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.

Response to Marshel 08 chap 14/15 reading post

I chose to respond to this particular writing because they seemed to get the same main idea from the reading as i did. I guess that is usually the criteria I choose. I sometimes will look for someone who I know that is in a different path career wise to see how they percieve the reading.

But anyway we both seemed to find the same basic principles for editing your own writing. We both discussed how to prevent common mistakes when you are trying to proof read your own writing. The reading it aloud and taking time in between writing and editing. They did not discuss the problem that is sometimes encountered when you try to proof read on the computer and how it is best to print out a copy. This could be because the newer versions of microsoft word have an editing mode that you can turn on. It allows team members to work on a paper together and make recomended changes. It keeps track of the changes made to a draft so that they could all agree before the final change is made. This new feature would be much like haveing a copy to write on, i think that its probably just a personal preference.

Another main idea that we both shared is that aving an extra set of eyes and ears is always best. They can read it them selves or listen to you read it aloud to them. They also brought up something that I did not talk about but think is rather important. If you have a writing piece that is for a particular audience, it would be best to try and find someone in that audience to help you with the draft. They can listen and proof read and give feed back that will directly benefit you so that your writing will better fit the desired audience.

Chapter readings

These two chapters have similar topics. They discuss the redrafting stage in writing and how to go about editing and finding mistakes. Some main points I got from these chapters are actually just a refresh of some stuff i learned in other english classes. However they go into much more detail and i now have a better understanding of how and why they work so well. When you proof read a draft especially on a computer there are many things to think about. First if you try to proof read too soon after reading you tend to memorize what you were saying or trying to say and so you don't pick up the mistakes because you aren't really comprehending anything your reading your just looking back over your thoughts. To help with this you wouls want to take as much time between writing and the editing.

Another probem is reading on a computer screen, it is best to just print out a copy and use a pen so you can make notes and change them later. When you edit while looking at the screen you can just make the change right there and then you completely delete all the mistake so progress is tough to see as well. Another solution to this problem as well as the first problem I discussed is to read the paper out loud. When you read silently you usually read phrases so reading out loud forces you to say every word and hear them so if it doesn't flow or there is an editing problem it is easier to catch.

The best way to proof-read would be to have another person with you. You could just simply have that person listen to you read the writing out loud which will have a fresh set of ears that have no bias so mistakes are seen much more easily by them. Better still, is to have the person proof read the paper themselves for you or read it out loud to you. You can combine all of these steps of choose only the ones you are able to do. If possible though, try to incorporate another person into the redrafting because two heads are always better than one.

Journalism

Last Monday was a very nice and fun class. Jesse was really knowledgable and also had a good outlook on things when it came to journalism and ethics. I say a good outlook because I agreed with most of his responses. I know that ethics in journalism could be a huge topic and there are no distinct lines that govern its practice. Of course there are special cases that need not be stated where ethics overpower the journalistic person. It is such a big topic because alot of reporters have had a bad stereotype complied against them. Journalists search for truth and sometimes during that search they find themselves in a moral dilema. I think how they choose to handle that dilema says alot about the ethics of that journalist.

I have never really been exposed to the inner workings of journalism mostly because I chose a path directly opposite of it in engineering. I work with facts and don't have any morals or ethics to deal with when doing my work. It was nice to hear from Jesse, it gave me a new respect for what they have to deal with on a daily basis.

Response to Aarons News Blog

I decided on this blog because it is the most agreeable with me. Thats actually the reason I choose all my peer responses. I actually do the same thing I usually watch the news daily mostly for just to get a little info about whats happening in the world and also to find out the weather for the day so i can decide what to wear. However the news show that I most enjoy and get most of my current affairs knowledge from is the Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I have been watching these shows since they first aired. These shows take all of the stories that I am interested in and discusses them while poking fun. Although most people would not consider it a real news show, I believe that it does keep you updated on the important stuff while being very entertaining. They leave out the minor stories like the guy hit by a drunk driver or other things like that.

This idea I have ties into what Aaron says about news today. Because of technology alot of people are getting spoiled. They can record the news on their Tivo or DVR and then watch it later and just fast forward the stories they don't care about. They can also log on to the internet where most internet providers have a news reel on their home page that has all of the current events and stories listed and you can click on one to read about it and most the time watch a short news broadcast on it. So this is similar to what I do by watching the Daily Show and Colbert Report. Just instead of selecting the stories I want to watch, I take the spoilednesss one step further and let the writers of the shows decied what stories I should watch.

