Module Twenty Five: Using visuals.

Using Visuals: Module Twenty five includes information on identifying stories for business visuals; selecting visuals for said stories; applying good design principles (see previous chapters); principles for effective clip art use; principles for accurate and ethical visuals; using text with visuals; and preparing print visuals.

Very early on in the module we get the section on identifying and using stories with visuals.  The book lists out several uses for visuals that would be interesting to the audience without boring them.  They include visuals that challenge common knowledge; show trends or changes that you didn't know existed; and that are personally relevant; among other things.  Most of the other areas of information are recapped from other parts of the book.

Module Twenty.

Module 20 is about oral presentations.  It is the only module to get it's own presentation, what will probably be a lecture, a slew of blogs, and a last minute class project dedicated to it.  It's a long one, dealing with presentation planning, strengthening your opening and closings, giving your best vocal delivery, tips for organizing your presentation, tips for delivery, techniques to invoke audience participation, and group presentation differences.  Somehow it's only 16 pages long.  Two pages shorter than long reports, which only rehashed short reports.

The best parts about Module Twenty are the one about using your best voice (which avoids telling you to take your time and sloooooooooow down, the biggest problem with nervous student presenters) but tells you to hum until you find your best James Earl Jones voice; and the one on improving your opening and closings.  They give four different types of opening lines you can give and each one isn't a bad option.  The closings are similarly structured and helpful.  So this portion of the module actually gives good, solid, and useful advice.

Module 3

Module three tackles the issue of communicating across cultures.  To do this it first defines culture, compares and contrasts cultural dimensions, identifies generational gaps, and gives advice for international communication, solving workplace discrimination, and avoiding bias in document writing.

The part of the chapter that I would place the highest value on, though I don't know that I found it personally useful, is the one early on in which culture is defined.  The authors provide an example of a cultural facet that we may not even recognize in our own lives (reading from left to right) and compares it to other communities and refers to that as culture.  It's always nice to have the terms that aren't intuitively understood defined before you're lectured on them.  The section also talks about the difference between cultures where it's necessary to read between the lines as opposed to ours.

Body Language is also a very important and often overlooked function of communication and culture and while this book is again frustratingly vague (out of necessity.  There is just too much information to give specific advice)  it is vital that it includes and outlines things like eye contact, gestures, and the personal space that varies from group to group.

MODULE TWENTY FOUR, LONG REPORTS!

Are you excited? I'm excited.  Can you feel that prickle sweeping across your skin? Can you hear that low wind coming from the east, bringing along the scent of spice and the knowledge of how to write long reports? 

Yeah. Long reports.  Tell your friends.  (Go ahead, I'll wait, bring them in here)

Module 24 is an ode to the long report.  It's based around the points of organizing your time; strategies for report section writing; and comparing and contrasting formats and styles.

So Module 24 is actually inherently shorter in subject matter than pretty much any of the others.  Lets just absorb that sweat irony before we continue.  (Ah, that's good stuff)

Half of this module is a long report, being used to show you how to write one.  It's interesting, and it's detailed.  So no doubt it will come in handy at some point or another.  Unfortunately as the book itself says there are a lot of formats and styles.  And earlier they talked about how companies all have different organizational styles (apparently they have their own style books 9 out of 10 times.) So a big example isn't super useful.  Making the best thing to take away from this section (from a practical standpoint anyway) the list of vital components from page 432.  Which includes looking at PAIBOC, reviewing past reports that are similar and hopefully that they liked, consult experts, and send your draft around a lot hoping someone will tell you if you're screwing up.

Module 23:

Module 23 is dedicated to the short report.  It hovers around the ideas of short business report organization (both patterns and strategies) applying principles for good styles, and strategies for specific, professional questions to use.  In other words this is a module about how and when to write memo's or similar things.

The two best parts of the chapter, in my opinion, are as follows.  The section on asking specific questions on page 408 is very helpful as it gives detailed notes on what's normally required.  Thought I would laughingly note that the section on specificity has some pretty vague parts to it.  The other is the section on basic organization.

By now I'm sure it's obvious to you as a reader that I am far and removed from "organized" and this chapter goes into a big section, rife with examples, on good organization, what it means, and what format to use.  Very helpful for someone like me.

Modules Twenty Seven and Twenty Eight

Job Resumes and Job application letters are all about writing Resume's and Application Letters.  They threw us a curve ball there.

But in all seriousness, I found the Resume section to be particularly good.  It got slightly redundant at points (It explained what a skills resume was twice and took a paragraph both times...) but as a young man currently looking for work and on the cusp of graduation I did find it helpful.  I know that our generation, as it enters the work force, doesn't always demonstrate the best skills in writing a resume and that it can make a huge difference in getting hired. 

The best parts of the first section were the ones outlining what sections need to go into the resume, in what order, and when to spend time on them.  Also getting ground rules for font was less dire, but still nice.

For Module 28, I've often been confused or unwilling to write a cover letter on the spot as I'm asked to do often by the Cardinal Career center.  So having guidelines are again very useful.  These were two remarkably practical sections.  In this case the book gives you details on what you need to write for the first and last paragraph and later discusses how to set yourself apart from other applicants.  They even go so far as to discuss applying You-Attitude to your cover letters.  It would be prudent for everyone to give this chapter a serious read.

Module 22

Module Twenty Two is about finding, analyzing, and documenting information.  It seems to be more about processing research than gathering research.  The first section is on how to do a decent google or minerva search, followed by getting good survey questions.  After that it's "Who do I interview?" and "How can I analyze their words?"

As always my favorite part of the chapter is the examples.  One of the largest problems I've had as a would be journalist turned into a would be policy writer is translating from MLA's writing format to APA, and here it's all laid out for me on three niffty pages.  Where was this when I had my senior seminar class?

Unfortunately it seems that the bulk of the chapter is about making sure that you don't use a study or statement incorrectly.  The book hammers home not pulling data that says one thing and applying it to something unrelated.  That's certainly something you want to keep in mind when you review data, but at this point in our careers the ability to interpret data will be something we either have or don't.