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.