According to the nominations I received, the best report of the preliminary explorations was Ianic Roy Richard's; followed by those by Tom Creagh and Elizabeth Harrison. Seven other reports got more than one mention, but those three were most often nominated. As you work on your next report, it might be useful to have a careful look at them -- partly because there's a pretty clear consensus that they were the most informative reports, and partly because they may suggest some strategies for organizing and presenting reports that will help as we go.

I've taken the criteria people said they used as they selected all of the reports, and edited them to remove, as far as possible, specific identifications of which reports they were nominating, and who was doing the nominating. I've also, just to be provocative, changed all the pronouns to the feminine form. I'd like to spend a bit of time this afternoon considering and discussing these criteria.

I'll set up some groups of three or so and give each a set of printed copies and invite you to think about what patterns you see, if any. What kinds of criteria seem most common? What kinds seem to you most valuable (i.e., might actually give you some guidance in writing a report? Read through the lists (there are three pages), discuss them for a few minutes, and agree on a set of three things you'd like to say about them as a group. Write them down and sign the page. We'll ask groups for their views, and then I'll collect the lists.

We'll go on to Prompt #15.