Exagerated White Supremacist View of the YouTuber PewDiePie

Why Am I Being Asked to Write an Investigative Report?

You may not plan on becoming a journalist; however, you are likely curious about the things that matter to you and probably recognize the value in credible information. Whether you’re trying to figure out which car to buy, which major to choose, or how to make sense of the news, you are investigating evidence. Distinguishing between facts and opinions is a crucial skill in college—and more importantly—beyond it. Our class activities and your experience reporting on an issue you are curious about will help nurture your research, analysis, and writing skills.



Overview

For this assignment, you will be writing an investigative report of a current event. An investigative report involves research and a report “serves to highlight the author’s expertise with the purpose of informing or educating an audience” (Glenn 112). You will choose a current event that interests you and which is receiving wide media coverage. You’ll then collect a variety of texts that cover the event (e.g., article, editorial, blog post, pundit's monologue, think tank essay, analysis, etc.). Next, you will evaluate the merits, credentials, biases, strengths and failings of each, paying special attention to the rhetorical situation in which each piece is operating. Finally, you will write a report which clarifies 1) how biases, reporting, reasoning, genres, and especially the rhetorical situations surrounding these texts impact the ways in which the event has been portrayed, and 2) what the implications of these observations suggest for your future investigations of evidence.



Your Investigative Report should be:

1,500 words + rhetorical notes + research notes

Tailored to a specific audience (e.g., not simply “multimodal” but “tech blog readers”)

Formatted appropriately to the corresponding audience and medium

Using citation, including in-text and a Works Cited page, regardless of audience/medium

Steps for conducting an investigative report:

Search for and select a current event that interests you. A current event is an event that has received significant media coverage in the past twelve months and is of interest to your audience.

Choose an audience you want to communicate with about this event.

College (e.g., a professor, USU administration, a club, class peers, The Statesman readers…)

Community (e.g., City Council, religious/political organization, The Herald Journal readers…)

Workplace (e.g., your boss, your co-workers, corporate CEO, clients or patrons…)

Multimodal (e.g., specific blog readers, The New Yorker readers, YouTube subscribers…)

Gather 4 texts from 4 different genres that address this event, such as YouTube videos, tweets, social media posts, news articles, books (or a book review), or a website.

Create a graphic organizer to help you make sense of these various texts. Your graphic organizer lists each source on the left and then pulls out important pieces in columns to the right of the source to help you see similarities and differences across the texts. Identify and extract the following elements from each source: a) the author/creator’s intended audience, b) evidence, b) facts, c) beliefs, d) opinions, e) assumptions, f) biases, and g) the rhetorical strategies (logos/pathos/ethos) used by the author.

Collaborate with a peer in an in-class discussion of your graphic organizer.

Let your thoughts and ideas stew for a while. Talk about it with people you value. Re-read and take notes on your organizer. Take stabs at identifying patterns across the categories.

List some of the patterns you are seeing across the columns, as well as any potential relationships between the patterns you are noting. What are you discovering?

Now, to help you visualize the context of this rhetorical situation in which you are writing, draw a picture of it.

Who’s in the picture (yourself, your audience—but how should they be drawn to represent their view of the current event you’re investigating)?

Are there other people in the picture (e.g., your teacher? The people at issue in your current event?)

What obstacles do YOU face as a writer trying to communicate your findings to THE AUDIENCE you selected? Can you express these obstacles visually?

What is your goal in writing to them? Can you draw it?

Finally, what rhetorical strategies should you utilize to accomplish this goal? Will you tap into logic? Emotion? Your own credibility? What format will be most effective? And how will you use these elements to accomplish your goal?

Draw some conclusions about how the elements you analyzed impacted the way this current event has been presented in public discourse. You might choose to focus on one element, or you might choose to discuss them all.

Using all of these resources together (the sources, your research work and notes, your awareness of the rhetorical situation, your goals and strategies), outline and/or draft your report. Using what you’ve found, read, and analyzed, explain to your reader the following:

The Facts

The basic facts of the event that are most likely true

Any aspects of the event that are probably true but whose verity is questionable

Anything that has been reported that is certainly not true

The Opinions

The major opinions and interpretations of the meaning or importance of the event

The quality of the reasoning supporting those various interpretations

The Conclusions

How biases, reporting, reasoning, genres, and especially the rhetorical situations surrounding these texts impact the ways in which the event has been portrayed

What the implications of these observations suggest for your future investigations of evidence.

Write your Rhetorical Notes (1-2 double-spaced pages)

What was your purpose in writing your investigative report?

Which audience did you choose? Why did you choose this audience?

How did the audience influence your writing voice? Your content? Your formatting?

What roles did ethos, pathos, and logos play in your evaluation?

Given what you’ve stated above, how effectively do you think you accomplished your purpose?

Although you will turn in your Rhetorical Notes with the Investigative Report, the Rhetorical Notes do not count toward the word count for your evaluation.

Write your Research Notes (1-2 double-spaced pages):

How did this assignment help you understand the value and characteristics of evidence?

What information did you find that was relevant to your audience and purpose?

What challenges did you have while doing your research?

What strategies did you use in your research? How well did they work?