A well-designed essay: exploring design topics in words and

images.
Proposal: 25 points.
Progress report: 25 points.
5 item annotated bibliography: 25 points.
Final Draft: 200 points.

Building on your marketing letter and vision of the profession in unit 1, propose, research, and
execute a well-designed, well-written essay about an aspect of the profession you are passionate
about.

The proposal:
This proposal gives you a chance to perfect the memo genre. Write another memo to me, this
time asking for approval of your topic, its scope and your project plan before diving full-bore
into your essay. You should identify a primary audience—very specific people you want to
influence or impact through this essay. Selecting a publication as your “audience” can help you
focus your work. The proposal must be submitted on time and cannot be revised, although your
project can deviate from the plan as you work on it and the project itself changes or evolves.

Criteria:
• Correct memo format
• Detailed, specific content about topic, scope, audience, and project plan.
• Well-written: 8 principles of impact applied.
• Effectively edited: free of errors.

Annotated Bibliography:
In order to properly research your topic, and in order to ensure that you fully read and understand
your sources, I am asking you to compose a 5 item annotated bibliography. This bibliography
should include a proper citation of the work, a short, accurate summary of the whole article or
chapter, and an explanation of how this source is useful to your essay. Copying and pasting
abstracts of articles, or copy and pasting sentences without using quotation marks, would
constitute plagiarism. The purpose of the annotated bibliography is to have you read,
summarize, and integrate these sources, so please do not try to take short cuts that will
undermine your ability to do the assignment well or worse, result in an “F” for plagiarism.

If you use WordPress for your e-portfolio, consider using it, or another piece of blogging
software, for your annotated bibliography. If you’d really rather not work online, you can do a
more tradition, print-based annotated bibliography.

Criteria:
• proper citations for each entry.
• a short, accurate summary of the whole article or chapter.

WDP 12/7/09 Brooks 1

 • an explanation of how this source is useful to your essay.
• well-written (principles of impact applied) and edited (free of errors).

The progress report:

If for some reason you didn’t perfect the memo on the proposal, now is your chance. I’d also
like to know:
• What you have accomplished so far.
• What changes to your project plan (both in terms of schedule and content) you have
made.
• Whether you are encountering any problems
• Whether you have any questions for me.

Be sure to think about me as your reader. Don’t assume I remember the exact nature of your
project; please assume that I want the facts, ma’am, just the facts.

Criteria:
• Correct memo format.
• Detailed, specific content.
• Well-written memo: principles of impact applied.
• Well-edited: error free.

The Essay:
An essay, you will likely remember from your more traditional English classes, typically has a
thesis (or at least a point); it is a genre of writing that often lets a writer explore a topic through
research and reflection, consider multiple points of view, and then perhaps argue aggressively for
a specific point of view, or perhaps let readers decide what they think about an issue. Essays can
also be quite personal; they can draw on memories or interviews with family or friends, but even
these essays often involve research.

Primary (if possible) and secondary research (always possible) are requirements of this
assignment. You cannot make an argument about the value of green architecture without
drawing on secondary sources; if you were to write an essay about a local issue, I would expect
you to include primary research like interviews, perhaps government documents, and your own
photographs—a kind of research.

Within the design professions, a simple words-on-the-page essay simply won’t meet readers’
expectations. Your essay for this class will need to be designed in a way appropriate to your
topic and purpose. We will talk about the wide range of options in class, but essays could range
from fairly realistic pictures and prose to an abstract set of images and words, or even comic-
bookish in nature. The final product could be designed for print or web, although the final
product will need to end up on the web for your portfolio.

WDP 12/7/09 Brooks 2

Other factors to consider:
Audience: In your proposal, I am asking you to identify a very specific audience—people you
want to influence or impact. Your audience cannot be “The General Public.” It might be readers
of Wired Magazine or Architectural Record.

Purpose: Classic purposes: to persuade, inform, and entertain, but the persuasion is most
important and most difficult.

