Open Topic

After taking this class, I’ve started to understand the purpose of technical writing. The things that I’ve come to understand is when your informing someone of something, you want to use a more direct informative approach then your overall view of it. You don’t add in your personal beliefs or thoughts to the subject. Carrying on conversations is not a direct approach and you start to steer off course from the subject matter. If I am ever speaking to anyone in a business or educational setting, I try to apply these methods to my communication. Communication is very vital in this world, especially in the field of business. I really hope I improve my writing as I go and experience more forms of writing out there.

Tom Sumner's Visit

I didn’t realize how complicated it use to be to publish books. The publishing and editing process can really take its toll. But with our technological advances it has made it much easier. Tom stated though the sites out there to help publishers these days find the right covers for your author’s book and even systems that can assist the process of getting the book out into the market. I was also looking through most of the books that he has published and realize there wasn’t particularly any moral or subject with most of his books. They all had difference genres and topics. When you tend to work with many different authors, you have to adjust your perspective to their needs so make the books progression successful. I’m not exactly sure I see myself becoming an author yet alone a publisher, but I felt his visit was really insightful.

The Persuaders Movie

I thought the Persuaders advertising movie showed a great deal on how we perceive brands and their overall effect on us. We realize that they are more than just a product for us as consumers; it’s almost a way of living. Our brands basically define us as individuals and we tend to stick to the ones we are most familiar with. The movie related how words, slogans, and pictures are imprinted in our minds to want us to purchase that item. Market researchers really breakdown our subconscious thoughts to determine what we find most interesting and what would make us want to purchase those items. Analyzing buyers and what words or pictures we find most appealing as a culture to recognize the relations of their product and ourselves. Are we that easily influenced or do we overall make that decision to purchase based on their argument and product performance?

Progress on Technical Writing

Since being in this Technical Writing class, I have really started to pay attention to the forms of writing and acknowledge the structure of those who write to me, especially in Emails. My professors are usually direct and straight to the point. No carrying on and is very technical in their requests or answers when I give them questions. I realize in the business and work world, no one wants to carry on with questions and answers. They just want direct and adequate response. People are busy these days and don't have time to ramble on. They’re more organized in their writing and center around the main points so there is an effective line of communication between the reader and the writer. I realize that writing will be a major part in my work-life and I will strive to improve. Not only to improve myself though, but to also be able to clearly communicate information across to one another.

Media Kit

Amazon

Review

I have just reviewed Dan Cilen’s network directions, and I thought it was straight to the point and well said. Abbreviations were placed for anything that was either selected or in a box, so the reader may know what to look for on the screen. I like directions when their brief and explain the directions in simple but direct form. Directions have come a long ways since back in the day. You can actually give the directions a chance now and don’t have to skip directly to the administrator for assistance.

Technical Writing Exercise

Technical Writing Exercise

Unemployment rate falls to 9.7 percent


“I don't think we're close yet to even a stable rate at this point,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “We have yet to see any hiring. Until we get real, positive, substantive job growth, it's hard to conclude this is a self-sustaining economy."

Even if job growth returns to the pace of the boom years in the middle of the last decade, it would take years to create the millions of new jobs needed to bring employment back to pre-recession levels.

“Getting those jobs back is going to be very difficult,” said William Gross, a founder of investment manager PIMCO. He pointed out that a third of the jobs lost were in fields related to the housing boom, including construction workers and real estate agents. "Those jobs aren't coming back.”

I recently read this article on the unemployment rate and was trying to analyze the rhetoric marks in the article itself. With Marks Zandi remark on “I don't think we're close yet to even a stable rate at this point,” is a pathos reasoning. With a personal remark on a emotional decision. "We have yet to see any hiring." would be his logos reasoning, based on what he has seen. Also in his remarks are based on his profession as an economist, is his ethos. Detemining his emotional cedibility and moral characteristics. It backs up his support on the topic based on his knowledge in that field. "Getting those jobs back is going to be very difficult," and "Those Jobs aren't coming back" is a mixture of logos and pathos. It drives the emotion of your decision with your logical reasoning. Letting this author in the article state out his reasonings with his logic, emotion, and morals using the three different rhetoric arts.

Tone of Message

The only recent message that I have received was from a professor, stating that our PowerPoint Presentation had been postponed due to concerns of the project and the lack of time we had to complete it.

“I have been notified of some concern over the due date that I announced for the Unit 3 PowerPoint Presentation (currently set for tomorrow). I agree with the concerns that were presented and wanted to offer a few more days to get your PowerPoint presentation compiled. You may post it in on Sunday, the 31st, rather than having to post it tomorrow.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you!”

I believe the professors tone to be courteous and sincere in his message. It was informative as well as direct. He gave us notice of his concerns and gave us a couple more days to turn in the assignment, which also lowered the stress on my end, by giving us a couple more days to do so. He was also curious as to where we were in the project and if there were any questions we had. It was written at the appropriate level from a professor to a student. I wouldn’t expect anything more out of this message.

Worksheet for Proposal

Worksheet for Proposal

The Art of Rhetoric

As for the rhetoric art that I have come to know from the great Greek philosopher Aristotle, was that ethos was your credibility or moral characteristic, pathos is your emotions persuasion, and logos is your logical reasoning. Each of these phrases providing you with clarity in your claim with supporting evidence; mainly focusing on the particular case of persuasion in your statement. I thought these were all very keen and elegant ways of speaking or writing effectively. If you were to be become an effective writer you had to understand these rhetoric terms thoroughly. I definitely felt Aristotle was on to something here and made good sense in his judgment. These do play very important roles in your logic of persuasion, whether it be speaking or writing in any language.

Start-up for English 402

In the past I have wrote many blogs for previous college classes. We focused more on the technical blog pages and what types of gadgets they can have. But never really focused on the writing part. I'm looking forward to see how this can help critique my writing and see what I am able to gain from this class.