Response to chapters 14 & 15

Something that I have found to be quite helpful when revising my drafts, mentioned in guideline 3 of chapter 14, is reading my draft aloud. Often when I don't read aloud, my mind will try to fill in the blanks if a word is missing, or certain sentences will sound better in my head than read out loud. Another helpful tool during revision mentioned in the reading is have someone review your draft. This is something I don't do enough of due to time constraints. In the last writing class I took, we completed peer reviews on many of our drafts. Sometimes this process can be less than helpful, as I experienced early in the class. Other times, peer reviews can provide positive feedback, as I later discovered with different classmates. I think that it's a matter of finding people that don't try to say how great things are in your paper, but rather, make changes that would make the paper even better.

Chapter 15 will be something that I will refer to for my group project of designing a software task. One thing that will be interesting when trying to conduct a test of the task, is not intervening to help my audience when the test is being conducted. I think that it will be hard to refrain from helping those that require assistance, but I know that that is the purpose of the test, to find the areas that people have trouble with. One useful suggestion found in this chapter is to remain unobtrusive during observation. Many people don't like to be closely watched when they are trying to concentrate on doing something, it's often distracting.

Reponse to Melisa Dawson

Melisa, like many others in the class, focused on the ethical issue in journalism. I felt like the group ethics activity in class was a good way to think about and experience making ethical decisions. Melisa mentions how journalists have to decide between releasing a big story and protecting those that could be affected negatively by such a release. This is a constant dilemma, but I think journalists try hard to get the big story as best as they can. If there is an ethical issue, is seems like there is enough room to try and get around it, whether it's through attribution or obtaining appropriate consent from those closely involved. And as Melisa also mentions, people are attracted to disturbing and other controversial news, they want the big stories just as much as the journalists do. On the other hand, some people will have something negative to say about any kind of news that is put out there. The important thing for journalist is to do their best to prevent further harm to people associated with the particular story.

Broadcast Journalism

It was interesting to hear about what goes into producing a television news segment. I guess I didn't realize that so much of the content was dependent on one person to produce. It seems kind of crazy that an entire news segment starts with a meeting earlier in the day to cover material, followed by a seemingly frantic struggle to pull it all together by airing time. I was wondering if since much of the writing of a segment is produced by one person, does this ever result in repetitiveness from one particular broadcast to the next?

I think that news broadcasters are put in a difficult situation when they are constantly having to make tough decisions on what or what not to cover. They deal with ethical situations on a daily basis, and appear to have little time to weigh their options. On the other hand, they are able to avoid some of the repercussions of questionable stories through attribution. Even still, I think that it's important not to rely so much on attribution for protection when making these tough decisions.

Response to Traci Johnson

I can relate to what Traci mentions about watching or not watching a news station based on the anchors. I think that people focus on the anchors in how they present the news and this definitely has an influence on what station one will watch. I think that it's easier to focus on the negative aspects of news anchors and it can turn someone away from a particular channel. I can recall watching one news channel where one of the anchors said her words kind of funny and drawn out, and I couldn't help but focus on this every time I watched. I would say that it was somewhat distracting, and I could see how people could be bothered enough with an anchor to change the channel.

A good point that Traci makes is that today many people can get their news online and news stations have to compete with this. This makes me think about how news channels will hold out on presenting the forecast to get people to stay tuned, while I can simply get online and the information is right there. Part of the news station's competition with internet news involves promoting their own websites to their audience. If the station has a good website, they can potentially retain some of their audience in the online format.

TV News

When thinking about news in general, I can't help but notice how there has been this movement towards flashy entertainment. Some news channels seem to play-up everything to be bigger than it really is, attempting to catch the attention of viewers. I suppose if news is more entertaining, there is a greater likelihood of attracting more viewers. However, I think some stations lose sight of the importance of presenting good news and try too hard to be showy. Some news commercials seem to be over the top, and have cheesy special effects.

I don't really watch the news that often on my own. The only time I see it is when someone else has it on or when flipping through channels. I think that if these various news stations offered better quality information in a less dramatic way, I'd be more likely to watch. When I feel like when the news is reaching too far for stories that don't mean much or add too much hype to stories, it simply turns me away.

