R3: On our recent collaborative work: Share your 100% honest and 100% confidential thoughts and feelings about the collaborative work you have done these last couple of units. PLEASE do not include team-members' names, and also PLEASE do your best to avoid any griping (this may be difficult!).  

Explain how and where the collaboration was most effective and productive.

Also explain how and where the collaboration was either ineffective or inefficient in any respect.

If you had to do it all over again, what would you change?

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R1: Initial reflection, due Tuesday, January 14th: Think back over the Professional Writing (PFWR) courses you have taken leading up to this 4660 class, the culmination of the Professional Writing program (the concentration in the English B.A. or the Minor complementing another Bachelor's degree). In separate paragraphs, reflect upon

a) three or four important facets or aspects of professional (workplace) writing you have mastered thus far in the program—or if "mastery" isn't entirely accurate, that you have come to consider essential to professional writing as distinctly different from typical academic writing you might encounter in an English or History course, for example;

b) aspects of professional or workplace writing that you have come to understand or appreciate but feel less confident about having "mastered." Put another way, what different facets of "professional writing" do you most want to improve upon in this crowning course of the program? You might review syllabi or textbooks or specific assignments from previous PFWR classes at MGA or elsewhere to jog your memory in pondering item a) or b) for this assignment.

Proof your reflection at least once before submitting it in the "Reflection 1" D2L dropbox.

R2: Collaborative writing, due Sunday, February 16th (okay by Tuesday the 18th with no penalty): Take a few minutes to sit quietly and brainstorm about the most essential keys to working in collaboration with others, especially on projects involving writing where you can. Jot down ideas in single words or brief phrases until you have at least seven distinct legitimate ideas to elaborate. Then decide which are the five most truly essential keys to successful collaborative work and explain them in separate paragraphs (the whole should be at least a page and a half double-spaced or a full page single-spaced).

For each of the five essentials, say why they are so important, not for the team-members working on the project, but to the final product the project delivers. Also consider likely potential consequences if each of these keys is not scrupulously followed, and in a sentence or two, share ideas on how team leaders, or perhaps multiple team members, can respond in effective and professional fashion when someone in the group is not pulling his or her weight. Discuss these three aspects for each "key" separately in a single paragraph: the essential need, potential consequences for the deliverable, and ways to "police" effectively and professionally. Where you can, rely on your own experiences in collaborative work, noting whether they occurred in the workplace or in college.