Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Final Note
I have learned a great deal about technical writing and about my abilities as a technical writer throughout this course. Probably the thing that stands out the most to me in the primary rule: appealing to the audience. I have never considered the importance of this before in my writing. It has always been about me, the writer. Not only this, but I have learned much more about multimedia than I ever thought that I would as a Biology major. I have created a working website as well a video, two things that I never would have expected at the beginning of this semester. Finally and much to my surprise in a technical writing course, my skills as a public speaker have improved greatly because of the daily class discussions and presentations that we did. This class has been a great learning experience because of the practical, real-world skills that I take with me from it.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Tobacco and Death (Dombrowski) pg.152-233
Tobacco and Death: When is a cause not a cause?
Why do the deadly effects of the Challenger outrage us more than the deadly effects of smoking?
1. The effect of the Challenger was immediate, certain, and dealt with individuals. The effects of smoking are seen more in probabilities and populations, but we forget that we are all a part of the population.
2. The tobacco industry has used media and information to cloud the public and even present the idea that their is a "debate" over whether smoking actually causes cancer.
*The tobacco industry has taken on a "sophists" appeal from the beginning: using rhetoric to persuade their audience, not to what is right, but simply to get what they want at all costs.
*The industry set out in the early 50's to find any doctor, scientist, lawyer, or writer to defend their cause. They formed the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) to do this.
*In writings such as that on pg. 159, the industry dances in circles about what the meaning of "cause" is. They argue that many things could have led to lung cancer.
*The funny thing is that very very few of these people were considered credible and respected, but just because there was a voice of opposition, there was considered a debate. The sophists have an insistence that every topic has two sides worth of argument, even it it was just for the sake of argument and self-interest.
*In the case of the Challenger, although the engineers did not speak up and the managers did not listen, we can honestly say that they were not really expecting someone to die because of their decisions. The reality of the consequences was not as "real" to them. In the case of the tobacco industry, though, they are very aware of the consequences of their unethical decisions, no matter how much they argue their case.
*The industry continues to insist on the most impossible standards of causation simply for their own self-interest.
*The industry will not identify even a few legitimate scientists who will argue on the issue of causation.
*The industry has financial and legal resources that far exceed their opponents simply because they are so profitable. The claimants either don't have enough money, die to early to fight the long court process, or reach out-of-court settlements because the industry has so much money to pay them off.
*It is difficult for claimants to use the research of the industry against them because they made sure to write their documents in such ways that the public could not understand them. Also, they did many documents in the presence of a lawyer in order to keep them from opposing sides through the lawyer-client privilege.
1950s
*The American Cancer Society began to make great research strides. The tobacco industry realized that its public relations may be going down, so it launched an effort because of their concern with their PUBLIC RELATIONS not their concern for health.
*The aim was to complicate the matter generally and to divert attention from smoking to other causes of cancer and disease.
Released "A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers" in 1954:
1. Causation and proof have not been demonstrated.
2. Shows the industry's disdain for all scientific, medical and technical research accepted by nearly all professionals outside the industry.
3. It attempts to give the appearance of scientific honesty and rigor.
1960s
*The surgeon general appointed an advisory committee to investigate the effects of smoking.
*Against a huge majority of opposition, the industry was forced to keep calling on the same scientists to defend their position because they could no longer find new scientists to back the cause.
*The TIRC was seen as not credible because they could not provide information that was not biased because their scientists were looking were a specific outcome of the research.
1970s
*The industry became interested in filtered cigarettes as a "healthier" solution.
*The public had become concerned with the effects of second-hand smoke as well.
*The industry finally "acknowledges" but they are acknowledging the existence of a controversy, not knowledge or facts.
*The information against smoking became so prevalent that the industry shut down some of its research centers to prevent their own research from being used against them.
1980s
*Lawyers for the industry began to control the information leak more tightly.
*Dr. Gary Huber, a longtime smoking researcher, became a whistle blower in 1998 about the industry's attempts to control each scientist's work by a "lawyer" or rather a "keeper".
1990s
*The single major tobacco company, the Leggett Group, finally admitted that nicotine is addictive.
*Many law suits and legislative actions took place.
A SINGLE WORD
Because the CEOS use the words "I believe that nicotine is not addictive" the charges against them for perjury were dropped because it is highly difficult to prosecute someone over their beliefs. It is ironic that these are the same CEOs who sell a product that explicitly reads, "Smoking causes cancer."
Graphical Images
*Joe Camel's image has charm, silliness, and even innocence, which masks the realities of the product.
*The images of the tobacco industry are "antitechnical" in response to the technical, matter-of-fact opponents. The images seem carefree and have a less serious appeal.
*Realizing that the younger generation must be hooked in order to ensure prolonged business, the industry even made the camel look more youthful and cartoon-like.
*The Marlboro Man is another example. The men seem so strong and rugged, when in actuality their insides are deteriorating.
Ethical Appraisal
*Aristotle would disagree with this "debate" completely because he believed there are matters not suitable for rhetorical debate, those in which truth is already apparent.
*Kant would disagree with the tobacco industry completely because he believed that acting ethically was a matter of acting in which your actions could become a universal principle applying similarly to everyone. The industry has tried to completely undermined those who are working for the common good. They are self-seeking.
*Utilitarian perspective weighs costs and benefits and therefore the question becomes "for whom?" For the public, it is obvious that the costs of smoking far out weigh the benefits. For the industry, they have always outweighed their personal benefits over the costs.
*Feminists are completely against the industry and use this as an another example of out science has become corrupt and simply an enterprise.
*Ethics of care are completely against the industry because the proponents have no care for the customers; they are only looking to their self-interests.
Star Wars: Hope vs. Reality
*Star Wars nuclear missile defense system is short for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) set up by Ronald Reagan to keep the country safe from nuclear weapons.
*It presented a hope against nuclear annihilation that actually had not be grounded in reality.
*Although not realistic, these claims were not necessarily unethical at the core. However, they had a lot of influence on the public and therefore have been highly questioned.
*The question is not whether nuclear weapons are dangerous. The question is whether the goals and appeals released through the Star Wars project were misleading due to the fact that they were technically unrealistic.
*The Fletcher Report was the report that outlined the goals and ways of obtaining the goals of Star Wars.
*Technological organizations such as the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) released information from the very beginning stating their concerns for the reality of SDI and its software.
*The congressional hearings show that, "Seemingly definite technical information can be derived from speculation and wishes and from backward reasoning that might not hold up under scrutiny."
*On one hand, scientific optimism is what drives progression.
*Proponents of SDI played on emotions of the audience through moral, political, ideological statements about safety and defense, but they did not address the feasibility of the cause.
*Opponents emphasized the infeasibility of the plan and the overemphasis of the president on "technical optimism."
*David Parnas is the father of software engineering and resigned from his position because he was against the Fletcher plan. He released an easy-to-understand, clear, technical response. It is educated and articulated but in words that anyone could understand. It takes a clear ethical stance against the attempts for SDI.
*He says that the public was misled about the feasibility of SDI as well as the amount of money spent on it. He objects to the problems with SDI not military research in general. He says that there is no software that could possibly be developed along the lines of SDI that would be "trustworthy".
Star Wars Boycott Pledge
*Pledge started at Cornell and University of Illinois not to accept funding for Star Wars by scientists, engineers, professionals. It was very technical but clear.
*According to Aristotle's view, it would be hard to say whether or not the claims made by the supporters of SDI were virtuous. On the surface they are seemingly virtuous, but they mask the realistic feasibility of the program.
*According to Kant, the supporters were most likely not ethical if they presented hope for this program without presenting the facts of feasibility because this is not how most people would want to be treated. They would not want this masking to become an universal principle.
*From the Utilitarianism perspective it could be viewed either way according to what is a greater cost: national defense or enormous sum of money for a seemingly infeasible goal.
*Feminist would want to back an effort to end violence thus could support ending the efforts specifically of the Soviet Union. However, the efforts to quiet the dissenting voices is completely against feminists views.
*Ethics of care proponents would insists on a caring concern American people but not an offensive attack through weapons. They might insist on putting the money to more social uses, such as education and health care.
Why do the deadly effects of the Challenger outrage us more than the deadly effects of smoking?
1. The effect of the Challenger was immediate, certain, and dealt with individuals. The effects of smoking are seen more in probabilities and populations, but we forget that we are all a part of the population.
2. The tobacco industry has used media and information to cloud the public and even present the idea that their is a "debate" over whether smoking actually causes cancer.
*The tobacco industry has taken on a "sophists" appeal from the beginning: using rhetoric to persuade their audience, not to what is right, but simply to get what they want at all costs.
*The industry set out in the early 50's to find any doctor, scientist, lawyer, or writer to defend their cause. They formed the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) to do this.
*In writings such as that on pg. 159, the industry dances in circles about what the meaning of "cause" is. They argue that many things could have led to lung cancer.
*The funny thing is that very very few of these people were considered credible and respected, but just because there was a voice of opposition, there was considered a debate. The sophists have an insistence that every topic has two sides worth of argument, even it it was just for the sake of argument and self-interest.
*In the case of the Challenger, although the engineers did not speak up and the managers did not listen, we can honestly say that they were not really expecting someone to die because of their decisions. The reality of the consequences was not as "real" to them. In the case of the tobacco industry, though, they are very aware of the consequences of their unethical decisions, no matter how much they argue their case.
*The industry continues to insist on the most impossible standards of causation simply for their own self-interest.
*The industry will not identify even a few legitimate scientists who will argue on the issue of causation.
*The industry has financial and legal resources that far exceed their opponents simply because they are so profitable. The claimants either don't have enough money, die to early to fight the long court process, or reach out-of-court settlements because the industry has so much money to pay them off.
*It is difficult for claimants to use the research of the industry against them because they made sure to write their documents in such ways that the public could not understand them. Also, they did many documents in the presence of a lawyer in order to keep them from opposing sides through the lawyer-client privilege.
1950s
*The American Cancer Society began to make great research strides. The tobacco industry realized that its public relations may be going down, so it launched an effort because of their concern with their PUBLIC RELATIONS not their concern for health.
*The aim was to complicate the matter generally and to divert attention from smoking to other causes of cancer and disease.
Released "A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers" in 1954:
1. Causation and proof have not been demonstrated.
2. Shows the industry's disdain for all scientific, medical and technical research accepted by nearly all professionals outside the industry.
3. It attempts to give the appearance of scientific honesty and rigor.
1960s
*The surgeon general appointed an advisory committee to investigate the effects of smoking.
*Against a huge majority of opposition, the industry was forced to keep calling on the same scientists to defend their position because they could no longer find new scientists to back the cause.
*The TIRC was seen as not credible because they could not provide information that was not biased because their scientists were looking were a specific outcome of the research.
1970s
*The industry became interested in filtered cigarettes as a "healthier" solution.
*The public had become concerned with the effects of second-hand smoke as well.
*The industry finally "acknowledges" but they are acknowledging the existence of a controversy, not knowledge or facts.
*The information against smoking became so prevalent that the industry shut down some of its research centers to prevent their own research from being used against them.
1980s
*Lawyers for the industry began to control the information leak more tightly.
*Dr. Gary Huber, a longtime smoking researcher, became a whistle blower in 1998 about the industry's attempts to control each scientist's work by a "lawyer" or rather a "keeper".
1990s
*The single major tobacco company, the Leggett Group, finally admitted that nicotine is addictive.
*Many law suits and legislative actions took place.
A SINGLE WORD
Because the CEOS use the words "I believe that nicotine is not addictive" the charges against them for perjury were dropped because it is highly difficult to prosecute someone over their beliefs. It is ironic that these are the same CEOs who sell a product that explicitly reads, "Smoking causes cancer."
Graphical Images
*Joe Camel's image has charm, silliness, and even innocence, which masks the realities of the product.
*The images of the tobacco industry are "antitechnical" in response to the technical, matter-of-fact opponents. The images seem carefree and have a less serious appeal.
*Realizing that the younger generation must be hooked in order to ensure prolonged business, the industry even made the camel look more youthful and cartoon-like.
*The Marlboro Man is another example. The men seem so strong and rugged, when in actuality their insides are deteriorating.
Ethical Appraisal
*Aristotle would disagree with this "debate" completely because he believed there are matters not suitable for rhetorical debate, those in which truth is already apparent.
*Kant would disagree with the tobacco industry completely because he believed that acting ethically was a matter of acting in which your actions could become a universal principle applying similarly to everyone. The industry has tried to completely undermined those who are working for the common good. They are self-seeking.
*Utilitarian perspective weighs costs and benefits and therefore the question becomes "for whom?" For the public, it is obvious that the costs of smoking far out weigh the benefits. For the industry, they have always outweighed their personal benefits over the costs.
*Feminists are completely against the industry and use this as an another example of out science has become corrupt and simply an enterprise.
*Ethics of care are completely against the industry because the proponents have no care for the customers; they are only looking to their self-interests.
Star Wars: Hope vs. Reality
*Star Wars nuclear missile defense system is short for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) set up by Ronald Reagan to keep the country safe from nuclear weapons.
