this director.  Etc.  I'm sure you get the idea!

Once you have your topic,

  1. Do enough research so that you can make an informed and well-substantiated recommendation for one of the 3 choices. 

  2. Write a formal recommendation report, making a case for your recommendation. 

Imagine that your end user for this document is your boss at work.  Your boss needs to make a quick decision about this, and will also need to know how to defend this decision if it's challenged by the higher-ups.

  1. Email the final report to me, exactly the way you would if I were this boss.  Think about how you will format your attachment, what text should be in the body of the email, what the subject line should be, etc.

  2. After the report is done, post this material to your blog.  You might be able to post the report directly without changing the format at all (probably a bad idea).  Or, you may want to cannibalize and rewrite your report into an engaging blog post, or series of blog posts (probably a better idea). 


Rough drafts are due in class, printed out, on Wednesday, February 3.  Final drafts of the formal recommendation report are due to me (via email) by class time on Friday, February 5.