Blog Assignment 5 & Website

Good morning everyone!! Welcome to Week 5 of ENG333.
I just sent out an e-mail to all of your Blackboard accounts explaining your assignments for this week. Please let me know if you are having any issues or confusion regarding any assignments or projects. Listed below is the blog assignment, and I sent out the material for Project 2, in which you will design and build a web site for your field. I can't wait to see how your projects turn out!

Courtney 

Blog Assignment 5: Beginning the Job Search
To help you get started with your next major Course Project, we would like you to locate four or more openings that you could realistically hope to apply for in the next few months, and to begin to analyze the needs and skills required for these various positions. To do this well, you should follow these steps:
First, you’ll want to consult a range of online and print sources for information regarding job openings, internships, graduate school programs, or other professional opportunities. For example, one place you might start is checking out resources available through USM Career Services at http://www.usm.edu/cs/students/students.html.
Depending on your major or area of interest, you might also want to check out various professional organizations affiliated with your discipline or field, many of which will probably post job and training opportunities. One place you might start looking for professional associations affiliated with your field or discipline online is: http://www.google.com/Top/Society/Organizations/Professional/.
You might also just try doing an online search with a combination of “[YOUR FIELD OR INDUSTRY] + Professional + organization”.
Finally, you might consider looking at your own department’s website for information about career opportunities, graduate programs, or professional associations that might be of help.
Second, once you have found at least four openings/opportunities that look like they might be potentially interesting, spend some time compiling a master list of the types of qualifications, skills and experiences they all seem to be looking for in a potential candidate. Do this in your blog post itself, and provide any links to the actual job ads and/or websites of the organizations that are hiring.
Next, in a new paragraph, spend some time identifying your major skills, training, accomplishments and experiences that would match up well to each item you identified in the previous list, making notes about how you might demonstrate that you possess these skills on your resume and cover letter.
Finally, select one of these positions in particular you feel like you might be well suited for (or that you’d be very interested in pursuing further), and write a paragraph or two explaining why you would want the position, and how you might go about writing a resume and cover letter to maximize your chances at obtaining it.
This blog entry should be approximately 750 words in length and contain multiple links to the various job ads you've located.

Blog Assignment 4

Hi everyone,
Here is Blog Assignment 4, which you can also find in the Weekly Learning Modules section of Black Board under Week 4. The assignment corresponds to Chapter 4 in your book, which is titled: "Letters: Establishing and Maintaining Relationships and which can be found on p. 514. Please have the blog completed by Sunday. Thanks!!

Courtney

Blog Assignment 4: Improving Professional Correspondence Your latest chapter from WAPP discusses in some detail the way that readers in professional settings actually respond to texts as they encounter them, noting that effective communicators need therefore to take a “reader-centered” approach to crafting their messages. The chapter concludes by discussing several strategies for producing more effective emails, letters, memos, and other types of correspondence.
To emphasize this work, we would like you to re-read and then revise the document below (which is offered as an example in the chapter and discussed at some length.) Specifically, we would like you to revise this email message by Donald Pryzblo so that it will be more likely to persuade the personnel manager to follow Pryzblo’s recommendation. To do this well, you'll need to take into account the way you expect the personnel manager to react upon finding such an email in his or her in-box. Indeed, you should make sure your first sentence clearly addresses a person in that frame of mind, and that your other sentences lead effectively from there to the last sentence, which you should leave unchanged.
Additional Background Information: For the purposes of this revision, you can assume that Pryzblo knows that the manager’s clerks are miscopying because he has examined the time sheets, time tickets, and computer files associated with the 37 incorrect payroll checks; in 35 cases, the clerks made the errors.
Text of Email:

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To: T. Leoni, Manager, Personnel Department
From: Donald Pryzblo, Manager, Data Processing Department
Subject: INCORRECT PAYROLL CHECKS
I have been reviewing the “errors” in the computer files.
Contrary to what you insinuated in our meeting, the majority of these errors were made by your clerks. I do not feel that my people should be blamed for this. They are correctly copying the faulty time tickets that your clerks are preparing.
You and I discussed requiring my computer operators to perform the very time-consuming task of comparing their entries against the time sheets from which your clerks are miscopying.
My people do not have the time to correct the errors made by your people, and I will not hire additional help for such work.
I recommend that you tell your clerks to review their work carefully before giving it to the computer operators.

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Once you have revised this email, please explain the changes you made to the original document, why, and what you hoped to accomplish in the revised version.
This blog entry should be approximately 500 words in length.

Corrections, Quiz, Blog, Etc.

