Response to Sergiy's "What I've learned..."

Sergiy and I seem to agree on a couple of the main things we've learned from English 402. It sounds like he and others have retained some practical skills from this class. A class always seems worth your time when you can take something useful away from it. One thing that Sergiy mentioned was rhetoric, which is something I dealt with more in depth in a previous class. Even still, it was nice to visit it again, and I enjoyed dissecting the videos we watched for the different forms of rhetoric.

What I learned in English 402

I would say that the main thing that I learned in this class is to be more concise and maintain an active voice in my writing. I've enjoyed practicing these things in my memos each week, as well as finding my own style of organizing information. What I liked most about this class was that I learned real-life uses for writing in a job setting. I feel like I can take something away from this class and use it in my current or future job.

It was interesting to learn about people with careers that involve different areas of writing. People have these job titles that one can sort of get an idea of what they do, but, as we learned, there can be many more aspects to a job that we never considered.

One thing that came up a lot in the reading for this class was making your writing reader-centered. I learned that you can't just jump into a piece of writing and target it to a general audience. Before you even start writing, you have to think about the people you're writing for, and even for those that may come in contact with your writing indirectly.

Response to Chapters 17 & 18

While chapter 17 felt mostly like a reiteration of previously learned tips on presenting, I did gain some new insight on audience recognition and interaction. It seems that most people would like to imagine that the audience wasn't even there, rather than interact with the people in it. However, if you don't pay attention to your audience, why should they pay attention to you? I try to make eye contact with people in the audience, but sometimes I will skim over their faces. When it comes to making a plan for where to look during the presentation and targeting particular facial features, I think that all of that would go out the window as soon as I started talking. The book suggests looking at people in the audience in 4 to 5 second intervals, which seems a bit long to be staring at someone. Having this happen to me as an audience member in the past, I recall it being somewhat odd. I think closer to 2 seconds would suffice.

One of the key points that stood out to me in chapter 18 was constructing a site that readers with disabilities can use. It's all too easy to forget about this aspect of building a site. I never thought about how the commonly used "click here" link could be so useless for the visually impaired. Websites are in a place where anyone can access them, greatly increasing the range of people that may visit a given site. The more adapted your site is to those with disabilities, the greater target your site will reach. People will not hesitate to leave a site that is unaccommodating to their special needs when they can find one that does.

Response to "The Persuaders"

It was fascinating to see the amount of effort that goes into advertising a product. Whether it's molding your product to represent an overall ideal or finding the "code" that seeks to sell the product. When I think about products and brands, I feel that many people are attracted to brands. I think that when people find a product that they like, in its cost and effectiveness, they tend to stick with that product. It may not even be the name brand, but it's still a brand. If you only go with the cheapest product, you might feel good about how much you spent, but does the product do what it should, does it last, does it taste good? This is where some level of disappointment can arise, when there's no satisfaction in what is purchased. People don't like to feel dissatisfied with the things they buy. When they find that product that gives them the results they're looking for, it's easier to stay loyal to it than to take the risk with something unfamiliar.

After watching "The Persuaders", I saw the pollster from the movie, Frank Luntz, on some political news show. He was talking about the real-time polls of people's reactions during presidential candidate speeches. It's amazing to me how the use of certain words can change someone's reaction negatively or positively, even when the topic is the same or the same message is being presented. People cling to these words that leave a lasting or "resonating" effect, as Luntz states. Many times these speeches rely less on the details of the issue and more on the verbal delivery and word usage surrounding the general idea of the issue.

Response to Chapters 2, 9 & 10

As I approach the end of my education at WSU Vancouver, I realize that the looming task of writing a resume is upon me. I couldn't help but try to absorb as much information from chapter 2 as I could. I'm almost certain I will be referring back to it soon. I believe the most important aspect of writing a resume, found in chapter 2, is finding out exactly what your potential employer is looking for in applicants of a certain position. Having many experiences and skills doesn't mean as much when it doesn't pertain to the job. As mentioned in the book, a little research in this area can make a big difference to employers who are narrowing down applicants. On a side note, one thing that I liked in this chapter was its encouragement for individuality through creativity in the overall design of resumes.

Chapter 9 provided information on what to include in the introduction of a communication. This section covers 9 guidelines in total. As I came to guideline 5, I started to question the high level of information that was being suggested for an introduction up to this point. However, as guideline 7 states, while the introduction can be brief or take up to several pages, there are a few things readers should know. What readers should know in the introduction of a communication are as follows:

• The reason they should read
• The main point
• The organization and scope
• The background information needed to understand

After these areas are covered, writers can tailor additional introduction information to their reader's needs.

Response to Todd Anderson

Todd makes a good point about choosing which areas of a draft to revise, without trying to fix everything. Also, he mentions to revise for the reader, not yourself. This made me think about a website that I am currently building. I keep getting hung up on every small detail, instead of focusing on the major parts of information that I want to get across to my viewers. It's not just a matter of having the information, but more about how it's presented, how accessible it is, and how reader/viewer-centered it is. I think that sometimes it's easy to try to make things to be the way you want them, while losing sight of making things the way readers/viewers want them. If you stick with the core issues and present them clearly, you can go back to all the small details later.