The English Class

Posts

Being Creative?!

How does creativity fit into technical writing? Is it possible to be creative? Why/why not? Is it possible to be too creative? Why/why not? Is it possible to not be creative enough? Why/why not? This class has pushed me to be more creative. All writing, in general, has forced me to think outside the box. Technical writing has taught me that not everything has to be plain and there is a layout that is much more effective to capture your audience’s attention through your writing. It is a great course to take when you are trying to communicate in business-related fields. With me wanting to open my business in the future it has taught me the basics like creating a letterhead and memos. Believe it or not, I had no idea that was important until I really started paying attention to where I work at. The company I work for uses memos and letterheads for clients and when we get pay raises. In certain situations, I do fee...

Public Speaking?! Nooooooooo......

Do you do any “public speaking” in your job? What kind of speaking do you do? How do you feel about it? I have in some way done “public speaking” in my job. We have meetings with our clients when developing their websites and I do have to speak not only in front of them but also in front of my boss. We also have training once a month about how we could improve our workflow system. When talking to clients, it is more of a professional type of public speaking while the training we do once a month is an informal type and I don’t always speak at those. I don’t mind doing “public speaking,” but I do tend to get nervous and sometimes can go off. I have been trying my best to get straight to the point, so I won’t bore my audience. I feel personally, I have done better, and I am not the same as I was two years ago when I started working for the company I am working for. At one point I was going to teach a clas...

I Can Use This...

Discuss something you have learned in the class so far that you have used in your professional, personal, or collegiate career. What I have learned so far in this class that I have used in my personal and professional career is how to use visual aids. In week 6 I also figured how to make graphs in Word. I noticed when I was taking my speech class I kept my power points kind of plain. A lot of information and not a lot of pictures. Well, people do get bored, but if you add visuals, it does catch people’s attention. People are more likely to remember information with the help of a visual aid. Learning how to make graphs in Word was pretty cool. I learned how to make them in my BCIS class, but I did completely forget. The assignment we had that week was such a refresher.

Writing Tools

Discuss what writing tools you use regularly. They could ones you learned in this class or ones you learned before this class. What are the tools? How do you use these tools? Why are they important to you? I don't really have a lot to say about writing tools. I use Microsoft Word for some of my writing. I believe it is the go to writing tool. I use Grammarly for the proofing of any writing I do in Microsoft Word. Most of the time I am really weird and I actually like write in the code editor that I use daily. It is easier for me to read and focus on my writing with something I am familiar working with. I like the simplicity of a code editor that Word misses out on. I find that much of Word is unused for most people and I don't get to write as much as a professional writer. Many of the writers tha I work with use googele docs, grammarly and a multitude of other tools to keep themselves on track. The time ...

Job Sites

Have you used a Job Site in the past? Discuss how these sites can be helpful to a person just starting out. List at least two specific ways the sites can be helpful, giving examples of your experience with these sites. If you haven’t used a site like this, explore one, and discuss how you think it can be helpful. I have used many sites to look for a job over the past 15 years. I spent much of my time trying to find a career that would suit what I wanted out of life. I used Monster.com, indeed.com, CareerBuilder, Craigslist, and finally LinkedIn. Many of the sites were not what I expected them to be. My searches were far too simple for the major career sites like Monster or CareerBuilder. I could not see the fact that I wasn't ready to be a part of those sites. The only website that worked for the jobs I could get were on Indeed. After I spent some time in the world and after I left the military, I went to school. It became almost a necessity...

Criticism

Discuss giving constructive criticism in the workplace. How do you define constructive criticism? What is it useful for in the workplace? When is it out of place in the workplace? How do you handle constructive criticism? I am now working in a web application and we often, if not every day give constructive criticism. We provide constructive criticism on our coding. My definition of constructive criticism is when you look over someone’s work and are give them pointers on how they can format their work better. You should not attack the person or even his/her work but offer suggestions. It is useful in my workplace for example when my boss wants me to clean up my code or use another function for my code. It makes the over application work better. I don’t take it personally because it is work-related. When it comes to handling constructive criticism, I do take it very well when it comes to working. In my writing, I do tend ...