*It presented a hope against nuclear annihilation that actually had not be grounded in reality.
*Although not realistic, these claims were not necessarily unethical at the core. However, they had a lot of influence on the public and therefore have been highly questioned.
*The question is not whether nuclear weapons are dangerous. The question is whether the goals and appeals released through the Star Wars project were misleading due to the fact that they were technically unrealistic.
*The Fletcher Report was the report that outlined the goals and ways of obtaining the goals of Star Wars.
*Technological organizations such as the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) released information from the very beginning stating their concerns for the reality of SDI and its software.
*The congressional hearings show that, "Seemingly definite technical information can be derived from speculation and wishes and from backward reasoning that might not hold up under scrutiny."
*On one hand, scientific optimism is what drives progression.
*Proponents of SDI played on emotions of the audience through moral, political, ideological statements about safety and defense, but they did not address the feasibility of the cause.
*Opponents emphasized the infeasibility of the plan and the overemphasis of the president on "technical optimism."
*David Parnas is the father of software engineering and resigned from his position because he was against the Fletcher plan. He released an easy-to-understand, clear, technical response. It is educated and articulated but in words that anyone could understand. It takes a clear ethical stance against the attempts for SDI.
*He says that the public was misled about the feasibility of SDI as well as the amount of money spent on it. He objects to the problems with SDI not military research in general. He says that there is no software that could possibly be developed along the lines of SDI that would be "trustworthy".
Star Wars Boycott Pledge
*Pledge started at Cornell and University of Illinois not to accept funding for Star Wars by scientists, engineers, professionals. It was very technical but clear.
*According to Aristotle's view, it would be hard to say whether or not the claims made by the supporters of SDI were virtuous. On the surface they are seemingly virtuous, but they mask the realistic feasibility of the program.
*According to Kant, the supporters were most likely not ethical if they presented hope for this program without presenting the facts of feasibility because this is not how most people would want to be treated. They would not want this masking to become an universal principle.
*From the Utilitarianism perspective it could be viewed either way according to what is a greater cost: national defense or enormous sum of money for a seemingly infeasible goal.
*Feminist would want to back an effort to end violence thus could support ending the efforts specifically of the Soviet Union. However, the efforts to quiet the dissenting voices is completely against feminists views.
*Ethics of care proponents would insists on a caring concern American people but not an offensive attack through weapons. They might insist on putting the money to more social uses, such as education and health care.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Ethics (Harty) pg. 347-381
Communication Failures Contributing to Challenger Accident (Winsor)
The two majors issues with the Challenger:
1. Managers and engineers viewed the same facts from different perspectives. This is all about the discrepancy in interpretation. Lund, who had strongly recommended delayed launch was asked to take off his "engineering hat" and put on a "management hat."
2. The general difficulty in receiving or sending bad news, especially to a superior or outsider. The information moved slowly from engineers to managers and between the three organizations involved: NASA, Marshall Space Center and MTI. ex. the tone of Boisjoly's letter within MTI on pg. 355 vs. the tone Russell's letter to Marshall on pg. 356
*Communication is not just shared information: it is shared interpretation.
*Open communication with superiors as well as outsiders cannot be developed short notice or when emergencies arise.
*Contractors should be aware that be full disclosure is unlikely but should make every attempt to reach that point.
*Managers and engineers should be aware that they are most likely presenting information in more positive light than what is actually true.
How to Lie with Statistics (Huff)
The Sample with the Built-In Bias: The sample must be representative or truly random in order for the statistics to be accurate. "No statistical information can rise above the quality of the sample it is based on."
The truncated, gee-wiz, graph: cut off the bottom of the graph.
The souped-up graph: change the proportion between the ordinate and the abiscca. Make line look much more exaggerated.
The well-chosen average: Mean vs. Median ex. Income: "You can be sure that when an income average is given in the form of a mean, nearly everybody has less than that."
The insignificant difference or the elusive error: You cannot make a valid comparison between two figures unless you know deviations. And unless the difference is many times greater than the error, you only can guess which is actually greater.
The one-dimensional figure: ex. money bag symbol vs. simple bars in bar graph on pg. 366
The ever-impressive decimal: Add a decimal to a statistic and it automatically sounds more accurate.
The semi attached figure: Use statistics to prove something non-related. Ex. that one type of medicine has been proven to kill thousands of germs, but it may not kill the one that it is intended to kill.
The unwarranted assumption, or post hoc rides again: cause and effect relationships in statistics can be completely inaccurate especially if you don't even know what the cause and the effect are ex. college students and smoking
Determining the Ethics of Style (Jones)
Ethics- the study of right and wrong; the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation; set of moral principles or values; a guiding philosophy
We will face many questions in our careers regarding ethics:
Are knowing omitting any essential information?
If you are exaggerating a product's features in marketing, are you lying?
If your poor instructions cause injury to someone, are you morally responsible?
See the Ten Commandments for Computer Ethics by the computer ethics institute on pg. 370 and 371
Legal and Ethical Issues in Editing (Rude)
Intellectual Property
Copyright: The US Copyright Act of 1976 protects authors of "original works of authorship" whether or not the works are published. Registration with the Copyright Office gives maximum legal protection but is not needed.
Permissions and "Fair Use"
The permission from the writer should be obtained in written form and include:
1. Title, author, and edition of the materials to be reprinted
2. Exact material to be used: include page numbers and photocopy
3. How it will be used; the nature of the document
Copyright and online publication
Most information is fair use as long as cited simply because it is on the WWW. However, distributing someone else's information to make money is unethical.
Trademarks, Patents and Trade Secrets
Trademarks- brand names, phrases, graphics, logos that identify products
Patents- protect inventions in the way that copyright protects expressions
Trade secrets- ex. illegal to hire someone to find out about their previous employer
Product Safety and Liability
Write clear and precise instructions. Hazards and risks must be posted.
Libel, Fraud, and Misrepresentation
libel- defamatory statement without basis in fact that shames or lowers the public reputation of an identifiable person.
Fraud and misrepresentation- deceive the public. ex. in labeling products
The two majors issues with the Challenger:
1. Managers and engineers viewed the same facts from different perspectives. This is all about the discrepancy in interpretation. Lund, who had strongly recommended delayed launch was asked to take off his "engineering hat" and put on a "management hat."
2. The general difficulty in receiving or sending bad news, especially to a superior or outsider. The information moved slowly from engineers to managers and between the three organizations involved: NASA, Marshall Space Center and MTI. ex. the tone of Boisjoly's letter within MTI on pg. 355 vs. the tone Russell's letter to Marshall on pg. 356
*Communication is not just shared information: it is shared interpretation.
*Open communication with superiors as well as outsiders cannot be developed short notice or when emergencies arise.
*Contractors should be aware that be full disclosure is unlikely but should make every attempt to reach that point.
*Managers and engineers should be aware that they are most likely presenting information in more positive light than what is actually true.
How to Lie with Statistics (Huff)
The Sample with the Built-In Bias: The sample must be representative or truly random in order for the statistics to be accurate. "No statistical information can rise above the quality of the sample it is based on."
The truncated, gee-wiz, graph: cut off the bottom of the graph.
The souped-up graph: change the proportion between the ordinate and the abiscca. Make line look much more exaggerated.
The well-chosen average: Mean vs. Median ex. Income: "You can be sure that when an income average is given in the form of a mean, nearly everybody has less than that."
The insignificant difference or the elusive error: You cannot make a valid comparison between two figures unless you know deviations. And unless the difference is many times greater than the error, you only can guess which is actually greater.
The one-dimensional figure: ex. money bag symbol vs. simple bars in bar graph on pg. 366
The ever-impressive decimal: Add a decimal to a statistic and it automatically sounds more accurate.
The semi attached figure: Use statistics to prove something non-related. Ex. that one type of medicine has been proven to kill thousands of germs, but it may not kill the one that it is intended to kill.
The unwarranted assumption, or post hoc rides again: cause and effect relationships in statistics can be completely inaccurate especially if you don't even know what the cause and the effect are ex. college students and smoking
Determining the Ethics of Style (Jones)
Ethics- the study of right and wrong; the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation; set of moral principles or values; a guiding philosophy
We will face many questions in our careers regarding ethics:
Are knowing omitting any essential information?
If you are exaggerating a product's features in marketing, are you lying?
If your poor instructions cause injury to someone, are you morally responsible?
See the Ten Commandments for Computer Ethics by the computer ethics institute on pg. 370 and 371
Legal and Ethical Issues in Editing (Rude)
Intellectual Property
Copyright: The US Copyright Act of 1976 protects authors of "original works of authorship" whether or not the works are published. Registration with the Copyright Office gives maximum legal protection but is not needed.
Permissions and "Fair Use"
The permission from the writer should be obtained in written form and include:
1. Title, author, and edition of the materials to be reprinted
2. Exact material to be used: include page numbers and photocopy
3. How it will be used; the nature of the document
Copyright and online publication
Most information is fair use as long as cited simply because it is on the WWW. However, distributing someone else's information to make money is unethical.
Trademarks, Patents and Trade Secrets
Trademarks- brand names, phrases, graphics, logos that identify products
Patents- protect inventions in the way that copyright protects expressions
Trade secrets- ex. illegal to hire someone to find out about their previous employer
Product Safety and Liability
Write clear and precise instructions. Hazards and risks must be posted.
Libel, Fraud, and Misrepresentation
libel- defamatory statement without basis in fact that shames or lowers the public reputation of an identifiable person.
Fraud and misrepresentation- deceive the public. ex. in labeling products
Monday, October 27, 2008
Resumes (Harty) pgs. 275-306
*There is no ONE WAY to write a resume or cover letter. The templates should only be used as a guide. You should adjust your resume according to the job.
*Recruiting manager will be the toughest audience because they hear everything, have seen it all, and they all differ.
*In studies conducted, nearly all managers say that they looked at the appearance of the cover letter and application first and just scanning the following:
*written and oral communication skills
*computer skills
*interpersonal skills
*self-reliance and initiative, as demonstrated by the ability to work alone
*a sense of what the world of work demands in terms of dead lines
*specific skills in at least one business or technical area
*Put yourself in the employer’s position and talk to them about their needs rather than your wants.
*A resume is a good way to outline facts, but a cover letter is beneficial because prose can develop analogies that cannot be explained in short phrases.
*Edit, edit, edit. Take out any unnecessary words. Pg. 283
A good pattern to use (but not limited to this):
1. The first paragraph should state who the write is and what he/she wants.
2. The second paragraph, sometime the third, indicates why the writer wrote to the employer and mentions areas f mutual interests, special talents that night be of interest to the employers, or other factors relating to qualifications that could be better described in a letter than in a resume.
3. A final paragraph that suggests a course of action.
*Hard work and attention to detail make for a good letter.
*Don't say that you are willing to learn if someone can teach you. It goes without saying that there will be on-the-job training. You don't need to include that in your resume/cover letter.
*Don’t delegate the job of letter writing. It will sound fake.
*Sometimes a resume is not as beneficial as a cover letter, but still make one because it will help you outline the facts. The value of a resume is frequently more in its preparation than in its use.
*Use double-spacing to emphasize important things and use single-spacing to cut down on emphasizing the less important items or items that you might not want to highlight.
*Beware of misleading headlines. When you use a headline, think about what you are preparing the reader to anticipate. You don’t want to let them down with the following information.
*Ask yourself, “What words will catch the reader’s eye? What words will put the reader off?”
*Prepare your resume for a specific job. The best way to do this is to go through the job description and step by step develop your letter/resume from this.
*The functional resume allows you to develop a different message for each job or type of job you wish to apply for. Different functions can be highlighted, depending on what the job requires, and your specific experiences rearranged under different headings. Put the most relevant information at the top, not by date.
*A curriculum vitae (CV), literally, “course of life” in Latin, is a resume of academic positions. It does not need statement of goals or interest. Unlike the usual resume that focuses on the employer’s needs rather than merit, a CV should heavily highlight the applicant’s merit because faculty is often looking for the prestige that the applicant can bring to the department more so than their teaching ability, etc.
*Suggest using “career interest” rather than “job objective.”
*Try to keep it to one page. Take out any extra fluff and remember that the employer has very little time to scan your resume. Respect their time. However, do not make the resume fit on one page just for the sake of following a rule. An outline needs white space to make it easy to read.
*Get friends, especially ones in the occupation that you are applying for, to critique your resume.
*Get a friend to look at your resume from a few feet away and ask for comments on its appearance.
*Make sure the primary question of the person doing the critique is “What message do I get from this?”
*Recruiting manager will be the toughest audience because they hear everything, have seen it all, and they all differ.
*In studies conducted, nearly all managers say that they looked at the appearance of the cover letter and application first and just scanning the following:
*written and oral communication skills
*computer skills
*interpersonal skills
*self-reliance and initiative, as demonstrated by the ability to work alone
*a sense of what the world of work demands in terms of dead lines
*specific skills in at least one business or technical area
*Put yourself in the employer’s position and talk to them about their needs rather than your wants.
*A resume is a good way to outline facts, but a cover letter is beneficial because prose can develop analogies that cannot be explained in short phrases.