Style: the style is going to be more than the design. You will also have to chose a style of prose
—informal, middle, formal—and you will have to make a decision about how realistic or
abstract / poetic you want your writing to be.

Possible topics:
• A manifesto for architecture or landscape architecture in 21st century rural American.
• Argue for (or against) the value of a particular green technology or design (wind, solar,
geothermal). Show or critique these technologies / designs.
• An illustrated evaluation / essay about the work of an individual designer. I’ve read
books about Buckminster Fuller and Maya Lin that are visually and verbally interesting.
Rem Koolhaas seems to be a contemporary master of this genre; what would an essay
arguing for or against his importance as an architect in the 20th century look like?
• An argument for or against the value of Second Life for design students and
professionals. Of course arguments can be more sophisticated than “for or against.”

Possible mediums / software:

Paper: you can design an essay that “stands on its own.” In other words, essays are sometimes
12, 16, even 24 pages of stand-alone text and images. Portrait or landscape orientation
acceptable; non-standard size acceptable.
Screen. The big issue for screen is delivery software:
• PowerPoint: easy to assemble and share, especially if you use Slideshare.net.
• InDesign or Publisher: output could be paper or screen. PDF gives you the best cross-
platform option.
• Web page: the options here are many—hand coded html, CSS, WYSIWYG editors,
blogging software, Flash, etc.
• Non-traditional format: posters, collage, installation as essay, etc.. Hard to tell you what
non-traditional forma is acceptable, but don’t forget the word-picture balance.

Grading Rubric
Key components of your essay. Comments
Titles are very important. Never under-
estimate the value of a good title. Consider
this formula: “Catchy: informative.”
A well-designed essay must be more than a
collection of photos, and not just a single

WDP 12/7/09 Brooks 3

image either. Your essay must have a
point, an explicit or implicit argument.
There should be an idea holding it together,
although a thesis driven, top-down
structure is not required.
Your point should be well supported by
secondary sources, by examples, by
images, and any other supporting evidence
relevant to your topic.
The photographs and images are composed
in interesting ways and show off either
your outstanding photography / design
instincts or your ability to use concepts
from the class to help you compose a
visually interesting photo essay.
The text used in the photo essay must be
well chosen or well composed by you. The
text should also be carefully edited and free
of errors. Typos really stand out in photo
essays. Sources should be documented at
the end of the essay or on a separate page; a
photo essay does not require extensive or
detailed in-text citation (that would take
away from the aesthetic appeal of the photo
essay).
The medium should be effective and the
execution should be of high quality.

Tips and tasks

• Look at models, in-class and out of class.
• Research your topic thoroughly before firming up your argument. Know
what you want to say before you get too far.
• Take or collect photos and images for your project. Have too much
material, rather than too little material, to work with.
• The NDSU Service Center (big window in IACC) has digital cameras
available for checkout. You can also use a video digital recorder for
this assignment and save stills from the video if you would prefer to
work that way. Your images might not be as clear, but you might be
able to “slow down” our high-speed visual culture more effectively this
way.
• You are also welcome to use print-photos, but you will need to scan
them at some point and import them into InDesign or the program of

WDP 12/7/09 Brooks 4

 your choice.
• If you have technology questions, visit the Technology Learning Center
in IACC 150 or make an appointment with me—I'm always happy to do
a little techie work.

Definitions of letter grades.

A = excellent document in all aspects—some slight room for improvement.
B = good; some aspects of the document or project might be excellent, others will be good.
C = acceptable completion of the assignment. No major problems, but room for improvement in most areas of the
assignment.
D = a major aspect of the assignment has not been completed. Elements of the assignment might be quite good, but
with unsatisfactory completion of certain elements, the assignment will remain a D.
F = incomplete assignment because page length was not met, proper research was not completed, proper
documentation conventions not followed, genre conventions not adhered to, etc.

WDP 12/7/09 Brooks 5