CCMN124 – ASSIGNMENT 6
CCMN279-Summer 2020 – ASSIGNMENT 5
INFORMAL ANALYTIC REPORT
Due: 11:59 PM on Friday, July 24th, 2020
Please read these instructions carefully as part of your mark will be based on
including all the items requested in this assignment.
Investigate three major Internet job sites available to Canadians that could be
used by Ryerson business school graduates to find a job.
Write an Informal analytic report to me for distribution to students and
include a recommendation of the best site for Ryerson students to use in their
own job search.
Provide an analysis that compares and contrasts what you consider to be the
three most important features of each and a review of each site’s
comprehensiveness and ease of use.
Include at least one original, relevant, properly labeled graph (not table)
within your report. Remember to refer to your graph(s) within your report.
Copying a graphic from the Internet is not an original graph.
Your report should contain 4 references using a minimum of three different
sources. Use one long quote (four lines or more), two or three short quotes,
and one or more paraphrased statements.
Include in-line APA citations and an APA bibliography on a separate page
which follows APA conventions.
Total length should be 1,200 words, not including quotes, graphics and
ibliography.
The report is due via Brightspace before the end of day Friday, July 24th, 2020.
This report must be original, and must be based on your own research. Any
plagiarized papers will receive a zero grade and may be submitted to the
department chair for further consideration and/or penalty.
Notes:
Use standard letter or email format (title pages and cover letters are
unnecessary for an informal report).
Review your textbook and the online content for descriptions of the
various components of a report.
The examples of reports in chapters 11 and 12 provide useful examples of
organizing and presenting report information.
Organize your information logically and coherently to benefit your reader.
What is the best way to present your information from your reader's
perspective?
Use headings and subheadings for your report. Use a consistent pattern
of numbering and/or symbolization to outline your report.
Pay careful attention to the online materials for suggestions on how to
structure your report.
Writing Analytical Reports
Analytical Reports
Introduction
• Identify the purpose of the report. Explain why the report is being written. Provide
adequate context. Define the problem precisely. Why is it a problem?
• Preview the organization of the report. Briefly explain how the report will be organized.
• Description of methodology (as appropriate). Research sources?
• Indirect or direct pattern? In the indirect, persuasive pattern, don’t reveal conclusions
and recommendations. This method is more persuasive: save your recommendations for the
end of the report after you have provided all your evidence and arguments.
Discussion
• Ensure main points and subpoints are immediately apparent with numbered headings
• Identify criteria to evaluate alternatives. Create criteria to allow you to compare each
alternative consistently. Briefly define criteria for reader. Not all criteria will be equally
important. Consider weighting them in your analysis.
• Introduce solution options, then evaluate solution options according to evaluative
criteria. Provide consistent analysis. Evaluate each alternative consistently according to each
criterion. Consider organizing discussion by criteria rather than solution option. For
unreceptive audiences, consider placing the recommended alternative last.
• Support the findings with evidence. Supply research, facts, statistics, argument, expert
opinions, historical comparisons, survey data, and other proof from which you can draw
logical conclusions. Carefully cite your sources.
• Organize the findings for logic and readability. A
ange the discussion carefully. Use
headings, enumerations, lists, tables, indents, images, and other visual aids to focus emphasis.
Conclusions and Recommendations
• Draw reasonable conclusions from the findings. Develop conclusions that are a response to
the initial problem. Justify the conclusions with highlights from the findings.
• Make recommendations. Explain needed action. Be precise and explicit. If necessary,
explain how to implement the recommendation. Close courteously with contact information
and offer of further assistance.
References
• Provide an accurate, complete, appropriately formatted (APA) list of sources used in the
eport. You must also provide in-text citations that indicate where in the report you have
elied upon these sources. Exact quotations must be in “ “ quotation marks.
Remember:
Precisely define the problem or issue you are addressing. Describe the circumstances so the reader
can gauge the effectiveness of your analysis and recommendation. Without defining a precise
context, you can’t identify an appropriate solution.
