Writing Assignments

Expectations and Requirements

The RID Code of Professional Conduct encourages interpreters to engage in professional development, including familiarity and reading of current literature in the field. Interpreters must not only understand the communication needs of Deaf people but also 1) be familiar with the academic research of the field and 2) be able to articulate the cogent and salient points found in the core issues that face the field today.

Community Exposure Project(s)

Take advantage of your participation to obtain real-life practical experience in relation to interpreting opportunities within the Deaf Community. Interact with people — get involved, ask questions, take opportunities to learn. Make your experience unique and worthwhile. If you need to, ask the instructor for direction and/or clarification. At the end of these experience, write about your interactions.

Take advantage of your participation to obtain real-life practical experience in relation to interpreting opportunities within the Deaf Community. Interact with people — get involved, ask questions, take opportunities to learn. Make your experience unique and worthwhile. If you need to, ask the instructor for direction and/or clarification. At the end of these experience, write about your interactions. Project ideas might include:

• attendance at locally or national interpreter education workshops, courses, or conferences
• volunteering with or at local student SIGs or chapter events of the RID
• shadow or observe interpreting events
• if the situation is appropriate and doesn’t require certification, team interpret with a colleague or mentor

What this assignment is not. The purpose of this assignment is not to gaze into the proverbial fishbowl nor see how many Deaf people you can hang out and party with (although new social experiences may be a fringe benefit at times.) Your participation in the community in which you may someday provide interpreting services is contingent on your perceived relationship with the community. Instead of looking for “how do you sign that?” opportunities or just hanging out at league volleyball night, look for ways to serve, build reciprocity, learn about and challenge current situations where interpreters are working, and get in tune with the local interpreting community.

Note: Because Utah and Salt Lake Counties are predominantly heavily Latter-day Saint (LDS) populated, many Deaf community activities are also religious activities. It is not an acceptable alternative for this assignment to attend Deaf church services; your involvement and interaction at a church meeting is not indicative of a typical Deaf Community function. If, however, you wish to investigate religious interpreting services as one of your assignments, please discuss your intent with the instructor.

Evaluation Criteria for Community Exposure writings

This rubric primarily addresses the content of your blog postings but could also be generalized to assess the content of other assignments and projects. Caveat emptor: while you may feel this is a fairly subjective grading scale, it’s also quite self-evident — and accurate — to assess by reading the actual write-up you submit.

Please note: The points breakdown below isn’t just an arbitrary explanation of requirements; you’ll be held to these scoring standards. If you want to earn a 50 on a community exposure write-up, you really need to show it.

FAQs

Every semester, students say or ask:

“This is all I could think of. Even though it doesn’t fill up a whole page-and-a-half, it’s okay, right?” or “I did something like this last semester; I’ll just write about/use that, okay?”

Answer: Put it this way: partially completing the assignment will earn you partial credit. As stated in the syllabus, you’ll be graded on your own merits. You decide what you can live with.

“I couldn’t find any good activities to attend.”

The semester is seventeen weeks long; there is likely be a handful of professional interpreting workshops and Deaf community-related-events that occur during the semester. Keep an eye out; you’ll also likely see announcements on the class Canvas page. You might even consider a multi-event service opportunity that requires you to interact wth people, not just show up to an event.

Specifications

Papers should:

• if citations are included, use APA formatting and style (Internet sources are listed below)
• be typed (handwritten papers will not be accepted)
• be spellchecked (both electronically and manually checked)
• be double-spaced using only one-inch margins (not 1.25" or 1.5"; and, after the first reference line, indent .5")
• use 12 pt type (not 13 or 14 pt)
• be at least one-and-a half pages in length (longer is perfectly acceptable) and stapled together (no ‘dog-ears’)
• include a reference to your last name and page number in the upper right corner; no title page please
• utilize college-level thought, reasoning, research, and writing

Mechanics

Having trouble with putting words and sentences together? The Hemingway Editor is a solid helpful tool. Here are some fairly common problems to watch for in your paper:

1. Awkward sentence structures. Avoid fragments and run-on sentences. “The Hartford school helped refine ASL. And standardize it too.” is a fragment.
2. Incorrect punctuation. Don’t misuse commas and semicolons. Semicolons only link two related—but independent—sentences together.
3. Incorrect use of it’s. It’s = It is (“It is a tragedy.”); its = belonging to ‘it’ (“Its process was way off.”)
4. Incorrect use of quotation marks and italics. Book, play, poem, periodical, film/TV titles should be italicized, not in quotation marks.

Here’s some additional assistance with grammar:

• A Grammar Cheat Sheet Even The Pros Can Use
• (mind the HTML assistance; the principles are still very applicable) Retinart’s The Grammar Cheat Sheet

I’m very willing to clarify any of these potential problems or concerns for you. If you want to discuss a rough draft with me, I would be more than happy to help.