Friday, April 25, 2008

Advice for future students

I only have a little advice for any future business writing students. DO YOUR BLOGS! It is very easy to forget to write a blog every once in a while. Unfortunately each one of those missed blogs is worth 5 points. Create some sort of reminder so you don't miss any (ex. digital post-it on your desktop). I would also suggest that you check the class blog at least once a week (at the beginning of the week) to make sure you don't miss any daily assignments. One last thing; do your portfolios ahead of time. If you are working on a portfolio but you aren't sure if the format of some part of it is correct, you'll have time to get some feedback from your professor. Doing it at the last minute, or when there will be no time to question your professor will likely result in missed points for looked over errors.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Ethics Research

During my ethics research I came across a relavent document in U.S. history. It was a message from Andrew Jackson to Congress concerning the Indian Removal Act. The general theme of the message was Jackson's approval of this Act. Throughout the letter Jackson makes mention of how this bill would benefit both sides of the issue, white settlers and American Indians. However, Jackson uses derogatory comments to describe the tribes people. These comments include such phrases as savage hunters, wandering savages, and the red man. The culture of these people is also referred to as savage habits. Jackson also seems to be perfectly at ease when making the statement, "the tribes which occupied the countries now constituting the Eastern States were annihilated or have melted away to make room for the whites."

Sunday, April 13, 2008

article response

The results of this survey are not very surprising. An employee may experience an ethical lapse because of the fear of a negative impact on his or her job. Most people would probably tell someone else, such as a coworker or a friend, about an unethical situation at the workplace before reporting it to management. A lot of people probably would not report anything of this nature unless it affected them somehow. The downside to not reporting such behavior would be the guilt. So it is a clash of conscience and security.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Web vs. Written

This topic is too broad to be specific in making comparisons. Writing on a blog can be very informal, whereas the mission statement on a company website may be very formal. Typically, more in-depth messages must be written on paper. Conversely, electronic messages such as emails need to be as concise as possible. This is not limited to web writing, as is evident with memos. When transferring a written paper to the web, one of the most important things to consider is reader comprehension. This can be improved by removing any industry jargon, among other things.