Chapter 7 Reflections

Between this M COM class and the English course I was taking earlier this semester, a lot of stress has been placed upon the importance of creating resumes, cover letters, and other documents related to seeking employment.  Both classes provide valuable information, yet I found more valuable tips from the M COM class through chapter 7.  Not only does this chapter provide detailed descriptions and examples of these documents, but it also gives helpful information for participating in interviews-- as the potential employee and even as the employer.  Interviews are a critical part of the hiring process, thus making it even more important for the job seeker to perform well in interviews.  One last tip that I appreciated from the readings was the impact of writing a thank-you letter as a follow-up to an interview.  I have never written a thank-you/follow-up letter, but I can now see the importance of doing so.  If I was an employer and I received a follow-up letter from a potential employee, I would be impressed and perhaps consider them more seriously for the job.

Chapter 6 Reflections

Before reading chapter 6, I hadn't realized how many different types of documents there are in the business world.  I am a dance major, and this M COM class is my first experience dealing with business writing.  I can write stories, research papers, and letters galore, yet business writing is still a new creature for me.  Despite the differences, there are still many commonalities between business writings and the writings I'm already familiar.  In all genre's, importance is placed on the purpose of the writing, the intended audience, and the strategy for achieving the purpose.  Something that stood out to me in chapter 6 was the information about different formats for writing letters.  The three formats discussed are full-block, modified-block, and simplified.  I will need to practice writing it each of these formats before I can comfortably identify them and understand them, but this chapter gave a wonderful guide to grasping them.

Chapter 5 Reflections

Sometimes I fall victim to thinking that my first drafts of writing projects are acceptable, especially when under a time crunch.  Chapter 5 clearly explains, though, how valuable it is to revise and edit text.  This helps with clarity, maintaining credibility, and truthful expressions.  A great method for helping with the revising process is to have a peer go over the text and have them offer feedback.  Knowledgeable editors are valuable, so someone that can provide truthfully helpful feedback is important to have.  I found it useful to go over the Ten Common Proofreaders’ Marks.  I had already seen many of them before, but some of them were new.  Now that I know all of these ten marks, editing papers ought to be more effective.  As a final note, I am not sure why it is necessary to have so many acronyms for revising and editing.  I wonder if DOCS could be just as valuable on a paragraph and sentence level, thus doing away with CLOUD and SPELL.  I understand what each of these acronyms is trying to portray, and with the regular overlap in values I believe they could be grouped together.

Chapter 4 Reflections

There are many ways to make potentially boring and difficult-to-read documents more vivid and interesting.  Some of the ways mentioned in Chapter 4 that are worth implementing are use of typography, spacing, alignment, and visual aids.  The book itself did a great job at implementing the techniques as they were being explained.  The headings are diverse and interesting, and images are found throughout the chapter to enhance the teachings.  I was disappointed, though, to find that ART was used as a title for the subheadings of Tables, Bar and Line Graphs, Pie Graphs, Photographs and Clip Art, and Miscellaneous Graphics.  Art is a pathos strategy that can help with logos and ethos.  I would debate that “art” is not the correct term for grouping these elements of visual aids.  In fact, that is probably the best term for this section:  Visual Aids.  The title of the chapter is Enhancing Visual Appeal, thus making it even more appropriate to refer to these artifacts as “Visual Aids” rather than “Art”.  Art is chiefly used for beauty and emotional influence with the expression of creative skills.  I, for one, cannot imagine a time when someone was emotionally moved by a bar graph (but that’s not to say that it hasn’t happened).  And now, to get off my soap box, I believe this chapter is very useful and informative.  I will surly reference this chapter in the future.

Chapter 3 Reflections

When composing written messages, careful attention must be given to the tone of voice and articulation of words.  Most people like to brush through their writings without much thought.  However, the more clear and concise the writing is, the more likely it is that people will receive the outcomes they are looking for.  From the Chapter 3 readings, I found it interesting to learn about types of logic fallacies.  I know that I have fallen victim to using a large number of those fallacies listed.  The rooted concern with fallacies is when writings become too self-serving, and then as a result end up ruining the argument or informative statement in the long-run.  As writings develop, coherency is an important quality to search for.  In relation to coherency, I found it interesting that one-sentence paragraphs can be acceptable.  I sometimes feel as though my paragraphs have to be at least three sentences long, but this reading proved me wrong!  The Chapter 3 reading helped me in many ways while preparing my one-page memo (with OABC  format).

Chapter 2 Reflections

I learned from chapter two about valuable tools to help plan and outline messages.  Top-down approaches are my preferred way to outline a message, but bottom-up methods are sometimes utilized.  Of all of the strategies (between top-down and bottom-up) I am most comfortable with the tree diagram.  I use this method when writing professional letters, essays, and sometimes even journal entries.  It helps me keep my thoughts organized in a manageable way.  Another impactful lesson from the reading is the five outline tests.  Among the tests, inclusion and exclusion are probably my greatest weaknesses, although I don’t think that I’m terrible with them.  I know that I can be more mindful of both the details I should include and also the details I ought to exclude.  Lastly, I appreciated learning about the rhetorical strategies from Aristotle.  Logos and Pathos will be valuable to remember when considering the audience and tone of a message.  I naturally want to speak to the pathos when writing, so it will be a good challenge for me to try writing to the logos more.