*Edit, edit, edit. Take out any unnecessary words. Pg. 283
A good pattern to use (but not limited to this):
1. The first paragraph should state who the write is and what he/she wants.
2. The second paragraph, sometime the third, indicates why the writer wrote to the employer and mentions areas f mutual interests, special talents that night be of interest to the employers, or other factors relating to qualifications that could be better described in a letter than in a resume.
3. A final paragraph that suggests a course of action.
*Hard work and attention to detail make for a good letter.
*Don't say that you are willing to learn if someone can teach you. It goes without saying that there will be on-the-job training. You don't need to include that in your resume/cover letter.
*Don’t delegate the job of letter writing. It will sound fake.
*Sometimes a resume is not as beneficial as a cover letter, but still make one because it will help you outline the facts. The value of a resume is frequently more in its preparation than in its use.
*Use double-spacing to emphasize important things and use single-spacing to cut down on emphasizing the less important items or items that you might not want to highlight.
*Beware of misleading headlines. When you use a headline, think about what you are preparing the reader to anticipate. You don’t want to let them down with the following information.
*Ask yourself, “What words will catch the reader’s eye? What words will put the reader off?”
*Prepare your resume for a specific job. The best way to do this is to go through the job description and step by step develop your letter/resume from this.
*The functional resume allows you to develop a different message for each job or type of job you wish to apply for. Different functions can be highlighted, depending on what the job requires, and your specific experiences rearranged under different headings. Put the most relevant information at the top, not by date.
*A curriculum vitae (CV), literally, “course of life” in Latin, is a resume of academic positions. It does not need statement of goals or interest. Unlike the usual resume that focuses on the employer’s needs rather than merit, a CV should heavily highlight the applicant’s merit because faculty is often looking for the prestige that the applicant can bring to the department more so than their teaching ability, etc.
*Suggest using “career interest” rather than “job objective.”
*Try to keep it to one page. Take out any extra fluff and remember that the employer has very little time to scan your resume. Respect their time. However, do not make the resume fit on one page just for the sake of following a rule. An outline needs white space to make it easy to read.
*Get friends, especially ones in the occupation that you are applying for, to critique your resume.
*Get a friend to look at your resume from a few feet away and ask for comments on its appearance.
*Make sure the primary question of the person doing the critique is “What message do I get from this?”
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Project Multimedia Component
For the multimedia component of our project we are going to film a video of the top 5 rated restaurants of our restaurant database. We will go around to each of the five restaurants and take brief segments of the restaurants along with quotes of customers and employees. The goal is to make the website more interactive as well as make the restaurants more personal for the audience. It will also be a tool to highlight the top-rated restaurants.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Ethics (Dombrowski) pgs. 81-121
Nazi Records: The Origen and Use of Information
*genocide was coined after this horrible time of massive killing in Nazi Germany
*When technical objectivity is emphasized, sometimes ethics are compromised.
*Therefore, technical documents are not as ethically neutral as you might think.
*In the case of the Nazi regime, “science” was not actually science, but a means to obtain an end result: racial supremacy.
*When determining whether a document is ethical, you must consider not only the content, but also how and from where the information was obtained.
Controversy in the Present
*Due to the unethical “scientific” or pseudoresearch of the Nazi’s, scientific research in Europe and America is scrutinized much more closely by the government and objective panels.
*Recently, the Israelis have protested that some universities in Germany are using human organs from the Nazi prison camps for research. They protest because these people did not have any informed consent or choice about this, not to mention there was no reason for their execution, and therefore it is unethical to use them.
*The New England Journal of Medicine took a strong stance against using the hypothermia research of the Nazis even though there could be possible medical implications because the research was unscientific, gathered by unsound methods.
*In Journal of American Medical Association Jeremiah Barondess stated that the there was a huge reversal that happened in the Nazi regime, from medicine as healing to medicine as killing. It became a means to justify and carry out mass genocide rather than aid in helping sustain life.
Values in Nazi Medical Science
*Physicians held a lot of power in the Nazi regime. Reasons for this: the unemployment of medical school graduates in bad economy and the need for the regime to “legitimize” its foul practices.
*Facts should be seen as things that can be severely altered by social circumstances and are not completely certain.
*Masked language become prominent:
*Physicians were seen as killing with reason when the people were seen as “already dead” or in other words “not worthy of life”
* “Euthanasia” is known as mercy killing but is suppose to be by the knowing consent of the person. The Nazi’s termed their killing as “Euthanasia” but their people had no consent, no choice.
* “Special treatment” is usually very strong treatment used in extreme cases with the purpose of still helping the person. The Nazi’s used this for mass killing.
Nazi Antiscience
*Some say that the “science” of the Nazi’s was indeed science and shows how its objectivity is inhumane and impersonal and the enemy of human values.
*Others argue that what the Nazi’s were doing was not at all science, but the exact opposite. They opposed traditional science and its objectivity, its formal logic, its emotional neutrality in order to bring about their desired end result.
Research in the United States
*There are strict standards that not only must the information of research be accurate but the means by which it was obtained must meet specific guidelines. If not, the evidence is inadmissible, no matter how “beneficial” it could be to society.
*An example if the Tuskegee syphilis experiment in the 1920s where only African American patients were treated with placebos and effective drugs.
*Another instance is the research of the effects of radiation on humans by the utilization of unknowing humans.
*Another point of controversy is the utilization of animals in research.
Nazi Technical Memorandum
*science has become the goal, the end, itself instead of a means by which to obtain a goal
*expediency and efficiency is a top priority, some say it even surpasses the content of the research being done and the goal of which the technology is being used for
*the Just memorandum is full of masked language, ellipses (the glaring absence of key words), and technical purpose
-disguises the true subject and meaning of the document
-takes away any emotions that could be associated with the subject
-for instance there was a ellipsis of the subject because people are never mentioned.
-people are referred to as "subjects" or "cargo" but never people
-the purpose is solely technical and has no care for people
*the Dr. Becker excerpt is all about the the soldiers chosen to clean the death vans
-the soldiers are treated with care in the document but the people being killed were treated as nothing
*circular self justification of Nazi Germany- "What we can do, we should do, largely because we can do it."
-There is no room for critisism.
-The genetic engineering industry has taken this stance on cloning.
*in the Hirt document the purpose is to secure the skulls of Jews
-once again completely technical and scientific with no regards to ethics.
-uses term "induced death" instead of cold blooded murder
*Report on Experiments Concerning X-Ray Castration is a highly technical document that is so technical that is "masks" the true purpose of the technology
Graphical Images
*Social Darwinism developed in the late 1800s and it was used by the Nazi's to justify that the Aryan race was the dominant race and therefore only they should survive because they were the fittest
*The Nuremburg Race Laws required that one's race be clearly identified and used the chart (pg.110) to clearly establish who was Aryan
*tons of overlap in science and politics
*Facial features were also measured to determine the race (pg. 111)
Aristotle
*would not have agreed with Nazi Germany because ethics are based on honesty, virtue, fairness, compassion
*on the question of using technical information obtained from that time, he would say use it
Kant
*assumes that all people are equal and you should treat everyone the way that you want to be treated so he would not approve of the Nazi Germany
*on the question of using the technical information, he could go either way. On one hand, some would benefit from it, but on the other hand families of victims would not benefit
Utilitarianism
*did not agree with racial differences in worth
*would say to use the technical information because it would benefit the most people
Feminist and Ethics of Care
*Authoritarianism is the opposite of feminist beliefs so they would not at all agree with Nazi Germany
*and they were so uncaring towards their victims which is completely opposite to the ethics of care
*on the question of using the technical information, if it could care for the people of today, then they would say use it
*genocide was coined after this horrible time of massive killing in Nazi Germany
*When technical objectivity is emphasized, sometimes ethics are compromised.
*Therefore, technical documents are not as ethically neutral as you might think.
*In the case of the Nazi regime, “science” was not actually science, but a means to obtain an end result: racial supremacy.
*When determining whether a document is ethical, you must consider not only the content, but also how and from where the information was obtained.
Controversy in the Present
*Due to the unethical “scientific” or pseudoresearch of the Nazi’s, scientific research in Europe and America is scrutinized much more closely by the government and objective panels.
*Recently, the Israelis have protested that some universities in Germany are using human organs from the Nazi prison camps for research. They protest because these people did not have any informed consent or choice about this, not to mention there was no reason for their execution, and therefore it is unethical to use them.
*The New England Journal of Medicine took a strong stance against using the hypothermia research of the Nazis even though there could be possible medical implications because the research was unscientific, gathered by unsound methods.
*In Journal of American Medical Association Jeremiah Barondess stated that the there was a huge reversal that happened in the Nazi regime, from medicine as healing to medicine as killing. It became a means to justify and carry out mass genocide rather than aid in helping sustain life.
Values in Nazi Medical Science
*Physicians held a lot of power in the Nazi regime. Reasons for this: the unemployment of medical school graduates in bad economy and the need for the regime to “legitimize” its foul practices.
*Facts should be seen as things that can be severely altered by social circumstances and are not completely certain.
*Masked language become prominent:
*Physicians were seen as killing with reason when the people were seen as “already dead” or in other words “not worthy of life”
* “Euthanasia” is known as mercy killing but is suppose to be by the knowing consent of the person. The Nazi’s termed their killing as “Euthanasia” but their people had no consent, no choice.
* “Special treatment” is usually very strong treatment used in extreme cases with the purpose of still helping the person. The Nazi’s used this for mass killing.
Nazi Antiscience
*Some say that the “science” of the Nazi’s was indeed science and shows how its objectivity is inhumane and impersonal and the enemy of human values.
*Others argue that what the Nazi’s were doing was not at all science, but the exact opposite. They opposed traditional science and its objectivity, its formal logic, its emotional neutrality in order to bring about their desired end result.
Research in the United States
*There are strict standards that not only must the information of research be accurate but the means by which it was obtained must meet specific guidelines. If not, the evidence is inadmissible, no matter how “beneficial” it could be to society.
*An example if the Tuskegee syphilis experiment in the 1920s where only African American patients were treated with placebos and effective drugs.
*Another instance is the research of the effects of radiation on humans by the utilization of unknowing humans.
*Another point of controversy is the utilization of animals in research.
Nazi Technical Memorandum
*science has become the goal, the end, itself instead of a means by which to obtain a goal
*expediency and efficiency is a top priority, some say it even surpasses the content of the research being done and the goal of which the technology is being used for
*the Just memorandum is full of masked language, ellipses (the glaring absence of key words), and technical purpose
-disguises the true subject and meaning of the document
-takes away any emotions that could be associated with the subject
-for instance there was a ellipsis of the subject because people are never mentioned.
-people are referred to as "subjects" or "cargo" but never people
-the purpose is solely technical and has no care for people
*the Dr. Becker excerpt is all about the the soldiers chosen to clean the death vans
-the soldiers are treated with care in the document but the people being killed were treated as nothing
*circular self justification of Nazi Germany- "What we can do, we should do, largely because we can do it."
-There is no room for critisism.
-The genetic engineering industry has taken this stance on cloning.
*in the Hirt document the purpose is to secure the skulls of Jews
-once again completely technical and scientific with no regards to ethics.
-uses term "induced death" instead of cold blooded murder
*Report on Experiments Concerning X-Ray Castration is a highly technical document that is so technical that is "masks" the true purpose of the technology
Graphical Images
*Social Darwinism developed in the late 1800s and it was used by the Nazi's to justify that the Aryan race was the dominant race and therefore only they should survive because they were the fittest
*The Nuremburg Race Laws required that one's race be clearly identified and used the chart (pg.110) to clearly establish who was Aryan
*tons of overlap in science and politics
*Facial features were also measured to determine the race (pg. 111)
Aristotle
*would not have agreed with Nazi Germany because ethics are based on honesty, virtue, fairness, compassion
*on the question of using technical information obtained from that time, he would say use it
Kant
*assumes that all people are equal and you should treat everyone the way that you want to be treated so he would not approve of the Nazi Germany
*on the question of using the technical information, he could go either way. On one hand, some would benefit from it, but on the other hand families of victims would not benefit
Utilitarianism
*did not agree with racial differences in worth
*would say to use the technical information because it would benefit the most people
Feminist and Ethics of Care
*Authoritarianism is the opposite of feminist beliefs so they would not at all agree with Nazi Germany
*and they were so uncaring towards their victims which is completely opposite to the ethics of care
*on the question of using the technical information, if it could care for the people of today, then they would say use it
Friday, October 10, 2008
The Ethics in Tradition (Dombrowski) pg. 38-81
Arisotle
-living by the "right thing to do"
-You are responsible for your own character, not the circumstances.
-Ethical behavior is reasoned behavior, not out of instinct. It is thought about for a long time, the options are weighed, and a decision is reached out of reason. It is practical in all senses.
-Goodness is an inherent quality in human nature.
-You can't have ethics if you don't have a choice. Ex. If you kill a person, but don't have a choice, then is it an ethical decision?