Koin 6 at 6 Sunday

I watch the news alot and actually watched many different news programs but The one I wanted to write about was the Sunday 6 at 6. It had a virtual debate between senator Gordon Smith and Jeff Merkley. It was an interview of both the candidates answering the same questions and they just switched back and forth bewteen them for each question. I like this sort of debate because it tends to get a more direct response and forces them to give their response independent of what the other says. I really liked this particular one because it touched on the personality of each candidate, by asking how it made them feel when they saw one of their opponents campaign ad that instead of bringing up the candidate it attempts to slap down the opponent. Jeff Merkley did the typical run around with the question without saying a direct response like " I don't worry about it" or " It doesn't bother me". He actually turned his response into a negative ad for Gordon Smith when the question was asking about his personal feeligs. This did not appeal to me at all, I hate mudslinging and when a candidate won't obviously state their personal feelings on a subject. Gordon Smith Directly said "It hurts my feelings because they're dishonest at best half of the story". Which is exactly how I would think a person should feel. He makes a good point about how in one of Jeff Merkley's ads it states that Smith voted to privitize social security. He replies that AARP which is a leading social security and insurance company for senoirs Named Gordon Smith Senator of the year. Which they obviously would not have given him that award if he had voted that way. This was really a good debate for Gordon Smith and definately helped me with my choice.

Response to am's writing about writing.S

I think that this blog could have been written word for word by me because I have the exact same belief about work. He says there is only so much time you have to do certain things in your life, so for writing, by choosing a interesting and enjoyable topic it will produce a much better piece and also be more enjoyable for me to create it. I was told by my day when I was very young that if you choose something that you love doing for your career, you'll never work another day in your life. This could not be more true for me. I am not a lazy person so I always have some type of project or problem I am trying to work on. I put 100% of my effort into whatever I am doing so it usualkly comes out pretty good. Engineering is using science to solve practical real-life problems. Those are my two favorite things to do so its no wonder why I am in school for engineering.

The last little bit of Sam's blog says he prefers a personal relationship with a person rather than handing writing back and forth. Again this is exactly how I feel too. I hope to be in the sales part of engineering eventually because I enjoy meeting and interacting with new people. This skill is rare to find in most engineers so I feel that it will give me an advantage and lead to my future success.

Freelanceing

When I hear the word freelance I immediately think of Spiderman. Why? Because the chief of the Daily Bugle was a great character and the scene where Peter Parker ask for a job the chief says, "Job? No Job. Freelance. The best thing for a kid your age. Meat. I'll send you a nice basket of Christmas meat. But I never said you had a job." This is how I remember what freelance is. It can be a steady job if you want but also leaves time for those unexpected schedule changes a superhero might encounter.

If I was a professional writer or photographer this would be my route for making the rent. You get to choose your topic and your publication. So the harder you want to work the further you can make it. I am this type of person. Rather than having a steady job, I would prefer to be incharge of my own schedule. I am a very hard worker so this type of work is much easier for me to excel in because I know that my pay is proportional to my dedication.

Peter O' Connor;s Chapter Response

This was a pretty interesting post. Actually all of them are interesting because he definitely has some great writing skills. He is a very opinionated person and has a unique voice that is picked up from his writing easily. He has the general idea that I had but has a much more colorful way of talking about it. He discusses about listening to others around you and seeing how others communicate to one another and then comparing to how he thinks that he communicates. He says that the words you choose produce the biggest reflection of your voice. This is agreeable with one of the main points of the chapter. I personally agree with that, just your vocabulary alone can say alot about a person. Words like umm, and, like, and sort of are usually stalling words that are used so that you have more time to think about the right word. It can give alot of information about a reader. This type of information is usually not to your benifit to hand over so easily.

Chapter 8 and 19

Chapter 8 steps away from the rigid structure of technical writing and discusses how to bring your style through all the rules and formats. I had originally thought about this when I first started reading about style in writing. Because technical writing has alot of formats and rules that need to be followed it seemed that it would be much more difficult to show your writing style through all of that. This is where the book comes up with some rules to help you accomplish this. The first is create your own voice and the other two are kind of ways to help do the first. Next they say to use the right words and watch your sentence structure. By doing these you should be able to keep a basic display of your style in your technical writing.

