Welcome to Anthony Banks blog on using effective visuals. I hope that the information I will be providing you with below is helpful to you.
In my personal view point I feel that videos are the best visuals that can be used. The fact is they use both audio as well as video to tell the story. My personal favorite is the homemade videos without a script and are not rehearsed. This way the viewer can get a personal feel for whats going on. For example watch the youtube video above.
Another effective visual is pictures. the reason I feel pictures are so effective is because they can be comical while still getting their story across. They could also make you think, cry, smile, laugh, make you want to punch a hole in the wall, or allow you be really engaged in an experience.
Take the above picture for example. This is one of my favorite pictures. The reason being is because when I look at this picture I feel it's sends me a message. I feel as though time is melting away so make sure you don't waist it. A picture don't have to make sence or be understood; just experienced.
Using effective visuals is a great way for one to tell their story. This allows veiwers/listeners to use their imaginations and also experience what the picture is stating. Some more effective visuals are Toondoos and photostories. Most of all use your imagination for it's the best tool to improve the effectivness of your visual.
Finding and obtaining employment is a process that everyone will go through in there lifetime. It may be a long and nerve-racking process for some, but if you take a few of my tips and directions into consideration I'm sure your next job search will be a little less stressful. There are numerous preliminary steps that should be taken into consideration when searching for employment, and the most important step is deciding on what you would like to do. You can look through books, websites, and talk to people in different lines of work to help you narrow down your choices(Dorbin). Doing this will give you a basic consensus on what certain jobs require and entail on a day to day basis. If your leaning towards a particular career it's a good idea to meet with someone that is currently in that career and "pick their brain". This is when you should be asking any and all questions that you have pertaining to the job and it's duties, such as:
How did you choose this profession?
What coursework and training prepared you for this profession?
what do you like most/least about your job?
What do you do in a typical day?(Dorbin)
Once you are set on a career path you should begin searching for a local internship or volunteer program that relates to the type of employment you're interested in. Internships are a great way to gain work experience,this is something that will set you apart from the stack of resumes on an employers desk. Speaking of resumes, if you don't have one already the time to start building one is now. Resumes should be put together over a period of time and should be updated on a regular basis. A resume may be the first thing an employer may see so it needs to be as close to perfect as possible and contain information that sets you apart from the rest. Most college students will not have a job waiting for them when they graduate college, that's why it's a good idea to start searching for a job 6 months before you graduate. There are many ways to search for a job, but one of the most common today is by the internet. There are many free job search engines online including:
www.Monster.com
www.indeed.com
www.careerbuilder.com
www.headhunters.com
and many more(Dorbin)
A few other ways to search for employment are through your personal contacts, the newspaper, and a letter of inquiry. A letter of inquiry is a letter sent to an employer asking if they are currently hiring. After submitting applications and resumes you will finally get the call you've been waiting for; a time, place, and date for an interview with your possible future employer. When you enter the interview you should be calm, prepared, and have your resume and all other important documents at your side. After your interview you should send a follow-up letter thanking the interviewer for there time and the opportunity to interview for the position. Now you have to wait, which is probably the hardest part of the job search, but you will eventually receive the good news that you got the job. Searching for and obtaining employment is not an easy task, but hopefully some of the tips listed above stick a make your job search just a little bit easier.
References:
Dorbin, Sidney I., Christopher J. Keller and Christian R. Weisser. Technical Communication: In the Twenty-First Century. Upper Sadle,NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008.
Editing and proofreading are very important to your career because they allow you the ability to double-check your work. By editing and proofreading your paper, it allows you to catch any grammatical errors, or misrepresented information that you may have written.
Editing is important to documents because it allows you to make sure that you do not having any grammatical errors within the document. Some of the biggest things that people find when they edit a document include spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure. These mistakes can cost you dearly if you miss them. When I first began writing both in my scholastic days and in my career I found that editing would be a key to my success. By editing my papers, I was able to make sure that my point came across and that there were no errors. This made me look like I cared about my work and that there was a personal feeling of pride that I took. Editing is a vital part of the writing process. If you edit every document that you write, you will find some very common errors that you would have missed, and you will be able to learn the importance of editing.