Hi everyone,

It was just brought to my attention that the student copy of the text "Writing in Academic, Professional, and Public Contexts" has a confusing layout that incorporates non-sequential chapters from two separate textbooks. I don't know why the publisher did that, and I agree that it's confusing. To clarify, the reading for this week appears in the book as "Week 4," which covers _not_ Chapters 4 & 5, but rather Chapters 6 and 14. The readings are on pages 119-166. I apologize for any confusion. In the future, the quiz will just be over the reading listed for that week, whatever chapter's those may be. Week 4 is about research in your academic field.

Also, the web administrator posted the wrong assignment for Blog 4, something about a travel brochure. If you did this assignment for your fourth blog, that's fine and you will get credit. However, I took that assignment down and posted the correct one, which corresponds to the discussion that begins on p. 514 about correcting professional correspondence.

The quiz will open this evening and I will leave is posted until Saturday to give you an adequate amount of time to do the reading in case you read the wrong assignment. Again, I apologize for any confusion. I am out of town for the week, but available via e-mail, blog, and Skype in the event that you have any questions.

Thanks!

Courtney

Week 4

Good morning everyone,
I hope everyone is doing well. I received most of your projects and will start grading them this week. The information for the next unit, which covers Weeks 4, 5, and 6, will be posted today or tomorrow. There will be a quiz over Chapters 4 & 5 on Thursday and Blog Post 4 due on Saturday. We will also start thinking about your second project. I will notify you via Black Board as things get posted, but make sure that you check back frequently. As always, if you have any questions please let me know and I will do my best to answer them. Thanks!

Courtney

Re: Project 1

Good morning everyone! I just wanted to check in to see how everyone is doing on Project 1. If you have any questions or comments, this blog is a great forum for class discussion, so please don't hesitate to ask them in the comments section.

Project 1 should be e-mailed to my Black Board account by Friday at midnight, but if you feel as though you need more time, just let me know and we can discuss that.

Have a great day!

Courtney

The Quiz Has Been Posted!!

Hi everyone! The quiz has been posted and everything is working properly. Thank you for your patience and good luck!

Courtney

Quiz Update

Hi everyone. In case you haven't checked in yet, I am having an issue getting the quiz uploaded. I am going to have to contact IT or Cengage, and I will let you know when it is posted. It probably won't happen until later tonight or tomorrow, so just keep checking back for updates. Thanks!

Courtney

Lectures

Good morning everyone. I just posted both lectures for this week on Black Board. Also, I just wanted to let you know that for your quiz tomorrow you can expect 6-8 questions covering Chapters 2 and 3 in the reading. You will have one hour to complete the quiz, and the quiz will remain open until midnight tomorrow night. Please let me know if you have any questions. Have a great day!!

Courtney

Week 3: Readings, Quiz, Project 1

Good morning everyone! I just sent out an e-mail regarding this week's assignments to your Black Board account. This week, your reading covers Chapters 2 &3 with a quiz over the material on Wednesday. Project 1 is also due, as is your third blog post, so you have a busy week ahead of you. I am posting the Project 1 information below, though you can also find it on Black Board and in your most recent e-mail from me. If you have any questions about the assignment, please let me know and I can offer additional guidance. I have been going through your blogs and you all should receive comments from me about your second post either today or tomorrow. Great work so far. There is a lot of stuff happening this week, so please make a note of the due dates for everything, which you will find in the e-mail I just sent to you via Black Board. If you have any questions, you can comment on my blog, e-mail me, Skype or instant message me via Skype--your options are many. Anyway, have a great week!

Courtney

Course Project One: Analysis of Writing in Your Major

For your first formal project in this course I would like you to apply some of the concepts you have been developing through the course readings and lectures to an analysis of writing that typically gets done in your major and/or field. My goal is to have you recognize and begin to describe in some detail the rhetorical expectations and conventions that shape how people write, research and think within your academic community, while at the same time gaining a better understanding of how you could be a more successful communicator within this field. There will be several steps to this work.

Step One

First, you will need to select a paper that you’ve written for another class at USM that you feel could use some improvement–preferably from a required class in your major or offered in your department. The paper you select should be problematic in some way, meaning that if you had the ability to write it again, you already suspect you’d make some changes to it. If after thinking about it a great deal you cannot decide on a specific paper that will work for this project, you can always use a paper assignment or project that you know will be assigned in another class this semester or in the near future. (For example, almost every Senior Capstone course at USM requires some piece of writing – so you might inquire into what these projects typically consist of.) The only requirement here is that you select an assignment or project that is typical within your major/department.

