Document Development Exposition: Recommendation Report

ENGL 2116 | Spring 2018

Explain in detail your document’s development from planning to finish, describing your
challenges, how you overcame them, and what you learned.

Planning
When I first started planning for this recommendation report, I didn’t know where to begin.
The easiest way to complete this memo for me was to take the information I wrote in our first
big assignment, the white paper report, and use it as a memo. This assignment wasn’t as
challenging as the first because I already had the information I needed to write my
recommendation report. Using the planning sheet helped put some of my thoughts together. I
didn’t want all the same information I wrote in the white paper report to be in the
recommendation report, so I changed the tone of the report and added the funding, cost and
length of time it would take to retrofit avian-friendly power poles and power lines.

First Draft
When writing the first draft, I took some information from my white paper report and added
that information to the recommendation report. The information I added was the funding and
cost aspect of building avian-friendly power poles and power lines. I did research and found
out to replace an entire power pole, it would be approximately $2,500. That price doesn’t
include the labor and time it will take to replace the entire power pole. So, with each power
pole the prices can vary and increase. I also added a memo header that was originally addressed
to Duke Power, making it an external document. The first draft had a lot of mistakes because I
didn’t proofread. I added an image that I thought had something to do with electrocution rate.

Second Draft
In the second draft, I focused on looking more at how I structured my sentences and revised
some word choices I felt weren’t appropriate. I wanted to make sure that I said everything that
I wanted to say in the most effective way possible. I then added subject headers to the
paragraphs and added an image that showed the average electrocution rate of eagles. Finding
an image online to represent my topic was challenging so I added an example I thought was
okay. I didn’t realize it before, but this image wasn’t the best example to add. I saw a picture
of the average electrocution rate of eagles, but that image had no correlation to my topic and it
didn’t make sense. For my final draft, I found a pie chart that represented my topic in a more
positive way, showing the average electrocution rate.

Final Draft
After receiving feedback on my second draft, I learned that memos are internal documents, so
I changed the memo header and addressed the memo to a person who works within the
American Eagle Foundation. The next thing I did was remove the old image and added a new
image, I felt was a better example. This image is a pie chart that showed the exact mortality
rate of eagles by region. I was surprised when I found out states in the Midwest had a higher
mortality rate of electrocuted eagles than any other region; Kansas had the number one
mortality rate all together. I read through my document and fixed the mistakes I made. Reading
through the second draft document made me realize that proofreading is necessary for writing.