Here is a video that shows you more about editing:
Proofreading is important because it allows you the ability to make sure the point you want to get across is coming across. “One of the most difficult parts of the writing process is proofreading. It is easy for us to see what we want to see, not necessarily what our readers will see.” (OWL) Every person has his or her own unique style when it comes to proofreading. I am the world’s biggest procrastinator and that is not good when it comes to proofreading your paper. I learned the hard way the importance of proofreading your work. Just because it made sense to you does not mean that, your reader will understand your writing. Some common suggestions that I have used over the years were to take a break before proofreading, leave you enough time to proofread, and to read the document aloud.
By taking a break, you will allow your brain to catch a mistake that it may not have earlier. “The goal is to return with a fresh eye and mind.” (OWL) When I did manage to proofread my documents, I always did it immediately after finishing the writing process. This did not allow my brain time to clear itself and come in with a fresh and open thought process. I now make sure to come back and reread the paper at least once before submitting it.
The biggest mistake that I made when proofreading was not proofreading at all. I would wait until the last minute to write the paper so it allowed almost no time to proofread the document. Now I write the document with at least a day to spare. This allows you the ability to come back and only look at bits and pieces at a time. I found this to be a valuable tool. Now if I could just stop myself from being a procrastinator.
The last key to proofreading is to read the paper aloud. By reading aloud, you will catch grammatical errors, and other mistakes that may have gone unnoticed before. By making sure that you read the document aloud, you will be able to make sure the proper point is coming across as well.
I hope these tips on editing and proofreading have helped you better understand. These tips have helped me out in the past and I am confident they will help you as well.
"ABC's of the Writing Process - Editing." Free Website Hosting Angelfire free website templates to make your own free website. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. . "Proofreading Your Writing: Suggestions for Proofreading Your Paper - The OWL at Purdue." Welcome to the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
Acquiring a job is one of the most important actions anyone will take in their lives. We all need some source of income to pay our bills, enjoy a vacation, or even have a few drinks at a local sports bar. With more young adults acquiring degrees and many job opportunities getting outsourced to other countries, the job market is more competetive than ever. I have been employed since I was 15 so I want to share some information and helpful tips you can use while searching for a job.
The first step you want to take is build your resume and I suggest doing this many months before you start looking for employment. As Al P. mentioned is his previous post about building your resume, it should contain all of your previous employment history, educational background, and any other qualifications that may set you apart from your competition. Treat your resume as a marketing tool and a well written one can almost assure you an interview.
Next you will start your job hunt and in my past experience this is the most difficult and time consuming step in the process. Generally you want to start you job search about six months before you graduate. Thankfully, technology has lended us a helping hand with the advent of websites such as monster.com and careerbuilder.com. Try and search through as many channels as you can to take advantage of every opportunity available. A few other channels I have used are:
Local Newspapers
Personal Connections
Job Posting at School
Other Websites such as craigslist.org
Once you have found a list of employers you wish to work for, send them your resume with letter of application attached, and shortly after you should begin hearing from them. After arranging an interview with the potential employers you want to begin preparing for the interview. Many people believe preparing for an interview is ironing your clothes the night before and eating a good breakfast. These are important but a proper preperation goes alot deeper than that. FGCU offers mock interviews, so try conducting one and you will be suprised how many little things you can do or say to improve you interviewing ability. Also there are a few tips on this video you should check out.
The last step of the process is to send out a follow-up letter. Make sure to include your gratitude and restate your qualifications. If you follow these steps they will to a much more successful and less stressful job hunt.
Sean H.
Reference: Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century
Going back to my middle school days when I was first introduced to paraphrasing and summarizing, I have thought that the two were the same or synonyms of one another. I've come to realize that they are similiar, but in fact different!
So what’s the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing? According to Technical Communications of the Twenty-First Century, Paraphrasing is representing someone else’s work in your own words.(pg.160) I remember having to paraphrase a couple assignments in the past, and some words of advice would be to take you time. An example of a paraphrase:
Paraphrasing usually deals with a smaller amount of outside material, but doesn’t mean it requires any less work than summarizing. A good paraphrase needs to keep the intent and information of the original authors work, while changing up the style and wording of the original authors work. Guidelines of paraphrasing include:
Understand the original work (you need to accurately capture the information of the original)
Include all ideas and concepts from original and do not compress the information by leaving out critical details, this could misrepresent the original information
Give credit to the original author (identify the source)
Although summarizing and paraphrasing are similar in the fact that they both represent an original authors work in someone else’s words, I see now they are different. When summarizing someone else’s work you’re going to abbreviate the original information without compromising it, meaning do not throw out any relevant or important information. I always remember to thoroughly read the outside material and then distill the main statement in my own words. Guidelines for summarizing include:
Not omitting any of the central information in the original authors word
Be sure the summary identifies all key ideas of the original authors work
Identify what you are summarizing, meaning give full credit to the original writer.
