This is a draft of my project which is a memo written to advisors of individuals with invisible disabilities. I envision this as offering advise to professionals who work with individuals with disabilities. For example, Syracuse University has individuals assigned to work with people that have disabilities to help their transition to the University as well as work with them on whatever adjustments are needed.
Let me know what you think.
Hi Ed,
Awesome project! I just have a few suggestions. I think you should replace the three dots with commas in your paper. It is for advisors and seems to be more of a formal letter to them on educating them of invisible disabilities. I really liked how you gave a personal example to illustrate an example of a physical disability. It is often hard to understand the extent at which someone is effected if they cannot see it, so having someone be able to describe it firsthand and put a face to the disability is a great way to draw your audience in further.
One format thing, I would scoot your advantages/disadvantages of disclosure to be below the picture of the thumbs up/thumbs down. It seems a little cramped right now being all on one line. I thought that it was great how you listed the advantages clearly. The one thing I would suggest doing is that in your disadvantages section where you list them all out, you seem to follow a pattern for most of the disadvantages, using “it can”. Then, in the last few bullets you change it to either ‘it could’ or ‘disclosing…’. I think you should try to rephrase these bullet points to an ‘it can’ phrase, it seems more satisfying at least in my opinion.
I liked your conclusion, and the sentence: knowledge and preparation is power was really powerful and resonated with me. Great job on your paper, I look forward to seeing the final version!
Hi Julia,
Thank you for your precise recommendations. Can I call upon you this next semester to look over my term papers? 🙂
I appreciate the time taken to read my work.
Best,
Ed
This is coming along nicely, Ed. Please review the comments I sent you by email.
Hi Edward,
I like your decision to use a memo to communicate to your audience, which is a very specific group of student advisors at universities like Syracuse. I think the content you provide offers useful information for your audience. My main critique is that it doesn’t feel as tailored to that audience as it could be. For example, your focus on students doesn’t really start until page 2. I think you could address this by making your introduction focus on students the way your conclusion does. Right at the beginning, maybe there’s a way for you to make it clear that educating students about this issue is a responsibility of advisors. In other words, in their role to prepare students for employment after college, they can help students with disabilities navigate this challenge by being more educated about it.
I like your decision to use bullets for the advantages and disadvantages section. Those are very useful sections for your audience, and I think it helps them absorb the information better. Maybe that can all fit on one page in case someone wants to use it as a handy reference. I also like the links to supporting material. Ally’s video provides very powerful support for your memo. It’s one of the most emotional videos like this that I have ever seen and makes the issue of invisible disabilities real because we can see the toll it takes on an individual. Many people need to be better informed about these issues and your memo is going to help with that, which is great. Good luck on your revision.
Hi Dylan,
Thank you for your insights on my project. I think your read om it is similar to others in that it starts out not as strong in a memo format focused om students.
I’m going to rework the beginning to see if I can tailor it to achieve that objective.
I appreciate you taking the time to analyze my work.
Best,
Ed
Hi Edward,
I was pleasantly surprised to see your project as a memo! I thought it was a great way to convey your research information in a concise format. I was very excited to see what you’d come up with for your topic because you are right in that it is, in a sense, still taboo to have an illness that no one can see. I did indeed think the video was very powerful and heart wrenching. So often we need to see a first hand account from someone to really empathize with what they are going through. I appreciated that you provided background on Ally’s disability in the body of the memo. This would be helpful to a busy professional who might not have time to watch the video. I thought your bulleted recommendations section was spot on and your conclusion section summed up the memo quite well I have only a few minor critiques. Try to be consistent with keeping in mind who your audience is. For example, since the recipients of this memo are advisors to people with disabilities, I suggest you start with “As you are aware, one in four…”. Because this is a memo and not a scholarly article, I also recommend that you create footnotes, that way only a tiny little number shows up in the body of the memo. Other than that, I think you’ve done a great job!
Hi Sherri,
Thank you for your recommendations. I like the idea of footnotes. I think it will make the memo flow better.
Also, I agree with you that if I start out with “As you are aware” it does synch with the fact that this memo is for people working with individuals with disabilities and they would in all likelihood possess this knowledge.
I appreciate you taking the time to critique and read my work.
Best,
Ed