Once you have located a paper or assignment within your field, I would like you to spend some time reflecting on and analyzing the rhetorical situation that prompted the writing of this paper. That is, using some of the same questions that guided your thinking in your last blog posting, I’d like you to think carefully about the factors that influenced how you went about writing this original paper, and/or, some of issues and concerns that inform the assignment. Some questions in particular you might consider include:

• What was the context or situation that prompted your writing? What kind of class was this paper written for, what exactly did the assignment ask you to do, and what additional sources, materials or resources were you asked to employ in producing the paper?
• Was the topic of the paper or project assigned to you, or were you able to select your own? Did you know something about the topic already, or were you expected to learn something through the process of writing? Is there a larger debate, discussion, or controversy already going on in your field that this piece of writing was meant to engage/address? If so, what and how?
• Who was the audience for this paper? Only your teacher? Any one in your field? Other students? Professionals? What did you know about your reader’s background, credibility, knowledge of the topic, beliefs, social allegiances, etc., before writing this paper? What kind of relationship did you try to establish with your reader(s)? How? What assumptions about your reader(s) did you make in writing the paper? What have you discovered about your reader(s) now that you’ve written the paper?
• What was your call to write? Why did you address the issue and/or topic that you did? Was there any sense of urgency involved in this? How did you identify the significance of the issues involved, either for yourself or for your readers? If the topic was assigned to you, in what ways did you attempt to make the issue your own?
• Beyond simply completing the assignment, what was your purpose in writing this paper? What were you trying to accomplish? In what ways were you trying to affect your readers, and to what end? How did you go about doing this? Why?
• What genre or form did your writing take? How did you go about structuring/organizing your paper? Why? Was there any particular style of language or level of formality that you tried to use? Why? What tone did you strive to achieve? Did you use any specialized terms or slang in your writing?
• What other factors, if any, do you think shaped the writing of this paper? What goals do you think your teacher had in assigning this particular writing task?

Step Two

Now that you have some sense of the rhetorical elements and assumptions that originally informed the writing of your paper, it’s time to evaluate the overall effectiveness of some of your choices with respect to the expectations, beliefs, values and practices of the wider field.

Which is to say, using your paper, your teacher’s reactions to it, the original assignment, and your own understanding of the beliefs, values and goals of your field/discipline, how would you rate your own understanding of what is expected of you as a writer when you write papers like this? What do you now know about writing this type of document that you may not have considered before? Taking a step back, what does a paper like this suggest to you about the topics, issues, beliefs and assumptions that people in this community tend to value and/or be interested in? Is this type of document/assignment common in your major/field? What sorts of audiences are typical, and what kinds of assumptions do writers need to make about their readers in producing papers in your discipline? What other motivations does one need in order to be successful in writing a paper or assignment like this?

Finally, based on this particular assignment, what would you say are some of the beliefs, assumptions and/or goals that both students and professors in your major/field seem to share when they read and write? That is, looking back on the types of readings and writing that people in your major seem to do most often, what do you think this suggests about the values and practices of your academic community more generally? If you had summarize in a sentence or two what the purpose of your academic major or field is—based on this one assignment alone—what would it be?

Step Three

Now that you’ve thought carefully about both the rhetorical situation that prompted you to write, and considered some of the larger values and beliefs in your field that shape writing more generally, it is time to formulate a revision strategy. That is, given everything you’ve written and thought about in steps one and two, if you were suddenly given two weeks to revise this original paper and resubmit it for a new grade, what specifically would you do to it and why? What specific principles that we’ve been discussing in English 333 this semester do you feel would be useful to you in trying to revise this paper? What advice would you give other students facing a similar writing situation as the one in the original assignment? What things would you try to avoid doing next time if you faced a similar situation again? What kinds of things would you try to do next time? Be specific!

Once you’ve carefully thought about and written about each of these issues, I would like you to organize your observations into a 3-5 page report (750-1250 words) that offers specific examples and details that effectively illustrate the points you wish to make. You may structure this report in any way that makes sense to you, keeping in mind that most readers will want to see a clear beginning (introduction), middle (elaboration), and ending (conclusion). Feel free to use headings/subheadings if you think it will help organize your discussion, and if possible, please include a copy of the original paper that prompted your analysis and/or a description of the assignment.

Quiz 1

Good morning, everyone. Quiz 1 has been posted. Please take the quiz by midnight. You have one hour to complete the quiz once you begin. Also, for those of you who are still waiting on your book, take the quiz anyway to get an idea of what the format is because I drop the lowest quiz grade anyway.

Courtney

Quiz 1 & Blog Post 2

Hi everyone! Quiz 1 will be posted tomorrow morning and must be completed by tomorrow evening. Once you begin the quiz, which is only 5 questions, you have 1-hour window for completing it. If you do not yet have the book or the code, please let me know.

Blog Assignment 2 is posted below and can also be found on Blackboard. Please post your assignment on your blog by midnight on Saturday. I really enjoyed the first round of blogs, and I can't wait to see how you respond to this assignment. Make sure you read the instructions and respond as comprehensively as possible.