Kant
-living by deontology, an ethical system empahsizing obligation or duty to do the right thing
-self-interest, material gain, and greatest good for the greatest number are not important
-there is moral reason that surpasses our senses and "moral feelings"
-his fundamental principle: catergorical imperative "Act in such a way that, if you had your way, the principle guiding your actions would become universally binding law that everyone must act inaccordance with."
-Think of what others would do in your situation; that tells you what Kant would do.
-The strongest view on how society should be organized was collectivism, not individualism. This is probably why I tend to disagree with it because we are more individualistic.
-Decisions should never be self-serving or egocentric but thinking of everyone.
Utilitarianism
-emphasizes usefulness
-th emoral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility.
-cost-benefit analysis usually plays a role
-weigh ethical judgements on the basis of accomplishing the greatest good for the greatest number of people ex. killing rats in a laboratory in order to test a drug and helps millions of sick
-its rise corresponded with rise of science and modern technological industrialism. How can this principle be "corrupted" in the use of advertising?
-the "calculus" of ethics. Why?
-ex. Federal Aviation Administration decided not to require fire safety devices in airplanes because they are so expensive. Of the FDA must decide if the benefits outweigh the costs in new drugs.
-ex. Saving Private Ryan, the cost is losing the eight soldier but the greater benefit is proving that the army is not heartless and helping the mother.
Feminist and Care Perspectives
-Modernism deals with rationalism, individualism, logical analytic thinking, the advancement of science and and technology, and progress.
-Postmodernism challenges all of this and challenges authority. It is socially conditional, not absolute. This is a reaction to modernism.
-ex. atomic bomb. Science and technology are being used to kill massive numbers.
-Feminist Perspectives on Science
-it is an ethical consideration to take gender into consideration when writing
-don't try to pretend that you aren't biased, when you really are. It is better to be upfront with your bias and then strive to be unbiased in your work.
1. It has been traditionally taylored to men. ex. experiments and investigations have traditionally focused on the parts and analyzing rather than the organic whole.
2. ex. the purpose of science is to gain "control" of nature which is named "Mother" nature
3. In technical communication, be sure to avoid sex-related terminology, discrimination of women in the profession, and devaluing the voice of women.
-living by the "right thing to do"
-You are responsible for your own character, not the circumstances.
-Ethical behavior is reasoned behavior, not out of instinct. It is thought about for a long time, the options are weighed, and a decision is reached out of reason. It is practical in all senses.
-Goodness is an inherent quality in human nature.
-You can't have ethics if you don't have a choice. Ex. If you kill a person, but don't have a choice, then is it an ethical decision?
Kant
-living by deontology, an ethical system empahsizing obligation or duty to do the right thing
-self-interest, material gain, and greatest good for the greatest number are not important
-there is moral reason that surpasses our senses and "moral feelings"
-his fundamental principle: catergorical imperative "Act in such a way that, if you had your way, the principle guiding your actions would become universally binding law that everyone must act inaccordance with."
-Think of what others would do in your situation; that tells you what Kant would do.
-The strongest view on how society should be organized was collectivism, not individualism. This is probably why I tend to disagree with it because we are more individualistic.
-Decisions should never be self-serving or egocentric but thinking of everyone.
Utilitarianism
-emphasizes usefulness
-th emoral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility.
-cost-benefit analysis usually plays a role
-weigh ethical judgements on the basis of accomplishing the greatest good for the greatest number of people ex. killing rats in a laboratory in order to test a drug and helps millions of sick
-its rise corresponded with rise of science and modern technological industrialism. How can this principle be "corrupted" in the use of advertising?
-the "calculus" of ethics. Why?
-ex. Federal Aviation Administration decided not to require fire safety devices in airplanes because they are so expensive. Of the FDA must decide if the benefits outweigh the costs in new drugs.
-ex. Saving Private Ryan, the cost is losing the eight soldier but the greater benefit is proving that the army is not heartless and helping the mother.
Feminist and Care Perspectives
-Modernism deals with rationalism, individualism, logical analytic thinking, the advancement of science and and technology, and progress.
-Postmodernism challenges all of this and challenges authority. It is socially conditional, not absolute. This is a reaction to modernism.
-ex. atomic bomb. Science and technology are being used to kill massive numbers.
-Feminist Perspectives on Science
-it is an ethical consideration to take gender into consideration when writing
-don't try to pretend that you aren't biased, when you really are. It is better to be upfront with your bias and then strive to be unbiased in your work.
1. It has been traditionally taylored to men. ex. experiments and investigations have traditionally focused on the parts and analyzing rather than the organic whole.
2. ex. the purpose of science is to gain "control" of nature which is named "Mother" nature
3. In technical communication, be sure to avoid sex-related terminology, discrimination of women in the profession, and devaluing the voice of women.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Reports and Other Long Documents (Harty) pg. 207-275
Designing and Integrating Visuals with Text
Two Questions to Consider:
*Why include your visual? Explain specifically in the text the purpose of putting in the visual, not just simply explaining what it is.
*Is your visual focused? If not, eliminate anthing (arrows, boxes, lines) that does not contribute or deters from your purpose.
Important: In order to use images or tables from printed materials or the Web, you must obtain written permission from the copyright holder. Simply copy and pasting is unethical and plagarism. If there is no copyright, written permission is not required, but citing is essential.
Tables and graphs both present numerical data in visual form but graphs are usually easier to read in order to see the big picture or trend. Typically both are presented together so that you can reference the table for specific values not shown in the graph.
Important: Distorting visuals, graphs, etc. in order to persuade the reader decreases your credibility as a writer and in some cases may bring about lawsuits.
Line graph: show relationship between two or more set of data.
Bar graph: show relationship between:
1. differen types of infromation during different periods of time
2. quantities of the same kind of information at different periods
3. quantiites of different information during a fixed period of time
4. quantities of the diffreent parts that make up a whole
Pie chart: show relationship between parts of a whole
Picture graphs (pictograms): bar graphs that use pictures instead of bars
Dimensional Column Graphs: bar graphs that are three-dimensional; can be misleading
Drawings: optimal when you want to be specific and eliminate or add things that would be in a photograph
Flowcharts: use to show a series of steps in a process
Organizational charts: shows how the various components of something are related
Map: show geographic features of a location or relationship among things in an area
Photographs: only show the surface of the subject and should not be used to show internal explanations
Strategies of Persuasion (David W. Ewing)
Rules Every Persuader Should Know
1. Consider whether your view will make problems for readers.
2. Don't offer new ideas, directives, or recommendations for chage until your readers are prepared for them.
3. Your credibility with readers affects your strategy. Given vs. acquired. How can you acquire credibility? Through citing already credible sources.
4. If your audience disagrees with your ideas or is uncertain about htem, persent both sides of the argument.
5. Win repsect by making your opiion or recommendation clear.
6. Put your strongest points last if the audience is very interested in the arguement, first if it is not so interested.
7. Don't count on changing attitudes by offering information alone.
8. "Testimonials" are most likely to be persuasive if drawn from people with whom readers associate.
9. Be wary of using extreme or "sensational" claims and facts.
10. Tailor your presentation to the reasons for the Readers' attitudes, if you know them.
11. Never mention other people without considering their possible effect on the reader.
It is important to "size up your readers." Think about how interested they are in your report and how much they already know about the subject or your report. Also think about what their preceeding opinions are before they read your report. All of these things will help you write according to the audience.
Proposals (Philip C. Kolin)
1. Approach writing a proposal as a problem-solving strategy.
2. Regard yoru audience as skeptical readers.
3. Research your proposal carefully.
4. Prove that your proposal is workable.
5. Be sure that your proposal is financially realistic.
6. Package your proposal attractively.
Internal Proposals are within an organization and offer solutions to make the work of the organization more efficient, more cost-effective, etc. They are often more informal and vary in length of one or two pages. However, although informal, you still must be very careful in sizing up your audience because you do not want your solution to sound like an attack or an act of superiority over your superiors.
Sales proposals are external proposals intended to sell a product to an outside audience. This includes a section devoted to the description of the proposed product. In this section you want to describe the product in detail and explain how it benefits the audience specifically.
Writing Proposals with Style (Richard Johnson-Sheehan)
Cicero and Augustine defined three styles:
1. Plain style instucts in simple terms.
2. Middle style if for persuasion.
3. Grand style is for motivating people to do something they already know they should do but may be reluctant to do. Not used as often because it seems extreme.
Plain Style
-Generally used in Situation, Plan, and Qualifications sections.
-Use active voice, put subject early in sentence, eliminate excess words, eliminate redundancy, make sentences short.
When is it appropriate to use passive voice?
-the readers do not need to know who or what is doing something in the sentence
-the subject of hte sentence is what the sentence is about
Two Questions to Consider:
*Why include your visual? Explain specifically in the text the purpose of putting in the visual, not just simply explaining what it is.
*Is your visual focused? If not, eliminate anthing (arrows, boxes, lines) that does not contribute or deters from your purpose.
Important: In order to use images or tables from printed materials or the Web, you must obtain written permission from the copyright holder. Simply copy and pasting is unethical and plagarism. If there is no copyright, written permission is not required, but citing is essential.
Tables and graphs both present numerical data in visual form but graphs are usually easier to read in order to see the big picture or trend. Typically both are presented together so that you can reference the table for specific values not shown in the graph.
Important: Distorting visuals, graphs, etc. in order to persuade the reader decreases your credibility as a writer and in some cases may bring about lawsuits.
Line graph: show relationship between two or more set of data.
Bar graph: show relationship between:
1. differen types of infromation during different periods of time
2. quantities of the same kind of information at different periods
3. quantiites of different information during a fixed period of time
4. quantities of the diffreent parts that make up a whole
Pie chart: show relationship between parts of a whole
Picture graphs (pictograms): bar graphs that use pictures instead of bars
Dimensional Column Graphs: bar graphs that are three-dimensional; can be misleading
Drawings: optimal when you want to be specific and eliminate or add things that would be in a photograph
Flowcharts: use to show a series of steps in a process
Organizational charts: shows how the various components of something are related
Map: show geographic features of a location or relationship among things in an area
Photographs: only show the surface of the subject and should not be used to show internal explanations
Strategies of Persuasion (David W. Ewing)
Rules Every Persuader Should Know
1. Consider whether your view will make problems for readers.
2. Don't offer new ideas, directives, or recommendations for chage until your readers are prepared for them.
3. Your credibility with readers affects your strategy. Given vs. acquired. How can you acquire credibility? Through citing already credible sources.
4. If your audience disagrees with your ideas or is uncertain about htem, persent both sides of the argument.
5. Win repsect by making your opiion or recommendation clear.
6. Put your strongest points last if the audience is very interested in the arguement, first if it is not so interested.
7. Don't count on changing attitudes by offering information alone.
8. "Testimonials" are most likely to be persuasive if drawn from people with whom readers associate.
9. Be wary of using extreme or "sensational" claims and facts.
10. Tailor your presentation to the reasons for the Readers' attitudes, if you know them.
11. Never mention other people without considering their possible effect on the reader.
It is important to "size up your readers." Think about how interested they are in your report and how much they already know about the subject or your report. Also think about what their preceeding opinions are before they read your report. All of these things will help you write according to the audience.
Proposals (Philip C. Kolin)
1. Approach writing a proposal as a problem-solving strategy.
2. Regard yoru audience as skeptical readers.
3. Research your proposal carefully.
4. Prove that your proposal is workable.
5. Be sure that your proposal is financially realistic.
6. Package your proposal attractively.
Internal Proposals are within an organization and offer solutions to make the work of the organization more efficient, more cost-effective, etc. They are often more informal and vary in length of one or two pages. However, although informal, you still must be very careful in sizing up your audience because you do not want your solution to sound like an attack or an act of superiority over your superiors.
Sales proposals are external proposals intended to sell a product to an outside audience. This includes a section devoted to the description of the proposed product. In this section you want to describe the product in detail and explain how it benefits the audience specifically.
Writing Proposals with Style (Richard Johnson-Sheehan)
Cicero and Augustine defined three styles:
1. Plain style instucts in simple terms.
2. Middle style if for persuasion.
3. Grand style is for motivating people to do something they already know they should do but may be reluctant to do. Not used as often because it seems extreme.
Plain Style
-Generally used in Situation, Plan, and Qualifications sections.
-Use active voice, put subject early in sentence, eliminate excess words, eliminate redundancy, make sentences short.
When is it appropriate to use passive voice?
-the readers do not need to know who or what is doing something in the sentence
-the subject of hte sentence is what the sentence is about
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Final Project Proposal
Executive Summary: Clemson students, residents, and visitors are unaware of the unique, local restaurants in the area. In order to inform them, we will create a restaurant database website. The website will include our standardized reviews of each restaurant. As a group of three college students from different backgrounds, our reviews will be diverse and offer different perspectives on the types and quality of food available at each restaurant. Our website will help the Clemson community become knowledgeable about their dining options and enhance the quality of their overall dining experience.
