Susan has taken the following notes about her group’s meetings. Which of the following are specific observations that she could use in a performance review of group members? If she had it to do over again, what kinds of details would turn the inferences into observations?

1. February 22: Today was very frustrating. Sam was totally out of it—I wonder if he’s on something. Jim was dictatorial. I argued, but nobody backed me up.

Masayo might just as well have stayed home. We didn’t get anything done. Two hours, totally wasted.

2. February 24: Jim seems to be making a real effort to be less domineering. Today he asked Sam and me for our opinions before proposing his own. And he noticed that Masayo wasn’t talking much and brought her into the conversation. She suggested some good ideas.

3. February 28: Today’s meeting was OK. I thought Masayo wasn’t really focusing on the work at hand.

She needs to work on communicating her ideas to others. Sam was doing some active listening, but he needs to work at being on time. Jim was involved in the project. He has strong leadership skills. There were some tense moments, but we got a lot done, and we all contributed. I got to say what I wanted to say, and the group decided to use my idea for the report.

4. March 5: This week most of us had midterms, and Masayo had an out-of-town gymnastics trip. We couldn’t find a time to meet. So we did stuff by e-mail. Sam and Jim found some great stuff at the library and on the web. Jim created a tentative schedule that he sent to all of us and then revised. I wrote up a draft of the description of the problem. Then Masayo and I put everything together. I sent my draft to her; she suggested revisions (in full caps so I could find them in the e-mail message). Then I sent the message to everyone. Masayo and Jim both suggested changes, which I made before we handed the draft in.

5. March 15: We were revising the proposal, using Prof. Jones’s comments. When we thought we were basically done, Masayo noticed that we had not responded to all of the specific comments about our introductory paragraph. We then went back and thought of some examples to use. This made our proposal better and more complete.

As your instructor directs,

a. Based on Susan’s notes, write a performance review addressed to Prof. Jones. For each group member, including Susan, note specific areas of good performance and make specific suggestions for improvement.

b. Write an e-mail to your instructor describing the process you used to make your recommendations. Be sure to identify each of the observations you used to provide specific details, and each of the inferences that needed more information.