Major Project # 2 – 4250

Type of document: Handbook on Personal Investments

Number of Pages: 8 (4 back to back pages)

Format: Single spaced, Times New Roman or Ariel (preferably 11 font size)

Delivery Format: Must be spiral bound with stock (hard) paper for the cover and end pages; color printed.

Assignment to be completed in: Group

Nature of Documentation: Text and Graphs showing examples of returns to investments

Due: Dec 7th (This is the final deadline) – No extension possible

Employer:Cohn Financial Group (DallasFort Worth)

Grading Pattern: Moderately Lenient (I understand that this might not be your area of specialization. However, technical writers are increasingly sought after in financial organizations)

Grade: 15%

Special Instructions: I will not start discussing this assignment in class. I would first like you to read the instructions very carefully and come up with questions. That enriches the learning process much more than, if I read out the assignment.

Technical Writing in Financial Markets:

A developing customer base in the market for technical writing is the emergence of financial services. Increasingly, corporate houses like banks; mortgage houses, credit card corporations, housing loan organizations etc are seeking financial technical writers for their projects. This is a relatively new application area (along with medical and legal writing) and the only way professional technical writers can learn finance writing is by doing their own share of research (under the assumption that oftentimes they won’t have any educational background in finance).

As for this assignment, you are a financial technical writer employed with a financial planner company (Cohn Financial Group). A financial planner company helps individuals and corporate houses take care of their finances and invest in certain portfolios with other financial corporations. Consultants in your company help potential investors with credit card debts, retirement planning, loan payoff, mortgage refinancing etc. A major part of your job is to consult with finance experts and consultants in your company and write financial information for potential investors in the market that helps them understand where and how to invest their portfolio.

All technical writers in a financial corporation write internal memos to supervisors, colleagues, and subordinates to request or provide information and letters to clients, agencies, and a variety of readers. Financial analysts write reports to management on financial performance and presentations to investors. Securities analysts write reports on the financial prospects of companies, and financial planners write programs for people to follow.

Assignment:

As part of this project, you would develop a basic information handbookfor customers who might be interested to invest in financial organization like Fidelity Investments, Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab and Washington Mutual Financial Services. Your handbook would only cover information pertaining to the above-mentioned four companies. This handbook would concentrate on investments for individuals in mutual funds, stocks, options, bonds, retirement funds etc. You would NOT deal with any form of corporate or other investment categories as part of this handbook. The websites for all these finance companies mentioned above have most of the information you need as a financial planner and guides readers through a system of explaining each portfolio and investment type, depending on readers’ willingness to take risk, amount of money to invest, time for which to invest etc.

The problem is that readers often find it difficult to understand the company where they should investment, type of investment portfolio to choose etc. Your handbook would primarily act as a financial planner and help readers understand the investment market based on the nature of investor an individual is and the opportunities that the above companies provide.

Possible Investment Types you can cover: Mutual Funds, Stocks / Options, Housing Loans, Education Plans and Retirement Funds.

Preferably, follow this format for information presentation when writing your handbook:

  • You would need to do research on personal investments pertaining to only the four companies mentioned above. Study their website very closely before starting with this project. Once you start, it will not take that long.
  • Do not cut and paste any information from these company websites. Rewrite the text your way. You can import the graphics but cite the sources always.
  • Select a financial planner company for whom you are working and use their logo throughout the handbook.
  • First, you would put an introduction as to what this handbook is about and how this can help individual investors.
  • Second, explain the definitions of all types of personal investments like Retirement funds, mutual funds, stocks, bonds etc.
  • Third, based on any one or more of these websites mentioned above, find out a list of questions with possible answers that will help readers categorize themselves and portfolios based on investor types like maximum risk categories, medium risk and no risk, how much individuals want to invest, for how long etc.
  • Fourth, help them understand the advantages and disadvantages of each type of investment based on market interest rate, stock market, fixed rate etc.
  • Fifth, provide an example of the rate of return for each investment type. Show graphical examples of RETURNS TO INVESTMENT (whenever possible) along the way (you should be able to find all these information in a company website). You can be company –specific when showing the graphs and always cite the source of your information.
  • Sixth, provide information about what each company has to offer specifically.
  • Seven, mention how the investment consultants in your company might help a customer choose the right investment portfolio or him or her.

****** MOST OF THE INFORMATION ABOVE WOULD BE AVAILABE IN THE COMPANY WEBSITES******.

Tips for Effective Writing in Finance

Content: Be sure that the financial content is correct and complete. Have you addressed all the relevant financial issues?

Critical Thinking: Think carefully and critically about the issues with which you are dealing. Anticipate questions and objections your readers may raise.

Appropriateness for Readers: Write the document with a particular reader in mind. Check that issues are discussed on a level the reader can understand. For most documents, it is better to focus on practical, explicit information and advice related to the case you are discussing rather than on general accounting theory.

Conciseness: Write as concisely as possible, given the reader's needs and the issues to be addressed.

Clarity: Develop a style that is clear and readable. Choose words that convey your meaning with precision and clarity.

Coherence: Structure the document so that it is coherent. The organization should be logical and the train of thought easy to follow. Summarize main ideas near the beginning of the document, and begin each paragraph with a topic sentence.

Revision: Revise the document so that it is polished and professional. It should be free of all spelling errors and typos; grammatical errors should not detract from the message