Although Clemson students, local residents, and visitors frequent restaurants in downtown Clemson, they are unaware of the remotely located, less commercial restaurants in the Clemson area. They need to know about these restaurants in order to make well informed, appropriate decisions when dining out. We will help them become ideal, knowledgeable consumers by creating a restaurant database website detailing locations, prices, and menu items of local restaurants. Students tend to pick the most convenient, closest restaurant without any regard to the cuisine. Due to the fast paced culture of the college-based community, we seem to settle when it comes to meals. However, help is on the way. As three Clemson college students ourselves, we plan to provide a solution to this dining dilemma. In our project, we plan to visit a variety of restaurants all in different price ranges with various atmospheres. On our visits, the three of us will formulate separate ratings for each restaurant based on a standardized system. In order to make our views on each restaurant open to the public, we will create a website with menus of all of the restaurants as well as a write up of our reviews and ratings. The website will be a restaurant database. To add to the creative nature of our idea, we will include a multimedia presentation in the form of a video on the website. We feel as though we are qualified to present our ratings to our audience, because we are three different people with three different perspectives and backgrounds. We all have different tastes and will be sampling a variety of the cuisines offered in all of the restaurants. Most important of all we are all three Clemson college students ourselves; therefore, we understand the atmosphere of Clemson and the mindsets of our viewers when it comes to price, time, and distance. As typical college students, time is always an issue when it comes to projects. Therefore, in order to ensure that our project is organized, we developed a timeline to help guide us in our steps. The goal of our project is to help Clemson college students, residents, and visitors become aware of the many different options open to us when it comes to dining out and to help us become knowledgeable about the different types and quality of food available at these restaurants.
Due to this lack of awareness in the Clemson community, there is a definite need for a restaurant database accessible to Clemson students, residents, and visitors. There are many restaurants in Clemson, Seneca, Anderson, and Central that are completely unknown to campus dwellers and alumni. In the small town atmosphere of Clemson, SC, restaurants are found in several remote locations. It could take years for a student to become aware of some of the most delectable restaurants in Clemson and the surrounding area. Since Clemson is a college-based town, nearly all students live on campus or close to campus. Therefore, most students tend to eat at nearby downtown restaurants very frequently because they are not aware of others. Some hidden treasures of ultimate cuisine are unknown to the majority of Clemson residents.
Also, when people visit Clemson to tour the school, spend time with their children, or attend a sporting event, they are unsure of where to eat. Most people only eat in the most obvious restaurants downtown. Alumni also return to visit Clemson and are unaware of new restaurants that have recently opened or been renovated. Alumni and visitors are also interested in dining in restaurants that are unique to Clemson, not necessarily chains that they can find in their home towns. A website would be an ideal way to lead the consumer to the most appropriate restaurant for their dining occasion. Students are looking for economical, quick choices for their daily meals. An upscale restaurant may also be desired when students are going on dates or dining out with their relatives. This website would meet these needs by allowing students to navigate through our price range categories to find a restaurant that is delicious and appropriate for their occasion. Our rating system and reviews of the restaurants would also help students choose a restaurant that they know will be tasty, have great service, an enjoyable atmosphere, and appropriate formality for the occasion at hand.
In order to achieve our goal of helping the Clemson community become knowledgeable and aware of different restaurants, we have laid out a developed plan. First, we will begin by visiting each of the sixteen restaurants that we have selected to review in this project. These include: Goober's, Calhoun Corners, Sardi's, Pixie and Bill's, Paw's, Mac's, Monterrey's, Mellow Mushroom, Atami, Blue Heron, Friend's Cafe, Mainstreet Cafe, Seneca Family Restaurant, Ancheaux's, Tigertown Tavern, Copper River Grill. At the restaurants we will all order a different meal in order to get a good representation of the restaurant’s food. We will review each restaurant on the quality of food, wait time, service, etc. according to a pre-established rating system. We will choose a widely-used and accredited rating system before visiting the restaurants after much research. At the restaurant we will get a menu in order to scan and post on our website so that the audience has easy access to prices, location, and the type of food offered at each restaurant.
In addition to our own opinions, we will get reviews from others who have eaten at each restaurant. In order to have a variety of reviews, we will collect information from on-campus and off-campus students, faculty and staff, alumni, and visitors. We will ask those that we encounter at the restaurant. We will combine our reviews as well as the reviews of others in order to give each restaurant an overall review.
During this time of restaurant visiting, we will also be setting up the website to feature all of our gathered information. We will attend a website workshop at Clemson Computing and Information Technology (CCIT) in order to learn how to set one up and how to add different components to it so that it will be professional. We will have a home page that describes exactly what our purpose is, who we are, who our target audience is, and how we went about obtaining our findings. There will also be a table of contents. The restaurants will be organized into price ranges because we figure that this is the best way to technically organize the types of restaurants and the most useful way for the audience to navigate the page. We will divide the restaurants into low, medium, and upper price ranges. Each restaurant will have its own link and page. Each page will have a written review by the three of us as well as the combined calculated rating of our scores and the scores of others. The pages will also feature quotes from customers, a copy of the menu, and pictures in order to make the page visually attractive and interesting.
As we finish with the restaurant visits and continue to revise the website, we will also make a video highlighting the top five best-rated restaurants in order to incorporate a multimedia component. We will upload the videos onto the website for the audience to view. We will continue to revise the home page and each restaurant’s individual page until we are satisfied with the end product.
As Clemson University students, Brittany Jones, Brennan Palazola, and I are qualified to prepare this end product of a restaurant database website, which will help others choose a great restaurant. Brittany is a South Carolina resident and her parents regularly visit Clemson. Brennan is from Tennessee and has two siblings that attended Clemson. I am from Tennessee and both of my parents and grandparents are Clemson alumni. As three students with different backgrounds and experiences, we can rate the restaurants objectively as they best suit our experiences and needs. Also, as third-year students, we are familiar with restaurants that may be well-kept secrets and student favorites. We also know which restaurants are great for game days, special occasions, and everyday dining on a student’s budget. Also, we have lived on-campus and off-campus and know which restaurants are convenient for both living styles.
We are planning to visit and rate sixteen restaurants before the completion of this project. We have already visited one restaurant, and we are beginning to acquire menus and price lists. Our first step toward completion of our project will be to learn how to create a website by meeting with technicians at CCIT on Wednesday, October 1. We will have the website completely designed by October 16. Although we may not have dined in every restaurant at this point, we would like to have them all loaded on the website, with or without ratings. We will have all of our ratings completed by the end of October. We will spend the first week of November working on the multimedia aspect of our project. We will film, edit, and post videos from our top five restaurant picks. We would like to interview managers, customers, or employees if possible. We will spend the rest of November revising and tweaking our website to make it most convenient for users. Our project will be complete and refined by the final due date in early December.
In early December, the Clemson community will have a great resource to help with all of our dining out decisions. Due to a lack of awareness and knowledge, Clemson students, residents, and visitors often have difficulty in making the best decision when it comes to a restaurant choice. However, our website will guide them to the best option reducing stress and opening eyes to unknown eateries. As three Clemson residents, we understand our community and hope to broaden its culinary outlook. Once our website is complete, Clemson students, residents, and visitors will never have to fret over where to eat again because the ultimate guide to quality and choice of restaurants in the immediate area will just be a click away.
Although Clemson students, local residents, and visitors frequent restaurants in downtown Clemson, they are unaware of the remotely located, less commercial restaurants in the Clemson area. They need to know about these restaurants in order to make well informed, appropriate decisions when dining out. We will help them become ideal, knowledgeable consumers by creating a restaurant database website detailing locations, prices, and menu items of local restaurants. Students tend to pick the most convenient, closest restaurant without any regard to the cuisine. Due to the fast paced culture of the college-based community, we seem to settle when it comes to meals. However, help is on the way. As three Clemson college students ourselves, we plan to provide a solution to this dining dilemma. In our project, we plan to visit a variety of restaurants all in different price ranges with various atmospheres. On our visits, the three of us will formulate separate ratings for each restaurant based on a standardized system. In order to make our views on each restaurant open to the public, we will create a website with menus of all of the restaurants as well as a write up of our reviews and ratings. The website will be a restaurant database. To add to the creative nature of our idea, we will include a multimedia presentation in the form of a video on the website. We feel as though we are qualified to present our ratings to our audience, because we are three different people with three different perspectives and backgrounds. We all have different tastes and will be sampling a variety of the cuisines offered in all of the restaurants. Most important of all we are all three Clemson college students ourselves; therefore, we understand the atmosphere of Clemson and the mindsets of our viewers when it comes to price, time, and distance. As typical college students, time is always an issue when it comes to projects. Therefore, in order to ensure that our project is organized, we developed a timeline to help guide us in our steps. The goal of our project is to help Clemson college students, residents, and visitors become aware of the many different options open to us when it comes to dining out and to help us become knowledgeable about the different types and quality of food available at these restaurants.
Due to this lack of awareness in the Clemson community, there is a definite need for a restaurant database accessible to Clemson students, residents, and visitors. There are many restaurants in Clemson, Seneca, Anderson, and Central that are completely unknown to campus dwellers and alumni. In the small town atmosphere of Clemson, SC, restaurants are found in several remote locations. It could take years for a student to become aware of some of the most delectable restaurants in Clemson and the surrounding area. Since Clemson is a college-based town, nearly all students live on campus or close to campus. Therefore, most students tend to eat at nearby downtown restaurants very frequently because they are not aware of others. Some hidden treasures of ultimate cuisine are unknown to the majority of Clemson residents.
Also, when people visit Clemson to tour the school, spend time with their children, or attend a sporting event, they are unsure of where to eat. Most people only eat in the most obvious restaurants downtown. Alumni also return to visit Clemson and are unaware of new restaurants that have recently opened or been renovated. Alumni and visitors are also interested in dining in restaurants that are unique to Clemson, not necessarily chains that they can find in their home towns. A website would be an ideal way to lead the consumer to the most appropriate restaurant for their dining occasion. Students are looking for economical, quick choices for their daily meals. An upscale restaurant may also be desired when students are going on dates or dining out with their relatives. This website would meet these needs by allowing students to navigate through our price range categories to find a restaurant that is delicious and appropriate for their occasion. Our rating system and reviews of the restaurants would also help students choose a restaurant that they know will be tasty, have great service, an enjoyable atmosphere, and appropriate formality for the occasion at hand.
In order to achieve our goal of helping the Clemson community become knowledgeable and aware of different restaurants, we have laid out a developed plan. First, we will begin by visiting each of the sixteen restaurants that we have selected to review in this project. These include: Goober's, Calhoun Corners, Sardi's, Pixie and Bill's, Paw's, Mac's, Monterrey's, Mellow Mushroom, Atami, Blue Heron, Friend's Cafe, Mainstreet Cafe, Seneca Family Restaurant, Ancheaux's, Tigertown Tavern, Copper River Grill. At the restaurants we will all order a different meal in order to get a good representation of the restaurant’s food. We will review each restaurant on the quality of food, wait time, service, etc. according to a pre-established rating system. We will choose a widely-used and accredited rating system before visiting the restaurants after much research. At the restaurant we will get a menu in order to scan and post on our website so that the audience has easy access to prices, location, and the type of food offered at each restaurant.
In addition to our own opinions, we will get reviews from others who have eaten at each restaurant. In order to have a variety of reviews, we will collect information from on-campus and off-campus students, faculty and staff, alumni, and visitors. We will ask those that we encounter at the restaurant. We will combine our reviews as well as the reviews of others in order to give each restaurant an overall review.
During this time of restaurant visiting, we will also be setting up the website to feature all of our gathered information. We will attend a website workshop at Clemson Computing and Information Technology (CCIT) in order to learn how to set one up and how to add different components to it so that it will be professional. We will have a home page that describes exactly what our purpose is, who we are, who our target audience is, and how we went about obtaining our findings. There will also be a table of contents. The restaurants will be organized into price ranges because we figure that this is the best way to technically organize the types of restaurants and the most useful way for the audience to navigate the page. We will divide the restaurants into low, medium, and upper price ranges. Each restaurant will have its own link and page. Each page will have a written review by the three of us as well as the combined calculated rating of our scores and the scores of others. The pages will also feature quotes from customers, a copy of the menu, and pictures in order to make the page visually attractive and interesting.
As we finish with the restaurant visits and continue to revise the website, we will also make a video highlighting the top five best-rated restaurants in order to incorporate a multimedia component. We will upload the videos onto the website for the audience to view. We will continue to revise the home page and each restaurant’s individual page until we are satisfied with the end product.
As Clemson University students, Brittany Jones, Brennan Palazola, and I are qualified to prepare this end product of a restaurant database website, which will help others choose a great restaurant. Brittany is a South Carolina resident and her parents regularly visit Clemson. Brennan is from Tennessee and has two siblings that attended Clemson. I am from Tennessee and both of my parents and grandparents are Clemson alumni. As three students with different backgrounds and experiences, we can rate the restaurants objectively as they best suit our experiences and needs. Also, as third-year students, we are familiar with restaurants that may be well-kept secrets and student favorites. We also know which restaurants are great for game days, special occasions, and everyday dining on a student’s budget. Also, we have lived on-campus and off-campus and know which restaurants are convenient for both living styles.
