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.

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."

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.

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.

Free Write

I always hate the end to any semester. It isn't because I love school so much I don't want it to end. It's because nearly every professor can't get their curriculum straight. Every semester's end, it seems as if three weeks worth of work/assignments are crammed into each week. It never fails. Why can't these people just balance the semester out like they're supposed to do. They can't use the excuse, "unexpected things come up;" because most of the time those things only delay the professors return by a day or two. In those cases, work should be spread evenly over the upcoming class periods. I'm sure students would moan and groan at the time, but it's much better than having several major assignments due the WEEK before finals week! Come on!!!

Presentations

The most memorable presentation the other week to me was the presentation about visiting Mexico. I thought is was the most interesting because of the warnings given about crooked cops and the personal experience of the presenter. If I were planning a trip to Mexico City anytime soon I would probably be having seconds thoughts after this presentation. I also liked the poker presentation. The facts given about playing online poker and how much some people (those who make a living doing this) win were surprising.

Interview Reflection

The mock interview was interesting. I think it was much more lenient and easygoing than any interview I will ever encounter when searching for a job, but it was practice nonetheless. Most of the questions asked were not questions I prepared for, but to be honest I didn't prepare very well. Either way, the questions asked were not overly difficult to answer. It's a good thing I wasn't asked one of those weird ambiguous questions like, "if you were an eating utensil, which one would you be?"