Chapter 19 brings about the idea of creating a communication project for the reader. Because we have two main goals we want to accomplish with our writing, keeping the reader happy and also getting him to agree with your ideas. These two are not always easy to have in the same piece of writing. That is why some of the other chapter topics are so important. The biggest one would probably be knowing as much about the culture, personality and the business of the reader. The more you know about your reader the easier it will be to not upset or offend them. The more habitual this part is the easier you will find it to pursuade them without any negative consequences.

response to todd's chap 6 &7 writing

I chose to respond to Todd's writing because he very much got the same similar ideas from the chapters that I did. He brought up a good point how the guidelines try to get you to streamline your research but then also tells you to deepen and explore other areas. This was a catch i made as well. For chapter 7 we have the exact same argument about how it tells you to give your results up front and then follow with details. He agrees that in cases where the reader might respond negatively to the outcome it might be best to show the ground work leading up to that point so the reader has to read why it failed. This would be so that the reader could not make any acuzations about why the outcome is not what they would have liked.

Chap 6 & 7 reading

Chapter six discusses some important things to keep in mind when doing research. They bring up the relationship between writing done in school and at work. While during school there is much time to explore lots of areas, for work you must conduct your research efficiently because you are paid for your time and cannot waste it. You can't afford to spend alot of time on a dead end because there is often people waiting your response. They also talk about the idea of a research plan that you could prepare before hand to keep you on track. One of the good points they make is to not wait until the end of the research before you start thinking about the interpretation of the results. I think that this is a good idea because it allows you to plan ahead for your writing and also connect it to other areas or leads.

Chapter seven is organizing and arranging your research and information correctly for the type of writing you will be using it in. It is basically helping you to put the most important stuff where it needs to be keeping all the details with the appropriate generalization. This is a particular part where i differ in ideas about the order of results and conclusions. The book says that you should give your findings in a quick generalization first so that the reader can get the answer without reading alot. However I think that if the conclusion is not one that you think the reader will be pleased with, then it might be best to share the results first so the reader knows why. Mainly I am talking about a failure or other situation in which you write about something the reader will not like or heavily disagree with.

Response to sams chap 3 post

I chose Sams post before I read it because I know him and I have a pretty good idea of his personality so I knew I would probably relate to his post. We did agree on the new approach the chapter takes on conveying my ideas. He thought it was interesting that they were using the persuasion in the writing to cause the desired reaction rather than factual information. As a fellow engineer I know exactly what he is talking about. Most papers we write are full of data that essentially speaks for its self. So this technique is somewhat foreign and I also think that I would not use it as much as most other professions. He didn't write about how it wants to really know how the reader is going to respond and how tough that can be. Which is a large part of what I wrote about. I was a lot more cynical towards this idea than he appeared to be from his writing. But I think that our views are fairly similar in general.

Chapter 3 thoughts.

Chapter three is a follow-up chapter from chapter two taking one of the main writing techniques and going into great detail about it. The main idea is clearly to find the goals and objectives of your writing. However as I read on it was slowly revealed that my definition of goals and objectives in a writing were very different from the books. I took them as including the correct types of information or subject matter that was intended. A paper should make sure that it adequately covers the requested or proposed material. I am talking about the physical data or words that the reader is looking for and the book takes a more abstract approach.

I remember in chapters one and two they had put a lot of emphasis on writing for your reader. They discussed many types of ways to do this including ethical, educational and professional. They wanted to stress the importance of knowing your audience. This is a very good point and is a large part of the writing but as chapter three progresses they start to really narrow it down on finding out about the reader. They seem to not only want you to know the exact person but also know how he or she is going to respond or perceive your writing. Again this is an important concept but what really got to me was that it seemed like they were really wanting us to get inside of the readers head and make sure that they got everything we wanted them to and to respond exactly how we wanted them to.

This chapter really sets a very high standard and has some very unlikely expectations. They include alot of phsycology and a little manipulative or mind reading almost. Basically I just don't think that unless you have a decent background in phsycology that most would find it very difficult to know how a person will respond especially someone whom you most likely will not know on a personal level. An interoffice letter or memo would be much easier to get the desired results. I think that knowing a little about the person your writing to will will be extremely helpful but thats about all I think you need . There isn't any need to find out what kind of a mood they are in that day so they don't take last nights loss on the trifecta out on your investment proposal.

My Innermost thoughts on written word.