In addition, summaries also tend to be shorter than the source they were borrowed from. This blog should have cleared up the confusion between paraphrasing and summarizing. If not, here is a video. I think it repeats a lot of the material I have already mentioned, but you are more than welcome to watch it. Start it at 2:42!
Reference:
Dobrin, S.I., Keller C.J., & Weisser C.R. (2002).. Technical Communications in the Twenty First Century Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Custom Publishing. pg. 160
All documents should be proofread. I know that I personally look over minor things that I have written myself, but the minute I let someone else look at them I can’t believe that I didn’t notice the mistakes that I had made. To avoid this, you should always read and re-read your documents, and even have another person look over them as well. However, if you do not have a grammar perfectionist around to re-read all of your documents, here are a couple editing tips you can follow that will help.
The first major part that always gets me is my grammar. It sounds right in my head, but when I put it on paper it gets flipped around. One way to avoid/solve this is to read your document out loud when you have completed it. This allows me to see if what I have written sounds right and everything flows together.
Another thing you can do is to read your document backwards. This gets you out of the normal beginning to end, and may help you pick out errors that you didn’t notice. You should focus on spelling, sentence formation, and paragraph formation. Do each a different time so that you can focus on different aspects of the document.
If you have been spending hours or even days working on a specific document, set it aside for a period of time. If you continue working on something, you become too comfortable and familiar with it, increasing the likelihood that you will overlook errors. If you take some time away from working on the document, it may allow you to come back and notice things that you didn’t before.
Also, if you have your document on your computer while you are trying to edit it, print out a hard copy. Then go somewhere else and read your hard copy. Look at the document as a whole to make sure the formatting looks correct. You should also keep a pen handy to make marks and other comments directly on the document.
Below are some proofreading marks that can be very useful when reading a hard copy of your document. I learned and went over these when I was in grades school and still find them very useful today!
Dorbin, Sidney I., Christopher J. Keller and Christian R. Weisser. Technical Communication: In the Twenty-First Century. Upper Sadle,NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008.
Putt Putt Productions. “The Importance of Proofreading.” Retrieved on December 4, 2009 from
Your resume is one of the most important tools when trying to obtain employment; it's a document that contains all of your educational background, career experience, and skills and achievements. You never want to wait till the last minute when putting a resume together, it should be built over time and change with every career or educational accomplishment you make. The reason you should build overtime is because you may forget about past employers and leave out valuable information that may have slipped your mind at the time. It will also give you time to perfect it, leaving no grammatical or professional errors. Believe it or not, but employers strongly frown upon resumes that have even the slightest grammatical errors, it may even lessen your chance of obtaining that dream job. Cramming a resume together at the last minute can be stressful, but when built over time you will be confident that it will project the exact information that you want it to.
This is what happens when you wait till the last minute to write your resume, you forget valuable names and achievements, and have no idea what your going to do. This is what happens when your resume is built over time, contains all valuable information, and is as close to perfect as possible. You will be confident in your resume and yourself.
When you are putting your resume together you want to keep it targeted towards the type of employment that you are trying to obtain. You shouldn't just send out a generic resume, but instead research the company your applying to and tailor your resume for that specific company. You should also keep in mind that there are a few different ways to compose your resume. According to Technical communication in the 21st Century, there are chronological, skills, and entry-level resumes.
Chronological- You must summarize your experience and training in the order in which it occurred(beginning with the most recent). This type of resume highlights facts, degrees, job titles, and dates(Dorbin).
Skills- This type of resume emphasizes the experience and skills that qualify the applicant for the position, rather than specific degrees, titles, and dates(Dorbin).
Entry-Level- These resumes are used when you have little to no related experience in the position you are applying for. This type of resume follows the same format as the other two, but instead of focusing on credentials you should focus on who you are as a person. You should include details that show you are trustworthy, smart, reliable, and interesting(Dorbin).
There are five main sections that should be included in every resume;
Contact information
career objective
education
experience
skills and achievements
If you take these five basic components and place them into one of the formats above, you will have a great resume which will be a great asset when trying to score an interview for that dream job.
References:
Dorbin, Sidney I., Christopher J. Keller and Christian R. Weisser. Technical Communication: In the Twenty-First Century. Upper Sadle,NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008.
Paraphrasing usually deals with a smaller amount of outside material, but 