We are planning to visit and rate sixteen restaurants before the completion of this project. We have already visited one restaurant, and we are beginning to acquire menus and price lists. Our first step toward completion of our project will be to learn how to create a website by meeting with technicians at CCIT on Wednesday, October 1. We will have the website completely designed by October 16. Although we may not have dined in every restaurant at this point, we would like to have them all loaded on the website, with or without ratings. We will have all of our ratings completed by the end of October. We will spend the first week of November working on the multimedia aspect of our project. We will film, edit, and post videos from our top five restaurant picks. We would like to interview managers, customers, or employees if possible. We will spend the rest of November revising and tweaking our website to make it most convenient for users. Our project will be complete and refined by the final due date in early December.
In early December, the Clemson community will have a great resource to help with all of our dining out decisions. Due to a lack of awareness and knowledge, Clemson students, residents, and visitors often have difficulty in making the best decision when it comes to a restaurant choice. However, our website will guide them to the best option reducing stress and opening eyes to unknown eateries. As three Clemson residents, we understand our community and hope to broaden its culinary outlook. Once our website is complete, Clemson students, residents, and visitors will never have to fret over where to eat again because the ultimate guide to quality and choice of restaurants in the immediate area will just be a click away.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Reports and Other Long Documents (Harty)
-Reports can vary in formality, but the writer should always have a clear plan and purpose from the beginning so that they stick to the intended purpose. Analyzing the audience is essential. Audiences can include: laypersons, executives, experts, technicians, operators, etc.
Audience Analysis: The Problem and a Solution (J.C. Mathes and Dwight W. Stevenson)
-Every form of communicationm contains three components: the writer, the message, and the audience. However, the audience is often not conscidered. Sometimes this is because the writer writes to the person addressed and doesn't think about the bigger audience that could read the report. However, a report's worth is measured only by how much it helps the audience/organization, so they require significant conscideration in the writing process.
-False Assumptions
1. The person addressed is the audience. (Students learn this in college as they write to only one professor at a time, and then they carry it over into the workplace, only writing for supervisors.)
2. The audience is a group of specialists in the field.
3. The reports has a finite period of use.
4. The author and hte audience always will be available for reference.
5. The audience is familiar with the assignment.
6. The audience has been involved in daily disucsisions of the material.
7. the audience awaits the report.
8. The audienc has time to read the report.
Three types of audiences: vertical, horizontal, and external. Writers must clearly know which one they are writing to because they each have different backgrounds, expectations, etc. However, this is hard to define because the writer's position is always relative to where they are in relation to the audience. A three step approach was formulated:
1. Prepare an Egocentric Organization Chart (diagram pg. 177)
2. Characterize the Individual Report Readers- analyze orperational, objective, and personal characteristics.
3. Classify Audiences in Terms of How They Will Use Your Report: primary (make decisions based on your report), secondary (are affected by decisions made), immediate (transit the infromation)
What to Report (Richard W. Dodge)
The three things that managers look for first and foremost in a report are:
1. What the report is about
2. The significance and implications of the work
3. The action called for
The summary is read more than any other part of the report; then introduction, conclusion, body, and appendix. It is ironic that the shortest part of the report is often read the most. What does this tell the writer about the importance of writing clear concise and purposeful summaries?
The Writing of Abstracts (Christian K. Arnold)
-The abstract is the most important part of a report and yet it usually receives the least amount of attention.
-Two purposes of the abstract:
1. descriptive- provides the specialist in the field with enough information about the report to decide if he could read it with profit
2. informative- provides the administrator or ecutive with enough knowledge about what has been doesn in the study with what results to satify most of his administractive needs.
Ten Report Writing Pitfalls: How to Avoid Them (Vincent Vinci) pg. 203
1. Ignoring Your Audience
2. Writing to Impress
3. Having More than One Aim
4. Being Inconsistent
5. Overqualifying
6. Not Defining
7. Misintroducing
8. Dazzling with data
9. Not Highlighting
10. Not Rewriting
Audience Analysis: The Problem and a Solution (J.C. Mathes and Dwight W. Stevenson)
-Every form of communicationm contains three components: the writer, the message, and the audience. However, the audience is often not conscidered. Sometimes this is because the writer writes to the person addressed and doesn't think about the bigger audience that could read the report. However, a report's worth is measured only by how much it helps the audience/organization, so they require significant conscideration in the writing process.
-False Assumptions
1. The person addressed is the audience. (Students learn this in college as they write to only one professor at a time, and then they carry it over into the workplace, only writing for supervisors.)
2. The audience is a group of specialists in the field.
3. The reports has a finite period of use.
4. The author and hte audience always will be available for reference.
5. The audience is familiar with the assignment.
6. The audience has been involved in daily disucsisions of the material.
7. the audience awaits the report.
8. The audienc has time to read the report.
Three types of audiences: vertical, horizontal, and external. Writers must clearly know which one they are writing to because they each have different backgrounds, expectations, etc. However, this is hard to define because the writer's position is always relative to where they are in relation to the audience. A three step approach was formulated:
1. Prepare an Egocentric Organization Chart (diagram pg. 177)
2. Characterize the Individual Report Readers- analyze orperational, objective, and personal characteristics.
3. Classify Audiences in Terms of How They Will Use Your Report: primary (make decisions based on your report), secondary (are affected by decisions made), immediate (transit the infromation)
What to Report (Richard W. Dodge)
The three things that managers look for first and foremost in a report are:
1. What the report is about
2. The significance and implications of the work
3. The action called for
The summary is read more than any other part of the report; then introduction, conclusion, body, and appendix. It is ironic that the shortest part of the report is often read the most. What does this tell the writer about the importance of writing clear concise and purposeful summaries?
The Writing of Abstracts (Christian K. Arnold)
-The abstract is the most important part of a report and yet it usually receives the least amount of attention.
-Two purposes of the abstract:
1. descriptive- provides the specialist in the field with enough information about the report to decide if he could read it with profit
2. informative- provides the administrator or ecutive with enough knowledge about what has been doesn in the study with what results to satify most of his administractive needs.
Ten Report Writing Pitfalls: How to Avoid Them (Vincent Vinci) pg. 203
1. Ignoring Your Audience
2. Writing to Impress
3. Having More than One Aim
4. Being Inconsistent
5. Overqualifying
6. Not Defining
7. Misintroducing
8. Dazzling with data
9. Not Highlighting
10. Not Rewriting
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Business and Technical Correspondence (Harty)
-Use form letters sparingly and only when appropriate because you may have to end up sending several follow up letters
-Just because electronic communication is easier doesn't mean it should be careless and sloppy
-Remember that the audience of electronic communication can exceed the specific audience for which you intended the message
Making Your Correspondence Get Results (Lewis)
Write For Him, Not to Him
-Just because you are clear and concise, doesn't mean that you are interpreted well. Readers want to know what's in it for them.
-Persuade the audience that it is worth it to them to read and to believe your point of view.
Personalize You Letters
-Use conversational language
-Use "you" and "your" not "I" and "me"
Mastering Tone
-Shy away from negative words
-Shy away from impersonal, neutral words
How to Write the Way You Talk
-Don't use older sayings such as "at a later date" or "Attached herewith please find" , see complete list on pg. 125
-Use contractions where they would seem normal if you read it alound
"I Have Some Bad News for You" (Glatthorn)
3 Guidelines for Delivering Bad News:
1. Be sensitive and emathetic
2. Try to deliver news face to face
3. Be honest and forthright
Indirect Bad News Message
When:
1. You want further contact with the person
2. You want to seem caring
3. You bleive that hte person won't be able to handle direct message.
Format:
Thanks...Because...Sorry...Thanks
Direct Bad News Message
When:
1. You want to slam the door shut.
2. You want to be tough and direct.
3. You are addressing an individual who prefers for forthrightness
Format:
Thanks...Sorry...Because...Thanks
How to Write Better Memos (Mintz)
Memos and letters are a lot alike but some differences:
-memos remain in-house
-memos don't ususually "hook" the audience
-memos can skip background info if already known
Organization:
-What are the facts?
-What do they mean?
-What do we do now?
Caution:
-Don't baffle your audience, make it clear and concise.
-Don't send too many, especially to boss aka "memo-itis"
How to Use Bootom-Line Writing in Corporate Communications (Fielden & Dulek)
-Trouble in corporate writing lies not within the length but the organization of documents
-And organize their writing backwards, with the real purpose at the end.
-There is a high efficiency and production cost of the time it takes people to write and read messages that are hard to comprehend.
-People try to write sensitive circuitous organized messages when only 90% of business writing can be direct and straigtforward.
-Three things that program for inefficiency:
1. Social Upbringing- always better to be "polite"
2. Educational Programming- taught that "longer is better"
3.Indoctrination into Anxiety- young people in workplace
Email: Presenting a Professional Image (Chan)
-Use Active, Plain, Non-Inflated, Uncluttered Language
-Write grammatically correct sentences with complete thoughts
-Use gender neutral language
-Avoid punctuation errors
Three Discussion Topics:
1. What have been some times in recent history when electronic correspondence has been interpreted incorrectly and why? pg. 133
2. What are ways to master the tone of writing and "write for the audience, not the writer"?
3. When are the appropriate times to use indirect and direct bad new messages?
-Just because electronic communication is easier doesn't mean it should be careless and sloppy
-Remember that the audience of electronic communication can exceed the specific audience for which you intended the message
Making Your Correspondence Get Results (Lewis)
Write For Him, Not to Him
-Just because you are clear and concise, doesn't mean that you are interpreted well. Readers want to know what's in it for them.
-Persuade the audience that it is worth it to them to read and to believe your point of view.
Personalize You Letters
-Use conversational language
-Use "you" and "your" not "I" and "me"
Mastering Tone
-Shy away from negative words
-Shy away from impersonal, neutral words
How to Write the Way You Talk
-Don't use older sayings such as "at a later date" or "Attached herewith please find" , see complete list on pg. 125
-Use contractions where they would seem normal if you read it alound
"I Have Some Bad News for You" (Glatthorn)
3 Guidelines for Delivering Bad News:
1. Be sensitive and emathetic
2. Try to deliver news face to face
3. Be honest and forthright
Indirect Bad News Message
When:
1. You want further contact with the person
2. You want to seem caring
3. You bleive that hte person won't be able to handle direct message.
Format:
Thanks...Because...Sorry...Thanks
Direct Bad News Message
When:
1. You want to slam the door shut.
2. You want to be tough and direct.
3. You are addressing an individual who prefers for forthrightness
Format:
Thanks...Sorry...Because...Thanks
How to Write Better Memos (Mintz)
Memos and letters are a lot alike but some differences:
-memos remain in-house
-memos don't ususually "hook" the audience
-memos can skip background info if already known
Organization:
-What are the facts?
-What do they mean?
-What do we do now?
Caution:
-Don't baffle your audience, make it clear and concise.
-Don't send too many, especially to boss aka "memo-itis"
How to Use Bootom-Line Writing in Corporate Communications (Fielden & Dulek)
-Trouble in corporate writing lies not within the length but the organization of documents
-And organize their writing backwards, with the real purpose at the end.
-There is a high efficiency and production cost of the time it takes people to write and read messages that are hard to comprehend.
-People try to write sensitive circuitous organized messages when only 90% of business writing can be direct and straigtforward.
-Three things that program for inefficiency:
1. Social Upbringing- always better to be "polite"
2. Educational Programming- taught that "longer is better"
3.Indoctrination into Anxiety- young people in workplace
Email: Presenting a Professional Image (Chan)
-Use Active, Plain, Non-Inflated, Uncluttered Language
-Write grammatically correct sentences with complete thoughts
-Use gender neutral language
-Avoid punctuation errors
Three Discussion Topics:
1. What have been some times in recent history when electronic correspondence has been interpreted incorrectly and why? pg. 133
2. What are ways to master the tone of writing and "write for the audience, not the writer"?
3. When are the appropriate times to use indirect and direct bad new messages?
Problem Statements
3 Problem Statements:
1. Clemson students, local residents, and visitors know about a select few restaurants that are located in downtown Clemson. But, these consumers do not know about other restaurants in the surrounding areas as well as those less known local restaurants. They need to know about these restaurants in order to make well informed, appropriate decisions when dining out. We will inform them about these restaurants by creating a restaurant database website that will highlight each restaurant in its appropriate category.
2. Clemon students, local residents, and visitors would like to be well informed consumers who know all their restaurant options including price, location, and menu items. Actually, these consumers are unaware of the remotely located, less commercial restaurants in the Clemson area. We will help them become the ideal, well informed consumers by creating a restaurant database website detailing locations, prices, and menu items of local restaurants.
3. The situation that Clemson students, residents, and visitors are facing can be described as consumers who are not informed about their dining options. The situation has negative consequences including poor dining experience, unimpressive service, and uneconimcal prices. We will alleviate the consequences by creating a website that will generate informed consumers.
1. Clemson students, local residents, and visitors know about a select few restaurants that are located in downtown Clemson. But, these consumers do not know about other restaurants in the surrounding areas as well as those less known local restaurants. They need to know about these restaurants in order to make well informed, appropriate decisions when dining out. We will inform them about these restaurants by creating a restaurant database website that will highlight each restaurant in its appropriate category.
