Audience:
The audience for this assignment will be students not familiar with your career field. We are a broad mix of
majors from across the University, so you cannot assume that we know more than a basic level of information
about your field. You will need to explain concepts and use language that can be easily understood by an
average college Sophomore.
Purpose:
You will create a document using approximately 500 words and at least 6 meaningful visuals (not counting clip
art and graphic elements) to explain an aspect of the field that you are studying to an audience that may not
have the same background as yourself using one of the prompts below. The assignment will prepare you to
discuss technical aspects of your chosen field with people that you interact with professionally from other fields.
Assignment:
Each student will create a document that explains an aspect of their field of study to a general (nontechnical)
audience.
Students are free to select an appropriate format for their document. It can be a printed or electronic document,
a TED talk or similar short presentation, a video, an academic poster, or other format. Creativity is encouraged.
The content will include approximately 500 words and a minimum of 6 meaningful visuals. Clip art does not
count: visuals must communicate information directly related to the text.
Topic:
Please respond to ONE of the following prompts:
Describe an academic project that illustrates your best accomplishments in your field.
What is the most exciting thing about your field?
What is the biggest problem/challenge in your field, and how would you solve it?
What commonly accepted view in your field do you disagree with and why?
Be sure to incorporate technical content from your field that is explained so that students who are not in your
college will be able to understand it.
Additional Requirements:
Use minimal text. Approximately 500 words (one single-spaced page at 12-point font). Break text into short
chunks.
Use effective visuals including charts, graphs, and photographs.
Use a consistent color scheme and layout appropriate to the type of document.
For videos and TED talks, use minimal text on screen.
This assignment can be submitted as a web page url, a pdf document, a video file, or other file type
appropriate to your format. I can open most files (no Pages files!)
Sample Solution
