Writing a rationale

A project rationale: a guide for on how to write the who, what, where and why for your design designers present their work, they don’t just put it in front of the client and wait for a reaction; they provide a rationale that explains how the design solution answers the brief.

The rationale can take different forms, from a simple verbal explanation to an interactive on-screen presentation that leads the client through the thinking and the development process to the solution.

Well-written design rationale can be invaluable in explaining how your design solution satisfies the brief.

Choices that you have made, even those not immediately obvious to the client, can be explained, helping to show the clarity of your thinking, the benefits of your solution, and ultimately to help sell your students, written rationales are often required as project deliverables, but they can also be useful for organizing your thoughts before classroom presentations or putting together case histories of projects for print or online portfolios.

When writing your rationale it’s always helpful to have access to some visual documentation of your design process – from your initial sketches onwards – especially for case histories.

Things to keep in mind when writing your rationale are:At the top of the page, at the very minimum state the name of the client and the name of the project.

It’s sometimes also helpful to provide a short summary of the your writing to the point – one page is usually long by explaining the overall concept of your design – what is it, who is it for (audience) and in what context will it be used?

Then go into details, giving reasons for the design decisions that you’ve er – it’s a rationale (requiring the reasons or logic behind your decisions), not a description.

The problem and its g the problem and its rationale ing a bing your data collection ing a rationale.

A further function can be that of justifying the methods you plan to use for solving your research for the rationale plays a role at two stages of your project: (a) when you first submit your research proposal to your advisors for their advice and approval and (b) when you write your final version of the thesis or dissertation so readers will understand the contribution to knowledge or the contribution to practice that your work g your work in ng your study in a context consists of identifying a domain of life into which the research fits.

Your rationale might start with the label that signifies the field in which you think your work theories of social change, the most prominent types .

The present study links the second and fifth of these categories by addressing the question: what changes have occurred in the structure and functions of mexican-american families during the twentieth century, and what trends do such changes reflect"in addition, by centering attention on a particular ethnic group–mexican-americans–the study provides material useful to people interested in the last of the categories, that of cross-cultural fying your intended s the most important function of an author's rationale is the explanation of how the project can contribute to knowledge (basic research that corrects or expands people's understanding of the world) and/or to practice (applied research that improves the conduct of some aspect of life).

Following examples illustrate two ways of wording research proposals so that they (a) specify the question to be answered, (b) locate the study in a domain of knowledge or practice, and (c) identify the study's intended g the problem and its g the problem and its rationale ing a bing your data collection ing a rationale.