2. Clemon students, local residents, and visitors would like to be well informed consumers who know all their restaurant options including price, location, and menu items. Actually, these consumers are unaware of the remotely located, less commercial restaurants in the Clemson area. We will help them become the ideal, well informed consumers by creating a restaurant database website detailing locations, prices, and menu items of local restaurants.
3. The situation that Clemson students, residents, and visitors are facing can be described as consumers who are not informed about their dining options. The situation has negative consequences including poor dining experience, unimpressive service, and uneconimcal prices. We will alleviate the consequences by creating a website that will generate informed consumers.
Project Statement
Project Statements
1. Clemson students, local residents, and visitors know about ta select few restaurant that are located in downtown Clemson. But these consumers do not know about the other restaurants in the surrounding areas as well as those less known local restaurants. They need to know about these restaurants in order to make well-informed, appropriate decisions when dining. We will inform them about these restaurants by creating a restaurant database website that will highlight each restaurant in its appropriate category.
2. Clemson students, local residnets, and visitors would like to be well-informed consumers who know all their restaurant options including price, location, and menu items. Actually, these consumers are unaware of the remotely-located, less commercial restaurants in the Clemson area. We will help them become ideal, well-informed consumers by creating a restaurant database website detailing locations, prices, and menu items of local restaurants.
3. The situation that Clemson students, residnets, and visitors are facing can be described as consumers who are not informed about their dining options. The situation has negative consequences including poor dining experience,
1. Clemson students, local residents, and visitors know about ta select few restaurant that are located in downtown Clemson. But these consumers do not know about the other restaurants in the surrounding areas as well as those less known local restaurants. They need to know about these restaurants in order to make well-informed, appropriate decisions when dining. We will inform them about these restaurants by creating a restaurant database website that will highlight each restaurant in its appropriate category.
2. Clemson students, local residnets, and visitors would like to be well-informed consumers who know all their restaurant options including price, location, and menu items. Actually, these consumers are unaware of the remotely-located, less commercial restaurants in the Clemson area. We will help them become ideal, well-informed consumers by creating a restaurant database website detailing locations, prices, and menu items of local restaurants.
3. The situation that Clemson students, residnets, and visitors are facing can be described as consumers who are not informed about their dining options. The situation has negative consequences including poor dining experience,
Class Notes 09/18/08
Problem Statement:
1. What is the current situation/context?
2. What is the problem?
3. How are you going to solve the problem?
This should be in the first paragraph.
See handout from class for three types of project proposals.
1. What is the current situation/context?
2. What is the problem?
3. How are you going to solve the problem?
This should be in the first paragraph.
See handout from class for three types of project proposals.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Rough Draft- Project Proposal
Most college students, residents, and visitors to Clemson are unaware of the multitude of options that are open to them when it comes to dining. We tend to pick the most convenient, closet restaurant without any regard to the cuisine. Due to the fast pace culture of the college-based community, we seem to settle when it comes to meals. However, help is on the way. As three Clemson college students ourselves, we plan to provide a solution to this dining dilemma. In our project, we plan to visit a variety of restaurants all in different price ranges with various atmospheres. On our visits, the three of us will formulate separate ratings for each restaurant based on a standardized system. In order to make our views on each restaurant open to the public, we will create a website with menus of all of the restaurants as well as a write up of our reviews and ratings. The website will be a restaurant database. To add to the creative nature of our idea, we will include a multimedia presentation in the form of a video on the website. We feel as though we are qualified to present our ratings to our peers, because we are three different people with three different perspectives and backgrounds. We all have different tastes and will be sampling a variety of the cuisines offered in all of the restaurants. Most importantly of all we are all three Clemson college students ourselves; therefore, we understand the atmosphere of Clemson and the mindsets of our viewers when it comes to price, time, and distance. As typical college students, time is always an issue when it comes to projects. Therefore, in order to ensure that our project is organized, we developed a timeline to help guide us in our steps. The goal of our project is to help Clemson college students, residents, and visitors become aware of the many different options open to us when it comes to dining out and to help us becomeknowledgeable about the different types and quality of food available at these restaurants.Due to this lack of awareness in the Clemson community, there is a definite need for a restaurant database accessible to Clemson students, residents, and visitors. There are many restaurants in Clemson, Seneca, Anderson, and Central that are completely unknown to campus dwellers and alumni. In the small town atmosphere of Clemson, SC, restaurants are found in several remote locations. It could take years for a student to become aware of some of the most delectable restaurants in Clemson and the surrounding area. Since Clemson is a college-based town, most students tend to live on campus or close to campus. Therefore, most students tend to eat at nearby downtown restaurants very frequently because they are not aware of others. Some hidden treasures of ultimate cuisine are unknown to the majority of Clemson residents.Also, when people visit Clemson to tour the school, spend time with their children, or attend a sporting event, they are unsure of where to eat. Most people only eat in the most obvious restaurants downtown. Alumni also return to visit Clemson and are unaware of new restaurants that have recently opened or been renovated. Alumni and visitors are also interested in dining in restaurants that are unique to Clemson, not necessarily chains that they can find in their home towns. A website would be an ideal way to lead the consumer to the most appropriate restaurant for their dining occasion. Students are looking for economical, quick choices for their daily meals. An upscale restaurant may also be desired when students are going on dates or dining out with their relatives. This website would meet these needs by allowing students to navigate through our price range categories to find a restaurant that is delicious and appropriate for their occasion. Our rating system and reviews of the restaurants would also help students choose a restaurant that they know will be tasty, have great service, an enjoyable atmosphere, and appropriate formality for the occasion at hand.In order to achieve our goal of helping the Clemson community become knowledgeable and aware of different restaurants, we have laid out a developed plan. First, we will begin by visiting each of the 16 restaurants that we have selected to review in this project. These include: Goober's, Calhoun Corners, Sardi's, Pixie and Bill's, Paw's, Mac's, Monterrey's, Mellow Mushroom, Atami, Blue Heron, Friend's Cafe, Mainstreet Cafe, Seneca Family Restaurant, Ancheaux's, Tigertown Tavern, Copper River Grill. At the restaurants we will all order a different meal in order to get a good representation of the restaurant’s food. We will review each restaurant on the quality of food, wait time, service, etc. according to a pre-established rating system. We will choose a widely-used and accredited rating system before visiting the restaurants after much research. At the restaurant we will get a menu in order to scan and post on our website so that the audience has easy access to prices, location, and the type of food offered at each restaurant.In addition to our own opinions, we will get reviews from others who have eaten at each restaurant. In order to have a variety of reviews, we will collect information from on-campus and off-campus students, faculty and staff, alumni, and visitors. We will ask those that we encounter at the restaurant. We will combine our reviews as well as the reviews of others in order to give each restaurant an overall review.During this time of restaurant visiting, we will also be setting up the website to feature all of our gathered information. We will attend a website workshop on Wednesday, September 25 in order to learn how to set one up and how to add different components to it so that it will be professional. We will have a home page that describes exactly what our purpose is, who we are, who our target audience is, and how we went about obtaining our findings. There will also be a table of contents. The restaurants will be organized into price ranges because we figure that this is the best way to technically organize the types of restaurants and the most useful way for the audience to navigate the page. We will divide the restaurants into low, medium, and upper price ranges. Each restaurant will have its own link and page. Each page will have a written review by the three of us as well as the combined calculated rating of our scores and the scores of others. The pages will also feature quotes from customers, a copy of the menu, and pictures in order to make the page visually attractive and interesting.As we finish with the restaurant visits and continue to revise the website, we will also make a video highlighting the top five best-rated restaurants in order to incorporate a multimedia component. We will upload the videos onto the website for the audience to view. We will continue to revise the home page and each restaurant’s individual page until we are satisfied with the end product.As Clemson University students, Brittany Jones, Brennan Palazola, and I are qualified to prepare this end product of a restaurant database website, which will help others choose a great restaurant. Brittany is a South Carolina resident and her parents regularly visit Clemson. Brennan is from Tennessee and has two siblings that attended Clemson. I am from Tennessee and both of my parents are grandparents are Clemson alumni. As three students with different backgrounds and experiences, we can rate the restaurants objectively as they best suit our experiences and needs. Also, as third-year students, we are familiar with restaurants that may be well-kept secrets and student favorites. We also know which restaurants are great for game days, special occasions, and everyday dining on a student’s budget. Also, we have lived on-campus and off-campus and know which restaurants are convenient for both living styles.We are planning to visit and rate sixteen restaurants throughout before completion of this project. We have already visited one restaurant and our beginning to acquire menus and price lists. Our first step toward completion of our project will be to learn how to create a website by meeting with technicians at the campus technology center, CCIT. We will meet at 10:15 AM on Wednesday, September 24. We will have the website completely designed by October 16. Although we may not have dined in every restaurant at this point, we would like to have them all loaded on the website, with or without ratings. We will have all of our ratings completed by the end of October. We will spend the first week of November working on the multimedia aspect of our project. We will film, edit, and post videos from our top five restaurant picks. We would like to interview managers, customers, or employees if possible. We will spend the rest of November revising and tweaking our website to make it most convenient for users. Our project will be complete and refined by the final due date in early December.In early December, the Clemson community will have a great resource to help with all of our dining out decisions. Due to a lack of awareness and knowledge, Clemson students, residents, and visitors often have difficulty in making the best decision when it comes to a restaurant choice. However, our website will guide them to the best option reducing stress and opening eyes to hidden eateries before unknown. As three Clemson residents, we understand our community and hope to broaden its culinary outlook. Once our website is complete, Clemson students, residents, and visitors will never have to fret over where to eat again because the ultimate guide to quality and choice of restaurants in the immediate area will just be a click away.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Nature of Ethics (Dombrowski)
Ethics is becoming increasingly popular in all aspects of society: media, business, industries, technology and science, and as discussed in this work: technical communication.
In the past, technical communication was seen as black and white, mechanical writing. The writer was simply a liaison between the "transmitter and the receiver". Recently though it has been changing and this change has brought up the question of ethics. With this change, has come responsibilities:
1. uses to which the information will be put
2. the range of possible readings of the document
3. the consequences of the communications at all levels of society beyond immediate audience
4. consideration of what you are not writing
Grounds for ethical judgment: what makes a particular ethical judgment right for us
"The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates- In the same way, there has to be guidelines by which ethical decisions are made in the workplace, or else you will be able to justify "wrong" decisions in the moment or even afterwards.
Ethics is not like science- there are no clear cut answers. We are each our own ethical expert, because in the end we decide what is right and wrong.
Ethics- the general field of study or the the theories of particular historical figures, value system that anyone might hold, value assumptions of an abstract principle or movement
Assumptions:
1. Ethics is problematic.
2. Ethics is both individual and social.
3. Ethics is neither an entirely absolute nor an entirely relative matter.
4. It would be irresponsible to blindly accept or blindly reject the authority of others in ethical matters.
5. No single ethical approach or theory is appropriate for all situations.
Perspectives in this work:
Aristotle, Kant, utilitarianism adn recent feminist theories, Levinas, Gert and Confucius
Scope:
How ethics relates to technical communications in ways that are not apparent or non-obvious but no less real and powerful. ex. how technical information is obtained not copyright laws
Rhetoric- the use of reasoned arguments based on socially accepted values and presented to inform and persuade in order to accomplish some socially desirable action such as a policy decision
Persuasion- the willing informed collective agreement of a critically thinking audience
Plato- ethical values come before any communication; ethics is absolute, unchanging and not subject to contingencies; ethics is not a matter of taking a vote; it is trying to understand the will of god
Socrates- first insisted on doing the right thing regardless of consequences, ethics is a matter of pleasing god, third ethical behavior requires active social involvement
Aristotle- communication between competing sides on a controversial matter reveals the proper values and the right course of action; more practical than Plato
sophists- communication act can alter our ethical values because there is no absolute for ethics; values are relative because they depend on circumstances; rhetoric and its techniques are separate from ethics
Hegel- values derive from social forces, not absolute ethics
Perelman- our language is our values
Burke- language use guided by carefully weighed judgment
Weaver- all language use (even technical writing) inescapably involves expressing some values
In the past, technical communication was seen as black and white, mechanical writing. The writer was simply a liaison between the "transmitter and the receiver". Recently though it has been changing and this change has brought up the question of ethics. With this change, has come responsibilities:
1. uses to which the information will be put
2. the range of possible readings of the document
3. the consequences of the communications at all levels of society beyond immediate audience
4. consideration of what you are not writing
Grounds for ethical judgment: what makes a particular ethical judgment right for us
"The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates- In the same way, there has to be guidelines by which ethical decisions are made in the workplace, or else you will be able to justify "wrong" decisions in the moment or even afterwards.
Ethics is not like science- there are no clear cut answers. We are each our own ethical expert, because in the end we decide what is right and wrong.
