Chapter 17

This chapter is all about presentation. Throughout our history of school we have been giving presentations from as early as kindergarten when we just said our name and our favorite food to our senior projects. This chapter gives tips and strategies on how to prepare for and how to present our presentation. Although by now most of us should probably have a good idea of how to give a good presentation whether they choose to follow them or not. They give the basic essential things to remember when planning a presentation. First and foremost is good planning, this includes making an outline of the subject matter and knowing which pieces of info to say in which section. Since most presentations accomodate a paper most the time you can use the outline for your paper. Next is to practice your presentation as much as possible preferably in front of friends and family whom your most comfortable with. Visual aids are very important even if its just a simple poster, and be sure to use your visual aide when practicing.

When you are giving the actual presentation there are many things to think about because they can vary alot from time to time. Think about eye contact, volume of your voice, cleary displaying your visual aids, speaking clearly, and providing time for questions. There is a whole other section you can think about which is you body language and posture which are things that would usually be taught in a public speaking class. Now there is a big difference between giving a presentation and general public speaking. In School teachers know that not everyone will have to speak publicly and therefore a curve is usually applied on these ideas.

This chapter is a good referance to have incase you don't have a presentation for a long time and would like to refresh your skills a bit. But to be great at public speaking you need a natural knack for it or either a lot of practicing and good techniques.

Chapter readings

I wrote a huge post on this reading and towards the end my browser closed and I lost the entire thing. Now I have only a short time to complete this new post so i am just going to have to give a summary.

The basic idea these chapters talked about was making a great resume andcover letter. This is not as simple as it sounds. It is not as easy as just listing down the skills you have in a nice template and printing it on nice paper. You have to gear and organize your resume for the particular job your applying for. Your resume should never be just one standard copy it should be an ever changing piece that best displays the skills you have that are most relevant to the position applying for.

They talk about two main types of resumes, one that shows the skills you have that would allow you do do this job better than the other applicants, and another that list your experience working in this field or a field where that experience is beneficial to the desired job. I think that these two types are really more distinguishing two types of applicants. For instance, Say that two people are applying for a position as a Mechanical Engineer. Applicant 1 is a 25 year old grad student with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and MBA, The other is 33 year old with a degree in Electrical engineering from 15 years ago and has just been layed off from Bonneville Power where he worked as a engineer for 9 years. Obviously these two would have different types of resumes. Applicant 2 would most likely list his education last and have a much larger section displaying his experience as an engineer over the past 9 years. Applicant 1 does not have any real life experience so he would most likely highlight the educational part and list the different internships and or research project worked on. Really both are equally qualified for the job and would probably have similar chances of being hired.

This is why it is important to know how to build a resume for your self appropriately for the position desired. If both of them just filled out a standard resume form the first applicant would not have anything to put for the experience so the second applicant would most likely be more appealing to hire or interview. Though as important as it is to always have the best resume possible alot of emphasis should also be put on networking, because as clishe as it sounds " It's not what you know, it's who you know". This is a fairly true statement a good resume can make you stand out and get an interview. but knowing the bosses son will most likely get you the job.