Communication From Employers

Communication From Employers

Subject: General Questions    / General General Questions    

Question

Week 4 discussion

Communication From Employers

Consider a time when you received or engaged in communication with an employer. This might have been a letter, an email, or even a text from an employer. It might have been a conversation between you and your employer.

What did your employer do in this communication that made you receptive or unreceptive to the message from the employer?

Your answer should be 1-2 paragraphs.

Jargona Love This One!

As you begin to think about how to communicate to an audience, consider the purpose jargon can play to either facilitate or bury your message.

When we work in a group, or belong to a club, there is always jargon, and we are rightly cautioned about using it in larger groups. That is not to say that jargon across disciplines can’t be effective. The idea is to engage the reader without 1) boring your audience, or 2) losing your audience. So we say things like, “she hit the ball out of the park with that presentation!” Or, “He really nailed the landing in the debate last night.”

For this conference, first think of a group you are, or have been, involved with – a sports team, a hobby group, a club, or a work group. Make a list of five or six terms (jargon) that the group uses commonly to express an idea (sometimes a very complex idea!). For example, if I am a member of the surfing discourse community (or tribe), I will use terms like set, curl, skeg, wave, gnarly, shock cord, hang ten.

Now that you have your list, compose a short paragraph on something you did this weekend. Could be that you watched a football game. Or took a walk in the park. Here’s the thing, though – you have to use as many words in your jargon list as you can. Be creative. Use nouns as verbs. Will it sound awkward? A little or a lot – how else will your classmates guess what your tribe is?

So for example:

I set the table in anticipation of my company this weekend. While their appearance might curl your hair, when they arrived I gave a gnarly wave, accepted the bean dip Skeg always prepares, and hung the roasted lamb by a shock cord over the fire. If I could, I’d hang ten, but we only have the one. Care for some?

Post your paragraph as a new topic in this conference. Then go visit your classmates, and see if you can guess their discourse community (tribe) based on their paragraphs. As the originator of a paragraph, try to avoid “revealing” the answer til Friday of this week, although you can answer clarifying questions, or tell someone if they are WAY wrong.

Questions? Let me know. And have fun!

Using MS Word's Considerable Muscle

As I mentioned in my comments to some of you regarding the first two assignments, I am suggesting you brush up on grammar by utilizing some of the features of MS Word.

I am asking you to watch a brief screencast that addresses several elements of the mechanics of reviewing your own work.

The first element is how to activate Readability statistics on your computer, and what the statistics might be used for. Next, I show you where the Spelling & Grammar rules are maintained in MS Word.

Finally, I demonstrate the use of Spelling & Grammar Review on your computer. While the menu chains are slightly different between MS Word 2003, 2007, and 2010, everything you see is available on each version of MS Word, as well as on Open Source.

In commenting to this conference, please address either something you learned from the screencast, or something you wish the screencast had covered, but didn't. You are also welcome to comment on the quality of the screencast itself, and what you think could be improved. You will need to either turn on your speakers, or use headphones to hear the audio.

NOTE: This will not work in Google Chrome, although it seems to work fine in IE or Firefox.

Thoughts on 9/11

As the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11 comes and goes, do you have any memories or impressions you would like to share with the class? We welcome your recollections.