Department of English

Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, Arizona 86004

 Final Project 
General Objective: Here is your chance to be creative. Create a document for an audience OUTSIDE of your discipline. This document must be connected to your final paper.

You can create a handout with specific information, a webpage with specific information, a pamphlet, any document you wish to work on. The idea is to take all the research you did, the report you wrote, and create a general document anyone can understand regardless of discipline.

In the past, some students elected to use a pamphlet with visuals and statistics. They applied bullets, boxes, and made great use of white-space. It all depends on the kinds of relationships you want your data to have. Others made handouts, video clips, audio clips, webpages, wallet-size reminders, and other documents that suited their intended purposes.



Specific Objective: Choose a "container" or type of format that is most suited for your topic and intended audience. You must, however, keep your audiences within these parameters.

senior project
community non-profit project
employment/graduate school preparation

If you choose to work on your senior project, the product must be connected to your work. You can create a tri-fold handout, a visual map, anything that will help your presentation.

If you choose to work on a community project, make sure it's not overwhelming and that the community members know you're double-dipping for this class. Community projects can include, pamphlets for Habitat For Humanity, a webpage for our local Women's Shelter, whatever is connected to your final paper. You can make the project an example of your research.

If you choose the Employment/Graduate school project, then your final paper will be the research for the potential job you'd apply for, or for the area of discipline you hope to study further. The project will be a definite example of your research. You can put more time into your electronic portfolio and show what you can do.

  • Do not choose a project that will require lots of technical support.
  • Make sure your project has content first, (a blind person can ask someone to read the document to them).
  • Which appeal will help your project (pathos, ethos, logos), and how do you apply such an appeal?
  • Remember that design is the vehicle for your ideas. Make use the C.R.A.P. principles.
  • Consider this project as an example of your research and writing you could talk about and show during an interview.

    When you hand-in your project, include a 1-2 page commentary     explaining your project.
    Talk through the decisions you made, why you made them, what your purpose is for the project. Which rhetorical appeal did you depend on and why?