1. A team-member has a witty idea. The group discussion about including his joke in the report-text takes several viewpoints:.

a. Let's drop the joke. We know the rule that simple is better. Leave it out and play it straight.

b. It is our report. We can have some fun by including this joke. Almost all readers will get it.

c. Start a trend: slang, acronyms (e.g., radar), etc. Things like that enliven English. Let's use his joke - it sets us apart.

Choose the view that best represents your ideas. Explain what is the best thing about your choice.

2. Look at 1. again. What are the negatives associated with your reply to that question?.

In developing your project, so far you may have generated several different kinds of materials. E.g., individual work statements; the team project description; notes evaluating team-members' writings; requirements from some user (or a team member doing role-playing); and, specifications you generated to guide the design. You may have cost information, a business plan, some idea of generating financing to refine your project products, and details about its design (software, flowcharts, hardware design, analytical models). Finally, you may have working notes, weekly progress reports, and bibliographic material: notes, copies of items you read; author/title information; world wide web URLs.

3. Choose one item from the preceding paragraph and explain why you believe it should be the starting point of the outline of the project report. Your response here can be in the form of a few words and phrases to speak to your fellow team-members as you make your joint decision.

4. Create a visual or diagram showing all the terms in the paragraph before 3.that you think are now useful to you. Keep your headings to three or four main types. For instance, general project description, technical aspects including specifications, and communication/documentation material.

5. Deliberation via written words has the advantage of muting personalities. Create a scale from 1, least, to 10 most valued, and ask three other people you know to rate their estimate about some future item (temperature next week at the same time of day as your survey; stock market valuation of a key stock such as IBM, Microsoft or Intel a week hence, victory-percentage of games-played by a sports team). Take your value and theirs and create the simple average. Then let all see the average value. Ask each expert to restate his/her evaluation. Finally, again compute the simple average based on this value. Compare the two results.

6. Concerning your support reading, write a paragraph describing one thing accomplished, because of something you read. Cite the article, book or chapter in writing. Why should someone to join you?