Being an engineer or a student engineer I haven't had a lot of feedback or criticism on any of the writing I have done. Of the two quarters of English 101 and 102 I took at Clark College most of the feedback was just grammar correction. The rest of the papers I wrote were more focused on the content with usually around 10% grammar. I am not saying I have not had alot of experience writing because I always had lab reports and research papers that were required in my engineeering classes. With computers correct spelling and obvious wording issues like writing "the the" I have pretty much learned how to write well using proper grammar and using words correctly to convey my thoughts and ideas, so I do not have any problem with grammar or communicating efectively. I think that i have the foundation needed to get the most out of this class.
Now I should mention that writing is not really one of my favorite activities, I would much rather be problem solving with enginering calculations. Of course in solving these problems I have to write the occasional sentence or two, but that is much different from writing an essay or research paper. Although essays do not really bother me when I am able to just write about what I knoe or how I feel about a certain subject, like I am doing in this blog. The research papers are where I have the problem because I really do not like to do the research because often times it is not something I have an interest in. Once I have the research actualy writing the paper is not really all that bad either. The main thing about research papers is the reading that is required. I litterally do not like to read plain as that. I can read very well and do it when it is assigned or needed for homework, but I have not read a book for fun since I was probably ten maybe. A large reason is that I have ADHD (for real I take the meds for it) and it is difficult for me to read because I cannot stay focused on what i am reading. Most the time I read a page and then realize my mind had wandered and I have no clue what i just read so I might have to read it three or four times. So since I don't read for fun I think that is probably why I don't really do any other writing other than what I do in school.
As I stated earlier I think that this class is going to teach me aspects of writing in the professional world that will definately be of use to me. I have very little experience in writing professional letters, memos or emails. I do however have a good amount of experience with the formats of proposals and reports from all of the projects and labs I have done. What I am looking forward to learning is all of the techniques and strategies for making my writings more effective and successful. These types of skills stand out in a persons professional writing ability and gives them an advantage others may not have. This book also has a bit on communicating effectively in writing so that the reader get the right information or perspective on what you are writing. I think that my skills in this area are very well groomed because my knowledge in science is advanced and I have had to learn how to explain or write things so that non-science individuals can understand what I am trying to say.
To sum it up writing is obviously a tool that will be used emensely throughout my career and since what I write will most often be about advanced material, I really need to learn how to write for my audience. That is the most inportant skill I want to master. The booked calls it "reader centered" basically meaning learning about your audience so that you can tell them what you want them to hearwhile telling them what they want to hear. You want your writing to be pleasing, appealing, informative, understandable and address all ideas the reader is looking for, making your professional writing skills excel you professional career.

Response to reading Chapters-1,20,22

When reading the first chapter it is easy to see the outcome they would like you leave with when your finished reading it. The main message is to make sure that you have a good understanding of the person or persons that will be reading you writing. It is important that you do this because you are trying to communicate your thoughts through writing which has a much different result than verbal communication. You need to know the audience that is reading you writing because they may not understand or know about certain things and may take things in a different context than you intend. Also they talk about ethics and making sure that your writing abides by the readers ethical background so that you don't offend or confuse them.
The other main point in this chapter is to distinguish the differences between writing done at school and in the workplace. A good point I read was that when a professor reads a students writing their main focus or most often the only focus is on the students comprehension of the subject matter. While a writing in the work place most often has the intention of influencing the reader into agreeing or accepting your ideas. While grammar is very important in both areas for communicating the proper idea and is expected you can have perfect grammar along with poor communication and understanding of the central point.

Chapter 20 focususes on on letters memo's and emails. They have a list of important guidelines that are very helpful when writing these types of messages. A major part is on the customary way to write a memo, letter, or email. Some of the important things were having the right format, making your message "reader centered", and making sure you that the main idea is provided quickly and with the right amount of information. Providing information is essential but providing too much or unnecessary information can cause the reader to lose focus. Thats why you need to know your reader so that you don't break things down too much or not enough and make them feel stupid or ignorant. Essentially this chapter gives the customary way along with a few tips to make your message more effective and helping to provide you with an advantage over the reader.

Chapter 22 takes one of the guidelines from chapter 21 and goes further indepth on the subject matter of making you writing reader focused. The use this guideline with a proposal to help you make your proposal more effective. Because most often the reader of a letter is an investor or a client who intends to give you money for a good or service you want them to accept your proposal. This chapter gives you knowledge about the typical things the reader expects to see. They define four things and also provide tips for making them more beneficial to you. First thing is to clearly define the problem that you are proposing to solve which is actually the most important step in solving a problem is to clearly define the problem that you need to solve. Second the discuss the solution that you will give. You want your solution to be appealing and cacth the interest of the reader. Third and most often the most important to the reader is the cost. How much overall and sometimes a breakdown as well as a timeline. Last the discuss capability of you to do the job. You need to make the reader feel confident and safe that you will complete the solution that you propose and that it will be done to their expectations.

This book has alot of great information about writing in the real world. I skimmed some of the chapters and I expect that I will be learning a great deal of invaluable information to help me in my future.