Response to Freelance Writing Posts

What I've noticed in several of the posts on freelance writing is that many of us, including myself, have realized that this form of writing is something that we could potential do right now if we wanted. After hearing the talk last week, and after completing the query letter assignment, I felt like I could actually follow through with a real-life freelance writing experience. I've never considered myself to be a writer, nor could I have seen myself writing for any publication until now. Dedicated writer or not, I still think it's nice to know that there are opportunities out there in the realm of freelance writing in which many of us could take on.

Freelance Writing

Being a freelance writer seems to me like a job that would be very freeing. If you like to work for yourself as a writer, this is the route to follow. You can work at your own pace, set your own schedule, and write about what interests you. Freelance writing is sort of like embarking upon a research project each time you find something to write about. The writers in this field really have to do their homework when it comes to presenting articles that publications are looking for. Before freelance writers can start collecting information on the topic for their article, they must first research what has been written about in the past.

Although there are many benefits to freelance writing, it still seems like a career that would be hard to commit to full-time. This line of work somewhat lacks security in that writers never know for certain when and if their articles will be accepted for publication. On top of that, the pay rate is often presented in a range, making it unclear as to the exact allowance for an accepted article.

I believe that freelance writing will give back what you put into it. If you spend a lot of time and effort producing what publications want, and go after the high-paying opportunities, this can be a very lucrative career. It can also be something that people do on the side, in addition to another job. A way to earn some extra money or write about interesting topics as they come along, but on your own time.

Response to Amela Colakovic's Chap. 8 & 19 Post

Amela brings up a couple of good thoughts on the chapter readings. She points out the fact that it is difficult to present one's own style in technical writing. Technical writing seems to strip everything down to get to the bare bones of the writing by cutting out all the fluff, avoiding fancy words, and really focusing on the readers. When it comes to establishing style in various forms of writing, writers must first be able to adapt to the conventions of the writing form itself, then focus on the appropriate style techniques.

Amela raises the question of how one can be creative and still please the client in a given project. She goes on to say that creativity seems like something that would have to be sacrificed in order to please the client. This is a good point because many times the client will request that things be done a certain way, and this may not be the direction that the project leader would have gone. Nevertheless, the client's satisfaction with the end product should be the ultimate goal of the project leader. On the other hand, however, I feel that in many cases clients will seek creativity in the people they choose to head their projects. I think that it is just a matter of trying to find a balance between creativity and what the client wants.

Chapter 8 & 19 Response

The first thing that really stuck out to me in chapter 8 was guideline 5 in the "Constructing Sentences" section. This guideline suggests varying sentence length and structure. This is something that I'm interested in because within the past couple years, I've tried to use more variety in my writing. This guideline focuses on using variety, but in a very specific way in order to add emphasis to a particular point. Longer sentences show the relationship between ideas, and shorter sentences emphasize the longer ones. This seems like an effective technique that I can use in my own writing.

Another interesting part of the chapter was guideline 4 in the "Selecting Words" section. This guideline recommends that plain words are used over fancy ones. At first, I was somewhat taken back by this because I figured that fancy words would sound more professional. As I read further, I found out that plain words are easier and quicker to comprehend, and fancy words can lead to irritation in the reader or even the belief that the writer is showing off. This made me think of the group revision exercise we did in class where one of the words in an example had to be looked up in order to understand what it meant. That is too much work for someone to go through just to comprehend what the writer is saying, and I now see how fancy words can be annoying to readers.

One of the most important parts of chapter 19, in my mind, was guideline 5. Ample communication with clients is the focus of this guideline. This section notes that problems, scheduling issues, and expansions of the project are common occurrence when working with clients on a project. When working with clients, meetings with them regularly will greatly increase the chances of the project working to their liking. Also, this will save the person doing the work a lot of time because they can address issues, concerns, or changes right away. This will avoid more work by not having to go back later to fix something that has already been started on prior to consulting the client.