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.

Module Twenty One.

Module Twenty One talks about proposals and progress reports.  It goes through the steps before you write a proposal, what sort of organization to use, what constitutes a proposal, and several other factors.
The Learning modules are as follows:
-Define reports in the workplace.
-Estimate time for business proposal writing.
- Identify sections for business proposal organization.
-Identify "hot buttons" for business proposal strategies and beyond
-Identify sections for progress report organization.

Starting on page 370 and continuing onto page 373 is an example for a student based proposal that is extremely helpful.  The chapter and authors of the book tend to discuss concepts that take in a large number of variables, most depend on your organization and your audience.  In this section however; the authors lay out a very helpful example of a complete proposal and show notes in blue showing the reasoning behind word choices used and the correct grammatical format.  It is extremely helpful and specific in a way that surprised me.

Web Design; a practical application of Module 5.

           For today’s blog, I reviewed two websites. Keeping in mind the tenants of chapter five, I've compared the two here to better discuss, by example, the contents of the chapter.

 

           The first is Cracked.Com, America's number one humor column website found here at http://www.cracked.com/. Cracked.com recently reconstructed it's design layout from a more linear version (in which it's contents were listed top to bottom) to a more colorful side scrolling one. Under the new format the first thing one sees at the site is a collection of pictures both colorful and unusual which function as links to the articles. While the layout makes it easier for long time readers to find what they want without searching, it could become mildly confusing for first time patrons.

           The color schemes are dynamic and don't wash away any text; the pictures are captivating and draw the reader in; and the titles of each article are put forward on the main page, each dripping with the sarcasm that the reader will either love or resent two seconds into the first column.

           The website is primarily designed to promote its humor columns and videos. Unfortunately I have my add block program running at all times, but I believe that they receive a fair stream of advertisements biased on the popularity of their articles. As a media for selling their works the design layout definitely helps achieve their purpose. It can be assumed from the colors, context of their columns, and sometimes sexually or verbally explicit language that they intend to write for a younger audience, anywhere from early thirties to fourteen or fifteen year olds.

           While the organization of the page certainly puts their product forward fast, their use of white space leaves something to be desired. The top five articles are crammed into the top of the page, and only after you scroll down do you see crisp and vital spacing between links. However, their clustered first section does make very good use of titles to clearly define which articles are which. And they use headers/titles exclusively on their first page. Links posted at the top of the page are clear, easy to understand, and make navigation easy. All in all, Cracked.Com is doing exactly what it set out to do, create an unorthodox setting that was clear and would be attractive to college aged readers.

          

           In contrast, Giant in the Playground (found at www.giantitp.com) Is a website established for fans of the popular but stigmatized Dungeons and Dragons game. While the color scheme and text fonts of this site are appropriate that's pretty much where the endorsements stops.

           Each page is dominated by text to the right of a very slim vertical bar full of links (not unlike the bar to the right of this blog you're reading now) The text is only titled by the date, in bold letters, before the page. This section is for the authors news, he discusses printing efforts; delays; and all manner of things dealing with a web-comic that is featured on the page. (More on that in a minute.)

Without headers or titles it becomes very unclear what information is relevant to the reader. And the purpose of the website has very little to do with it. For a very long time Giant in the Playground has featured a popular web-comic called the Order of the Stick, which caters to fans of the role playing game. This comic has won awards and actually been turned into a board game, and is the cash cow of giantitp. But to find it on the page you'd have to ignore the wall of text that the author posted, look to the left, and let your eyes fall two or three sections down to “Comics” where they will have listed “OOTS.”

           I should note that half of the news articles deal with the production and availability of “OOTS” merchandise. The news most commonly offered are notes on shipping dates for books and when new prints will be available. All of which gets lost in the jumble of dates and prose. Now make no mistake, I understand that the website generates a fair amount of money in merchandise, but when evaluating the effectiveness of the page to reach that audience and persuade them to purchase... It is simply and plainly working against the sites interests.

           These two humor based sites, both trying to appeal to a nitch interest on the internet, both fall on opposite sides of the scale when measuring the effectiveness of their design page. I hope this was informative rather than tedious. Thanks for reading.

           (Also, Module 4's quick review tip, Is the last paragraph effective? Intentionally done to show you what not to do. You're welcome.)

Modules Four and Five;

     Module Four is about the planning, writing, and revising process.  It explains the three parts of the writing process and offers tips for good organizational strategy; implementing types of strategies; and obtaining good feedback.  It also details the types of planning for writing that could be used by authors, and includes the distinctions between revising, editing, and proofreading and when to do each.  Form Letters are also briefly discussed. 
     The most useful parts of chapter four, in my opinion, are the checklists they provide for revision.  Revision is described in the book as the system by which the author evaluates his work and decides whether to change his style, organization, or content.  The checklists are useful tools, found on page sixty eight, that outline the factors that could easily slip the mind of any absent minded, devilishly handsome, modest twenty three year old political science major.  Details such as "Are the first and last paragraphs effective?" or "Is each sentence clear? Is the message free from apparently contradictory statements? somethings that are easily overlooked when, for example, you are writing a blog at two in the morning before class.


     Module Five is about the actual physical design of the document.  Specifically this chapter deals with the creating of documents, websites, or slides.  Basically any computer biased media for presenting your message.  It talks about how to lay out a paper, page or site; strategies for presenting a slideshow; design tests; how to use computer programs to your advantage; and to recognize design questions while you're writing. 
     This chapter is mostly about specific technical writing tips.  What size font you need to use, when to use capital letters, how to control the space you are working within.  The most interesting portion of this chapter would have to be the example offered on page 79, in contrast with the example on page 80, showing the difference between effective an ineffective layouts.  Also, that they never, ever, in any way suggest that comic sans serif would be an ok font to use for any media that you want anyone to see.

Modules One and Two;

Module 1:
     The first Module is about considering the message that you want to relate to the readers, and how to go about delivering that message.  It touches on the purposes of Business Communications being either to persuade, inform, or develop good relations with the audience.  It also goes into what makes for an effective message, and what you should consider in writing.

     The part that stood out the most about Module 1 was the section on PAIBOC.  PAIBOC is an acronym made from the key concepts that an author must consider when writing a business letter.  This includes;
-Purpose; Why are you writing this document? What are you trying to do in engaging the audience?

-Audience; Who is it that you are writing for?  How are they likely to receive your message?  What preexisting factors can affect how they read your message?

-Information; What information or data is most important? What needs to be included for the message to be complete, what data or information will waste the readers time?

-Benefits;  What does the reader get from this message? How does it benefit them or in turn benefit you?

-Objections; What problems might arise from this?  What concerns would the audience have? Can you address these issues in your writing?

-Context;  What context presents the backdrop to your message?  How does that affect the audience's reception of that message?

These items are extremely useful to have laid out for us as potential business writers.

Module 2:

     This chapter deals entirely with your audience and things to consider before beginning to write.  They include things like how any particular audience will be able to affect, implement, or pass on your message; what existing factors could influence these decisions; and how their values and beliefs may factor.

     As we'll see later in the semester, knowing your audience is one of the biggest factors of business writing.  As such, the section on adapting the message to your audience is extremely noteworthy.  The Authors talk about how Strategy (what you put into the message, what you omit), Style (The types of words your using), and Organization(the flow of your message) need to be taken into account when writing for each individual audience.