This project asks you to do workplace research into a local problem impacting USF or the surrounding community. Your goal for this project is to describe the problem in detail using as much information as you can gather from as many different sources as are useful. That means you are looking at research gathered by others (e.g., government agencies, non-profit organizations, professional and academic experts), but also you will gather your own data by contacting experts and asking impacted population for their perspective. You will produce a memo that reports your findings, giving readers a robust understanding of the problem you have researched.

To complete this project, you will choose a local problem occurring at USF or in the community. You can select a problem from the list below, or pick your own problem of a similar nature.

ENC 3246

• What is the optimal register layout for Starbuck’s at USF to reduce lines and wait time?
• What is the optimal speed limit for roads on the USF Tampa campus to reduce accidents and delays?
• Which brand of battery will best serve the needs of USF’s Digital Media Commons for their equipment that takes video/photographs underwater?
• Which internet browser performs the most efficiently for an organization with tens of thousands of users (such as USF)?
• Electric car charging stations at USF campuses

• Sustainable plastic waste management (e.g., water bottles)
• Electric car charging stations at USF campuses
• Which collaborative writing software is the most effective?

Once you have selected a problem, you will research the problem, to include the following topics:

• Background information: Put the problem in context. What does the audience need to know to understand why the problem is a problem?
• Explanation of the problem: Describe the problem in detail. What is happening?
• Causes of the problem: Describe the factors contributing to the problem’s occurrence. Why is the problem happening?
• Impacted Population: Describe the people most directly impacted by the problem. Who is the problem happening to?
• Works Cited

To conduct your research you may wish to use any of the following methods and resources, or anything else that helps you explain the scope of your problem:

• Newspapers (local, university, national)
• Reports from government agencies, universities, and/or NGOs
• Scholarly research
• Facts and statistics compiled by government agencies and/or NGOs
• Interviews with experts and/or impacted individuals
• Surveys (social media makes doing surveys easy)