Blog Assignment 2: Analyzing a Rhetorical Situation
For your second blog posting this semester—and in preparation for your first Course Project—we’d like you to select a piece of writing/article that you were assigned to read in one of the classes in your major here at USM, and to begin analyzing and discussing the rhetorical situation that seems to have motivated the creation of this document. That is, we want you to choose a typical type of writing that you have to read and use as a student in your major, and employing several of the “strategies for close reading” and “analyzing the rhetorical situation” discussed in WAPP, provide a summary of the text, as well as an analysis/evaluation of the writing’s overall rhetorical effectiveness.
To do this well, you will probably want to consider the following:

• What is the context of the issues the writer seems to be discussing? What do you know about the topic? What issues does the topic raise?  Is there a larger debate, discussion, or controversy already going on that motivates the writing of this piece? What seems to be at stake?
• Who is the writer? What do you know about the writer’s background, credibility, knowledge of the topic, beliefs, social allegiances, etc.?
• What is the publication? What do you know about its intended readers, reputability, political slant, types of topics it covers, etc.?
• What is the call to write? Why is the writer addressing this issue and/or taking a positing at this particular time? Is there some sense of urgency involved? How does the writer identify the significance of the issues involved?
• What is the writer’s purpose? What is he or she trying to accomplish? How do you know?
• Who is the intended audience? Is the writer addressing one group of readers or several? What kind of relationship is the writer trying to establish with readers? What assumptions about readers does this writer seem to make?
• How does the writer use language? What is the writer’s tone? Does the writer used specialized terms or slang? What does the writer's word choice show about his or her assumptions about readers?

Finally, after you have considered all these things, you'll want to provide an evaluation of how well the writer seems to have accomplished his or her purpose overall, and what her or she might have done differently to make the document even more effective.
As with all your blog entries, feel free to provide links to any information or resources that you feel might be interesting or useful. You may also wish to include any images, videos or additional material that your readers might appreciate or enjoy.
This blog entry should be approximately 500-750 words in length. If you have any questions, please let me know. Also, post a comment to my blog or e-mail me when your second blog is posted.

Happy writing!!

Courtney

Lectures 1 & 2

Good morning everyone,
The blogs are looking really good. Don't forget, if you haven't done it already, you must send your URL to me by 5 today so that I can go to your blog and view the completed assignment. This is your first grade. Also, the first two video lectures will be posted on Blackboard, so make sure you watch them over the weekend. We will begin discussing Chapter 1 early next week, so get the reading done.  If you have any questions, let me know.                                                                                                                                                                      

Courtney

Blog Assignment 1

Good morning, everyone! I've really enjoyed looking at your blogs so far, and I thought it might be helpful to re-post the assignment here, in the blogosphere, for those of you who are just getting started. This is also a great forum to click on "Followers" and get a sense of who your classmates are and see their writing styles. Don't forget to friend me on Skype if you haven't already--their instant messaging service comes in handy. If you have any questions about the blog assignment, don't hesitate to ask!

Blog Assignment 1: Student Profile  For your first blog posting this semester, we’d like you to spend some time introducing yourself to your Discussion Section Leader and fellow students, and talk a little about your previous experiences with writing. In addition to touching on what you study at USM (as well as the kind of job you currently have or hope to get once you finish school), you might address one of the following topics:
Having read the first chapter of your textbook, can you give some examples of: 1) an academic document that you regularly write or have written within your major; 2) any professional/workplace writing you have done; and 3) any public documents or writing for general audiences that you may have engaged in?
Is there a type of writing/kind of document that you particularly enjoy doing? Is there a type of writing/kind of document you find particularly difficult? Why?
Can you describe a time when writing “broke down” for you in some way, and why you think this happened? That is, what factors do you think contribute to why writing sometimes failing as a means of communicating, and is there anything that can be done about this? What? (However you define this idea of writing “breaking” or “failing” is okay, but please take some time to explain what you mean by this, and how it happens.)
Is there anything you specifically hope to learn about writing in this course this semester. Is there anything that troubles or worries you? Aside from passing this class or getting an “A,” what are some things that you hope to accomplish in this course?
As with all your blog entries, feel free to provide links to any web sites or resources  you feel might be interesting or useful to your readers. You may also include any images, videos, or additional material that your readers might appreciate or enjoy, provided it fits with your topic.
This blog entry should a be approximately 250-500 words and posted to your Blogger account.

Welcome to ENG 333

Hi everyone!! Since I am going to to be following all of your blogs, I've posted one for me as well. On this site, you will be able to find links to your classmates' blogs, as well as discussions about your blog assignments. Please make sure to follow me so that we can have a comprehensive list of blogs for the class. If you have any questions, just let me know.

Best, 

Courtney