Identify roughly three or four possible solutions (options).
Clearly identify criteria of evaluation with which you will consistently evaluate each option.
Provide a recommendation as to which one option or solution is the best (or, if necessary, rank
your solution options in order of effectiveness).
Introduction
Discussion
Conclusions and Recommendations
Writing Analytical Reports (Supplemental explanation)
If you are struggling with the notion of analytical reports and using criteria of evaluation to determine
the best solution option, I have tried to provide a careful explanation of the concepts below.
Keep in mind the tips on the one page handout Analytical Reports (posted with assignment).
• Precisely define the problem or issue you are addressing. Describe the circumstances so the
eader can gauge the effectiveness of your analysis and recommendation. Without defining a
precise context, you can’t identify an appropriate solution.
• Identify roughly three or four possible solutions (options).
• Clearly identify criteria of evaluation with which you will consistently evaluate each option.
• Provide a recommendation as to which one option or solution is the best (or, if necessary, rank
your solution options in order of effectiveness).
Defining a Specific Problem
Your report requires you to respond to a specific problem set in a specific context. For example, you
couldn’t write an analytical report about desktop computer security locks and cables. This would be an
informative report that would identify general options and strategies for reducing theft of computer
hardware.
Alternatively, and using a fictional example here, you could write a report addressed to Vira Kozlowsky,
Coordinator of Academic Services in the Computing and Communication Services Department of
Ryerson University. One computer lab on campus is located in a less frequently busy, quiet spot on
campus, and you know that this lab has higher end, more expensive computers in it to help GCM and
RTA students process large video and image files. You could write an analytical report addressing this
specific problem. You might consider the location of the lab, the cost of the computers, the likelihood of
theft, the presence or absence of surveillance, the cost and availability of computer security options,
and other factors. You would
iefly explain the situation and why this is a problem. Based on specific
factors and characteristics of this specific problem, you could propose a range of solutions that might
help Ryerson address this problem. Stronger cables? Restricted student access? Locking the room?
More frequent security patrols? Moving the lab? Hiring a person to act as lab monitor? The more
information you have about the specific problem encountered, the more details you will have that you
can use to provide an informed solution recommendation.
Note that solving this specific problem will require knowledge of basic strategies for securing computer
hardware, but you will then apply these strategies to the specific situation to determine the best way of
dealing with this specific problem. You won’t be simply informing the audience about options; rather,
you will be persuading the audience that you have chosen the best method to respond to this problem.
Solution Options
So, what’s the best solution to this problem? We don’t know yet. We have to analyze the situation and
our options to determine the best course of action that we will recommend to the Coordinator of
Academic Services in the CCS Department at Ryerson. I provided a
ief list above of different ways that
hardware security might be addressed.
Criteria of Analysis
Before we can begin to analyze our options, we need to think of a strategy that will allow us to compare
dissimilar options consistently. What would the ideal solution for this problem look like? It would be
inexpensive. It would be effective. It would be safe. It would be easy to install, inspect and maintain.
These requirements (and there may be many others) are the criteria of evaluation that we will use to
decide which option is the best one to recommend.
Let’s say that after talking to several others on campus, you found out that the labs are frequently used
y students in other programs as well. Students expressed concern that access to these superior
computers might be limited or restricted, and that would hinder their academic success. You believe
that helping students achieve academic success is extremely important, so in your analysis, you stipulate
that a necessary requirement (or minimum criterion that must be met) of any solution is that it must not
educe student access to the computer lab. If you run down the list of solution options, you might see
that a few of them involve limiting student access or hours. Because these options don’t meet this
minimum criterion, you would have to eliminate those potential solutions from further consideration.
Whatever options you are left with, you would measure against the remaining evaluative criteria.
Option #1 might be less expensive than Option #2, but Option #2 might be more effective (or easier to
install, or require less maintenance). You have to systematically and