ETC5523: Communicating with Data

Assignment 2: Summarising technical content

🎯 Objectives

• Create a piece of technical communication

Important

This is an individual assignment.

Output format

• Maximum length: Four A4 pages (Part A) + 2 A4 pages (Part B)

• Please upload the completed PDF to Moodle

Instructions

In this asseessment, you will be transforming a piece of academic writing into an executive-focussed technical report. You can re-use any tables and figures from the original article, but you will need to write your own text.

Part A: Writing the article

You are an analyst in a research company. You have noticed some new academic work that is relevant to your field. The first step to bringing the work in house is to write a technical report for your manager.

Your manager is competent, and reasonably technical. They are time-poor, and so clear communication will help make your point the fastest. Your report will need to include:

• An executive summary
• An introduction to the problem
• Key results
• Brief methods
• Conclusion

Your report also needs:

• At least one reference to an article (academic, web page etc)
• Working cross-references to figure(s), table(s) if included, and sections where required

Caution

Interpreting these papers is difficult. You are not expected to understand all of the technical details. If you have any questions about the papers, please ask in the forums, or during consultation. There will be a couple of dedicated question times in the workshops on weeks with less oral presentations.

Choosing an article

Four articles are available:

• COVID-19 in low-tolerance border quarantine systems: Impact of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2
• Application of a new methodology and R package reveals a high burden of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) in Germany compared to the average in the European Union/European Economic Area, 2011 to 2012
• Attribution of the Australian bushfire risk to anthropogenic climate change
• Understanding links between water-quality variables and nitrate concentration in freshwater streams using high frequency sensor data

You may also choose your own article not in this list, but it must be approved by the CE.

Part B: Article analysis

Compare and contrast the format of the article you chose in Part A with the report you wrote. In particular, consider:

• Where the key takeaways are located
• How results are presented
• Caveats and limitations in both the article and your report

Marking Rubric

Part A (15 marks):

• Structure adhered to (1 mark)
• Executive summary summarises the work (3 marks)
• Report is clear and easy to understand (3 marks)
• Report is written at the correct level (1 mark)
• Paragraphs contain topic sentences, and flow from one to the next (2 marks)
• Results include a figure and/or a table, with a clear caption, and a cross-reference in text (2 marks)
• Methods includes data source, and some details of work done (2 marks)
• References included (1 mark)

Part B (5 marks):

• Compared and contrasted differences
• Highlighted reasons for differences

Maximum grade: 20 marks

Up to 3 marks will be deducted for spelling and grammatical errors.