Ethics- the general field of study or the the theories of particular historical figures, value system that anyone might hold, value assumptions of an abstract principle or movement
Assumptions:
1. Ethics is problematic.
2. Ethics is both individual and social.
3. Ethics is neither an entirely absolute nor an entirely relative matter.
4. It would be irresponsible to blindly accept or blindly reject the authority of others in ethical matters.
5. No single ethical approach or theory is appropriate for all situations.
Perspectives in this work:
Aristotle, Kant, utilitarianism adn recent feminist theories, Levinas, Gert and Confucius
Scope:
How ethics relates to technical communications in ways that are not apparent or non-obvious but no less real and powerful. ex. how technical information is obtained not copyright laws
Rhetoric- the use of reasoned arguments based on socially accepted values and presented to inform and persuade in order to accomplish some socially desirable action such as a policy decision
Persuasion- the willing informed collective agreement of a critically thinking audience
Plato- ethical values come before any communication; ethics is absolute, unchanging and not subject to contingencies; ethics is not a matter of taking a vote; it is trying to understand the will of god
Socrates- first insisted on doing the right thing regardless of consequences, ethics is a matter of pleasing god, third ethical behavior requires active social involvement
Aristotle- communication between competing sides on a controversial matter reveals the proper values and the right course of action; more practical than Plato
sophists- communication act can alter our ethical values because there is no absolute for ethics; values are relative because they depend on circumstances; rhetoric and its techniques are separate from ethics
Hegel- values derive from social forces, not absolute ethics
Perelman- our language is our values
Burke- language use guided by carefully weighed judgment
Weaver- all language use (even technical writing) inescapably involves expressing some values
First Proposal Workshop
A. All good ideas must be argued now so it is essential to have a good proposal in order to communicate our intentions.
B. Rhetoric is the ancient art of persuasion. It goes back to the ancient Greeks.
C. How to write a good proposal? There are three parts:
Executive Summary (100 words) - purpose: to get the audience interested in the entire proposal; similar to the abstract of a scientific experiment; highlights the main point in order to hook the audience without them having to read the entire report
Introduction- includes the thesis/problem statement; foreshadowing of the conclusion in order to reveal upfront what the benefits are/ what ending will be.
Body (4 parts)
Current Situation- frames the problem and increases your credibility because it shows you know what you are talking about
Project Plan (methodology)- detailed plan of how to go about attaining the solution
Qualification Section- why am I/we, the writer/s, uniquely qualified to do this.
Budget- includes a timeline/schedule for our proposal including already established deadlines and personal deadlines in order to reassure the audience that you not only have a plan to get there but also a timely delivery.
Conclusion- return to the beginning and is sometimes a mirror to the introduction; summarizes very briefly the problem, how you are going to get there, and that the solution is a good one.
B. Rhetoric is the ancient art of persuasion. It goes back to the ancient Greeks.
C. How to write a good proposal? There are three parts:
Executive Summary (100 words) - purpose: to get the audience interested in the entire proposal; similar to the abstract of a scientific experiment; highlights the main point in order to hook the audience without them having to read the entire report
Introduction- includes the thesis/problem statement; foreshadowing of the conclusion in order to reveal upfront what the benefits are/ what ending will be.
Body (4 parts)
Current Situation- frames the problem and increases your credibility because it shows you know what you are talking about
Project Plan (methodology)- detailed plan of how to go about attaining the solution
Qualification Section- why am I/we, the writer/s, uniquely qualified to do this.
Budget- includes a timeline/schedule for our proposal including already established deadlines and personal deadlines in order to reassure the audience that you not only have a plan to get there but also a timely delivery.
Conclusion- return to the beginning and is sometimes a mirror to the introduction; summarizes very briefly the problem, how you are going to get there, and that the solution is a good one.
Proposal Outline
1. Executive Statement: 100 word summary statement
2. Introduction: Thesis/problem statement; solution
3. Body: Current situation, Project Plan//Methodology, Qualification, Budget (timeline)
4. Conclusion: Benefits
Current Situtation: Lack of knowledge about local restaurants, restaurants aren't centralized, Price ranges aren't publicized, lack of transportation (students without cars don't know about off campus locations)
List of Restaurants: (20-25) Gober's, Callhoun Corners, Sardi's, Pixie and Bill's, Dyer's, Paw's, Osaka, Beef O Brady's, Mac's, Fiesta, Monterrey's, El Charo, Griffin's, Mellow Mushroom, Atami, Blue Heron, Friend's Cafe, Mainstreet Cafe, Farmer's Shed, Seneca Family Restaurant, Ancheaux's, Tigertown Tavern, 356, Spill the Beans, Ben & Jerry's, Jittery Joe's, 55 Exchange, Ruby Tuesday's, Cooper River Grill,
Project Plan: Visit each restaurant, follow standardized rating system, investigate prices and menus, develop webpage with results, and video for mulitmedia component
Qualification: 3 different people so 3 different perspectives, college students
Timeline: Start as soon possible, develop deadline for attending all restaurants
2. Introduction: Thesis/problem statement; solution
3. Body: Current situation, Project Plan//Methodology, Qualification, Budget (timeline)
4. Conclusion: Benefits
Current Situtation: Lack of knowledge about local restaurants, restaurants aren't centralized, Price ranges aren't publicized, lack of transportation (students without cars don't know about off campus locations)
List of Restaurants: (20-25) Gober's, Callhoun Corners, Sardi's, Pixie and Bill's, Dyer's, Paw's, Osaka, Beef O Brady's, Mac's, Fiesta, Monterrey's, El Charo, Griffin's, Mellow Mushroom, Atami, Blue Heron, Friend's Cafe, Mainstreet Cafe, Farmer's Shed, Seneca Family Restaurant, Ancheaux's, Tigertown Tavern, 356, Spill the Beans, Ben & Jerry's, Jittery Joe's, 55 Exchange, Ruby Tuesday's, Cooper River Grill,
Project Plan: Visit each restaurant, follow standardized rating system, investigate prices and menus, develop webpage with results, and video for mulitmedia component
Qualification: 3 different people so 3 different perspectives, college students
Timeline: Start as soon possible, develop deadline for attending all restaurants
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Harty pgs. 49-113
Topics of Discussion
-Bigger words are not always better unless it conveys meaning better.
-If you cannot speak the words, don't write them.
-"I" is legitamate but not "I believe." Instead use "In my research, I have found" (w/footnote)
-There is a movement away from complete objectivity in scientific writing.
-To make language more complicated does not mean to elevate it, and to simplify language does not me to bring it down.
-Be yourself when you write because this is what takes real self-confidence. We are taught to write according to guidelines of others- for instance, "What does the professor want?"
-Very important: "Content might defeat them, but the form will not." pg. 81 Even when the audience cannot understand the words of the writing because of lack of previous knowledge, they should be able to follow it. Otherwise, writing has no purpose.
-Your understanding of what you are writing is actually judged by how well you can make someone else understand.
-Email ediquette is very subjective because of lack of body language, tone, etc.
-Active language is much more suitable for arguing a case; passive does have its own place though.
-Don't get caught up in word counting- understanding should be the main objective.
-Bigger words are not always better unless it conveys meaning better.
-If you cannot speak the words, don't write them.
-"I" is legitamate but not "I believe." Instead use "In my research, I have found" (w/footnote)
-There is a movement away from complete objectivity in scientific writing.
-To make language more complicated does not mean to elevate it, and to simplify language does not me to bring it down.
-Be yourself when you write because this is what takes real self-confidence. We are taught to write according to guidelines of others- for instance, "What does the professor want?"
-Very important: "Content might defeat them, but the form will not." pg. 81 Even when the audience cannot understand the words of the writing because of lack of previous knowledge, they should be able to follow it. Otherwise, writing has no purpose.
-Your understanding of what you are writing is actually judged by how well you can make someone else understand.
-Email ediquette is very subjective because of lack of body language, tone, etc.
-Active language is much more suitable for arguing a case; passive does have its own place though.
-Don't get caught up in word counting- understanding should be the main objective.
Strategies for Business and Technical Writing (Harty) pg. 49-113
Topic 1: What are some of the reasons that companies do not want to adopt a system of Plain English.? Do these outweight the benefits associated with the change?
Topic 2: There is a widespread confusion between simplicity and simple mindedness regarding Plain English. What are the differences? And in what instances do they appear to overlap and cause controversy?
Topic 3: English is becoming the universal language. The benefits in communication are obvious, but what are the problems, even the more subtle ones?
Topic 2: There is a widespread confusion between simplicity and simple mindedness regarding Plain English. What are the differences? And in what instances do they appear to overlap and cause controversy?
Topic 3: English is becoming the universal language. The benefits in communication are obvious, but what are the problems, even the more subtle ones?
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Class Ideas for Our Project
Website portal
Tailgating food
Bar/Club reviews possibly
Use established newspaper/magazine review rating system
Incorporate surrounding areas- 30 mile radius
Organize according to price
Use quotes for support
Tailgating food
Bar/Club reviews possibly
Use established newspaper/magazine review rating system
Incorporate surrounding areas- 30 mile radius
Organize according to price
Use quotes for support
Project Idea
Brennan, Katie, and I would like to do our project on the restaurants in Clemson. The purpose of this technical document will be to help navigate through the great number of restaurants available in the Clemson area. The audience will be Clemson students, faculty and staff, visitors, and alumni. The format will consist of subheadings with logical categories such as reviews, costs, and appropriate occassions. We will provide evidence to show credibility through research of pre-existing reviews, gathering more reviews from restaurant-goers, as well as visiting the establishments ourselves in order to obtain prices, etc. This document will be well-organized by restaurant and previously stated categories in a table of contents. We hope that this will be very beneficial resource to all who choose to dine in the Clemson area.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Project Ideas
1) College Late Night Cookbook- limited ingredients; technical aspects--> table of contents, intro, technical book format
2) Game day Traditions in Clemson- insiders guide to being a fan, website directed to visitors and fans, pictures, ritualistic lists, from sunrise til sundown
3) Business Plan- annual report, contact small company volunteer some of their reports
4) Medical Procedures- type of writing they do in their everyday work, interview a physician, differences in fellowships and residency programs within the Medical profession, coswt analysis
5) Profession Guide- from an undergraduate perspective, how to jump through the correct "hoops" to get into graduate school or obtain a particular job out of college, road map of sorts, make a film or website
6) Technical Research Documents- medical journals, analysis, taxes, will, investment documents
7) Non-Profit Organization- what needs they may have, link up, some sort of survey report whether their information is being correctly communicated to their audience
8) "How to" document- any genre, sports, outdoor activities, depending on your interests, rules of Golf, how to read music, how to learn guitar, how to computer software, how to fly fish, incorporate a video, how to apply to Medical school and undergraduate programs, how to create a gaming comp., how to backpack through Europe, how to build an investment portfolio, good places to hike in and around Clemson, start off your finances after college, where and why to invest
9) Evaluations of Different Schools Admission Materials- from a student's perspectives
10) Legal Documentation- how to, process behind, talk to Lawyers
11) Resume Building- video resume, more than just a word document, taking advantage of media technology, broaden your appeal
12) Off Campus Housing Advertising- pros and cons, market analysis
13) Rate My Professor- more in depth, what professors to take in order to improve the students' learning
14) Medical Research- genetics
15) Evaluation of Medical Product Reviews-
16) Guide to Studying Abroad- different steps, etc. to making it work financially, academically and socially, create a website
2) Game day Traditions in Clemson- insiders guide to being a fan, website directed to visitors and fans, pictures, ritualistic lists, from sunrise til sundown
3) Business Plan- annual report, contact small company volunteer some of their reports
4) Medical Procedures- type of writing they do in their everyday work, interview a physician, differences in fellowships and residency programs within the Medical profession, coswt analysis
5) Profession Guide- from an undergraduate perspective, how to jump through the correct "hoops" to get into graduate school or obtain a particular job out of college, road map of sorts, make a film or website
6) Technical Research Documents- medical journals, analysis, taxes, will, investment documents
7) Non-Profit Organization- what needs they may have, link up, some sort of survey report whether their information is being correctly communicated to their audience
8) "How to" document- any genre, sports, outdoor activities, depending on your interests, rules of Golf, how to read music, how to learn guitar, how to computer software, how to fly fish, incorporate a video, how to apply to Medical school and undergraduate programs, how to create a gaming comp., how to backpack through Europe, how to build an investment portfolio, good places to hike in and around Clemson, start off your finances after college, where and why to invest
9) Evaluations of Different Schools Admission Materials- from a student's perspectives
10) Legal Documentation- how to, process behind, talk to Lawyers
11) Resume Building- video resume, more than just a word document, taking advantage of media technology, broaden your appeal
12) Off Campus Housing Advertising- pros and cons, market analysis
13) Rate My Professor- more in depth, what professors to take in order to improve the students' learning
14) Medical Research- genetics
15) Evaluation of Medical Product Reviews-
16) Guide to Studying Abroad- different steps, etc. to making it work financially, academically and socially, create a website
Class Blogs
http://clemsontechwriting.blogspot.com
http://sharkey314.blogspot.com
http://myenglish314.blogspot.com
http://brennan314.blogspot.com
http://techwriting314ryan.blogspot.com
http://english314annadimitri.blogspot.com
http://technicalwriting314.blogspot.com
http://minermementoes.blogspot.com
http://myENGLH314.blogspot.com
http://brittaj.blogspot.com
Monday, September 1, 2008
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