For this assignment, you will continue the work from the Assignment 1 rough draft.

Now it's time to prepare the actual recommendation for your company. It isn't certain that the company will adopt your recommendation, but it seems likely. You will prepare separate memos for three different people/groups within the company:

• the other developers (who have to work with the templates),
• the operations person (who will have to make the system work in production),
• the project managers and founder (who oversee the projects as a whole).

The memos should be written as if they are truly independent: each of the three groups will only read the one written for them.

Recommendation

Together, your documents should be maybe 3–5 single-spaced pages in total (with the page count excluding figures, code, reference list, etc). Each of the three should address the issues of likely concern for each group: those will be different, so the memos should be different. If you are copying much text between them, you have likely missed the point. Length of each memo should also be appropriate to its audience.

You should (as appropriate to each case):

• describe and frame the problem at hand: what needs to be done (by the HTML templating system) and summarize our needs;
• outline the options available, with their strengths and weaknesses;
• give a recommendation and justify it. (Of course, the recommendation should be the same for all three groups.)

Your recommendation is not written to announce the final decision, but to provide a strong recommendation (and perhaps a basis for discussion at a meeting where the final decision will be made). Nobody in the company has strong existing opinions about HTML templates, so it's likely they will adopt your recommendation, but you still need convince them that your choice is reasonable. Your goal in writing this recommendation is to provide enough information that everyone understands the issues and can contribute intelligently to the final decision. Clearly describing the options, with an unbiased account of their strengths and weaknesses, will be the strongest basis for that decision.

Qualities of a Final Draft

You are presenting the result of considered thought, and your presentation should indicate that. Use spelling and grammar appropriate to the level of formality for the rhetorical situation.

Consider the context of this assignment to be semi-formal. It's generally formal but a bit less formal than writing a report to an important client or a published research paper.

Using "I" is appropriate. You are also welcome to use "we" if you actually mean you and several other people. But do not use "we" as a method of avoiding saying "I".

Pay attention to the formatting, but don't go overboard with colours and graphics. Ultimately, you want your words to convey the message. I do not recommend title sheets for class assignments, but if you just can't stop yourself, include one. Single space the text.

Quotes, Citations, and Reference Style

Where a rough draft can be loose because it's just a way to explore your thoughts on the topic, a final draft has higher standards of quotation and citation. You should have some idea of when you need to cite and constitutes inappropriate use of outside resources. If you have questions about use of sources, however, you can review the the SFU Library's plagiarism tutorial .

I don't have any strict requirements for the citation style, as long as it is reasonable, understandable, and obvious what/when you are citing. If you really want me to pick, I'll point you to the IEEE citation style.

Submitting

Save/export your draft as a PDF. Submit the file to the CourSys activity Assignment 1 Final Draft and to turnitin.com for "A1 Final".