Editing a Paragraph

This is one of the paragraphs that was given to me to edit. Any edits that I do will be shown with brackets ([]).

"English 106 is a required class at Purdue University and its purpose is to sharpen the writing skills of [incoming] freshman. We have been given [many] tools to improve our writing in this class, but the one I obtained in class on Thursday [was] my favorite. Thursday we learned about diction and how to improve our sentence variety. The tool we were given for sentence variety was SVO [(subject, verb, object)], VSO [(verb, subject, object),] and OVS [(object, verb, subject)]. This tool shows you how to organize your sentence so that your subject, verb[,] and object align correctly. The basic format for a sentence is SVO; Sara tossed the ball. Another way of writing a sentence would be OVS; the ball was tossed be Sara. I really like this tool because it gives you more than one way to write a sentence while saying the same thing. Another writing tool we were given was FANBOYS [(for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so)] and its purpose is to help you decide when a comma is needed. This tool will benefit me because I sometimes have trouble [with the placement of] commas.

In the computer lab

In the computer lab Monday Mary told us about "talking points" on the internet. Del.icio.us is a great way to find other people on the internet that have similar interests to your own. To find the sites to put in the del.icio.us account we can use Google. Searching for your field of study gives you websites that you can use and put into del.icio.us. When in del.icio.us you can view how many other people have put that site in their account as well. This gives you the opportunity to see what other people have to say about your topic from another point of view, or possibly a professional point of view. This also can give you the "talking points" because instead of contacting this person without any connection to him or her, you are in the same space and have something in common. This can significantly help for the composition of project two.

technorati tags: Del.icio.us, Talking Points, Internet

Typology

The article titled Designing Texts that Mary sent to us brought up some interesting uses of text that I have never thought of before. For example, using a looping smoother text conveys a calmer more relaxing feel. A jagged text has a more intense eye catching ability. Finally a more straight, sharp edged, text gives more of a serious professional look to a piece of writing. The type of text style that you use will depend on how you want to portray your composition. The way a font is presented can be effective when used in combination with a good writing composition as well. I'm sure that when reading applications for jobs, Dr. French would not judge a application well if it was written in a text that did not look professional, as discussed in my last post. I enjoyed going through the list that Mary gave us on how to use text to say certain things such as making the text disappear. There were a couple of ways that I saw of doing this like starting with bigger letters in the beginning and gradually getting smaller as you progress throughout the word. Another way would be to gradually fade the text from a black to lighter shades of gray as it progresses.

technorati tags: Typology, Writing, Important Professional Skills

Guest Speaker: Professor Mark French

Having Professor Mark French speak to the class on Thursday only reinforced how important writing is in the professional world. He told us about his old job as someone who hired others for the company whom he worked for. There were so many applications that he had to look through in such a short amount of time that if there were any mistakes in it he would just move on to the next application. This is one of the most important documents in a persons life and some are so careless that it discourages the employer from even looking at them as a potential candidate for the job. His presentation paralleled the document by the National Commission on Writing called Writing: A Ticket to Work...Or a Ticket Out in so many ways. His company would obviously be one of the companies that would have taken writing into consideration when hiring. Seeing that parallel that this document and professor French made really emphasized how important writing is in the professional world if you want to succeed.

technorati tags: Guest Speakers, Writing, Important Professional Skills

Importance of Writing in the Professional World

Writing is the keystone skill to succeed in the professional and service world today. According to the National Commission on Writing, over half of all companies that responded to a national survey on the importance of writing stated that they "take writing into consideration when hiring salaried employees." (Writing: A Ticket to Work...Or a Ticket Out pg. 9) This does not mean that those whose writing skills are not advanced can not find a good job, but it does limit their options of salaried employment. Writing is the one skill that can be applied to any career as a means of advancement.

technorati tags: Writing, Career Advancement, Important Professional Skills

CORE

The Comprehensive Online Research Education (CORE) website for Purdue University is a great resource for researching online. The site does an excellent job explaining each and every aspect that can be used through the website and library. It explains the library catalog, indexes, internet, and how to evaluate the sources, all in a Macromedia Flash style website. This tool will make it easy to quickly search for useful information. If there is a book that we think could be useful, we can use a9.com as we did in class on Monday to take a look inside the book if it is in its database. Using a9.com is a great way to get information out of a book and use it with easy citations. The combination of using these two cites together can be a powerful tool in doing research.

technorati tags: CORE, Purdue University, Research

Ourmedia.org

For one reason or another the ourmedia.com site is not able to load. I will post my podcast as soon as I can possibly get on the site. I am not sure exactly why that is but I will try again later tonight when there are possibly less people on the internet trying to use the site.

technorati tags: ourmedia.org, Podcasting, internet