Ch. 1: Additional Case 1

Annual Reports as Technical Communication

This case is best for groups.

Background

You are part of the documentation team for Canon, Inc. Fujio Mitarai, president and CEO of the company, has asked your team to evaluate one of the company’s past annual reports to determine how well it fulfills the characteristics of a technical document and the measures of excellence for technical documents presented in the text. In this case, you will analyze an annual report and report your findings to Mr. Mitarai.

Your Assignment

Follow these steps to carry out this assignment.

  1. Read Chapter 1 of the text, focusing on the characteristics of and measures of excellence for technical documents. Annual reports, which publicly owned companies are required to publish, can be thought of as examples of technical documents.

  2. Paste the following link into your browser to study the 2014 annual report from Canon: http://www.canon.com/ir/annual/2014/canon-annual-report-2014.pdf

  3. Consider to what extent the Canon annual report demonstrates each of the six characteristics of a technical document presented in Chapter 1 of the textbook. Describe your findings in a one-paragraph response for each of the six characteristics. Also consider how well the Canon annual report fulfills each of the eight measures of excellence for technical documents presented in Chapter 1. Draft a one-paragraph response for each measure of excellence.

  4. Write a 500-word memo to Mr. Mitarai presenting your findings. (See Chapter 9 for a discussion of memos.)