The trick to transforming the assignment is to rethink the idea of trips, making the excursion the writer takes into a visit to an online site, rather than a geographical destination or event. With those changes, the rest of the assignment needs only some minor phrasing adjustments.
The Assignment
This assignment is modeled on trip reports, which are used in the workplace to tell coworkers what happened or was achieved on a business trip. For this assignment, you will choose a website that you will share with everyone in the class and then report on your visit to that site by writing an online trip report.
You’ll begin the activity by deciding on a website and choosing a specific reason(s) to visit it. Think of your reason(s) to visit as your research question(s). Next, you will visit the site, looking for the information you identified as the reason for your visit. After you explore the site, you will write a trip report that explains how well the site is likely to meet the needs of people who visit it for the same reason(s) you did. You will share your trip report with the entire class. Your report will provide an analytical review or recommendation.
Step 1: Identify your search questions.
Brainstorm a series of questions related to your online visit. These questions will guide your project. Your research questions do not have to be complicated, but they should require more than a simple answer. You should be able to break the guiding question down into a series of sub-questions. Here is an example:
| Instead of This | Try This |
|---|---|
| Guiding Question How much is admission to Disneyland during the first weekend of June? | Guiding Question How much should I budget for a trip to Disneyland during the first weekend of June? Sub-Questions
|
Step 2: Choose a website for your project.
Once you have your search questions ready, choose a site where you believe you will find the answers. You can choose any website that includes both visual and text content. Your site must meet the following criteria:
- Appropriate for the classroom.
- Free and open (no login required).
- Professional (not a personal site).
Good choices for this assignment include these kinds of sites:
- an official university site.
- a university-related site (such as a club site).
- a professional association’s site.
- a nonprofit organization’s site.
- a corporate site for a company you might work for.
- a news media or journal site.
If you are unsure whether the site fits the questions that you have identified, skim through the site to determine whether it includes the kind of information that you are looking for.
Step 3: Familiarize yourself with the characteristics and format for your report.
Read the following resources for information on writing trip reports:
- The Art of the Trip Report, from ASTM International
- How to Write a Business Trip Report, from Chron.com
- Trip report entry from The Business Writer’s Handbook or The Handbook of Technical Writing (both Bedford/St. Martin’s textbooks)
Additionally, read the details on memo format, since your project should look like a trip report from the workplace. You can also read about memo format in The Business Writer’s Handbook or The Handbook of Technical Writing.
Step 4: Go on your trip: visit the website, and gather information for your report.
With the preliminary work taken care of, you can begin work researching the questions you identified above in Step 1 on the website. Check out the pages linked to the site’s main navigation. Browse the information on the site, looking for the answers to your question and paying attention to the supporting details and other related information.
To provide evidence of the answers to your search questions in your trip report, you identify specific details. Take notes on what you find and gather any materials that you can use as you write your report. For instance, you might take some screenshots, copy important passages, and note important page links. Remember to keep track of where your information comes from so you can cite your sources in your report.
Step 5: Write your Trip Report.
Write your trip report in your word processor, using memo format. The length of your report will vary, according to your search questions and the information you found on the website. There is not a minimum or maximum page length. Write as much as you need to, but be sure to include all of the required information.
Your trip report should include the following information:
- the goals for the trip (your website visit).
- what you actually found during your visit.
- the lessons learned from your visit:
- What made the site a good (or bad) resource for your search questions?
- What features on the site indicated that the creators were thinking of you as an audience?
- What about the site worked well?
- Would you recommend the site to someone with similar questions? Why, or why not?
Include concrete details from the notes you took during your website visit to support the information in your trip report. You can quote or paraphrase information from the site. Insert the screenshots you took to illustrate your points (be sure to crop out irrelevant information in the images).
Once you have a complete draft, check the information in your report to determine whether you have included the answers to your search questions and the information required for the report, listed above. When you are sure you have met the requirements, proofread your report and turn it in.
Closing Thoughts
This trip report assignment upgrades the basic analytical essay. Students will still complete an analysis project, but the trip report format adds interest for students already looking ahead to the workplace. Further, by asking them to work with a different genre, students necessarily get beyond the comfort of the five-paragraph theme.
You can further adapt this assignment if you ask students to take online field trips. For instance, you might ask students to explore a genre or period of art on an art museum website. They can report their findings in a trip report.
Do you have unusual writing assignments that work well for you? I would love to hear about what you have tried and what’s worked for you. Just leave me a comment below!
