Course Reflection

This class has helped me to make sense of the theory that has consumed my thoughts since I've been at Clemson. Although theory is incredibly painful to learn, it provides reasoning for the practice. Computer programs, detailed how-to books, and other tools are helpful for only a short while, but they soon become outdated and obsolete. Theoretical knowledge does not.

This course has been one of my three favorite classes at Clemson. Labeling it as one of my favorites hardly implies that it was easy. On the contrary, I fought tooth and nail to keep up with the class and to try to understand what had been said. In hindsight, I am so glad I did because I know more now than I did when I began, and this experience has made me a more valuable candidate entering the workforce.

Katz's "Ethics of Expediency"

Katz's article reveals that blindly following guidelines and not being critical of writing can be dangerous. Terms like ethics, rhetoric, and truth are not safe, angelic, objective words. His Ethics of Expediency is a prime example. To Hitler, Just, and the Nazis, it was ethical to “reduce” the number of “units” by efficiently and expediently stuffing more of them in trucks because it was for the good of their people. Obviously, this tacit was a way of using terms, symbols, expediency, and persuasion to justify, trivialize, and cast a blind eye on the senseless genocide of thousands.

Language has everything to do with ethics and should not be used as a means to an end. Katz's article argues that the problem lies in the various definitions of what is or is not ethical, which relates to Kenneth Burke's terministic screens concept. Essentially, writing or doing something expediently neither qualifies it as good nor ethical. Professional writers must be aware of what they write, what the goals are, how it affects the audience, and what the ethical implications are.

A Word on Ethics

Before coming to Clemson, I never would have coupled technical writing/editing with ethics. To me, technical writing was completely objective and did not need to be contested because it was writing that would help others to achieve a task. I was utterly misguided and wrong.

On the contrary, words are collected, assembled, and expressed with particular purposes in mind. The effects of these words and how they are presented is where ethics is important. As the texts from this section of Harty's book shows, sometimes editors and writers unintentionally misinform their audience because of carelessness or lack of attention to the document purpose. However, being careless and unintentionally misleading are not mistakes that should be blindly forgiven. Winsor's article about the O-ring echoes this very point.

Many companies try to establish and enforce their codes of ethics through the use of mission statements, company "hero" stories, and employee handbooks. However, professionals must be able to discern what is ethical from what is not and then act accordingly. As Dan Jones' article discusses, the internet is an excellent opportunity for many people to use it in unethical ways. Hence, it is vital that professionals, particularly professional communicators, understand the ramifications of doing their jobs properly and ethically. Ethics is about distinguishing right from wrong and making appropriate choices that will not be harmful to oneself or others.

Resumes and Other Written Materials on a Job Search

Reading the the two articles by Graber and Dikel and Roehm, I thought that the information they mentioned was pretty self explanatory. On the contrary, many people make this very mistake and end up with terribly written representations of themselves. This "know it all" approach is also the same attitude that many people use when arranging and distributing their resumes. However, as these texts reveal, the best resume to use is one written specifically for the sought-after job: not a one size fits all resume.

I found Dikel and Roehm's article extremely helpful and insightful. For example, having used various methods to apply for jobs previously, I had a firm understanding on how each of the four resume types should be formatted. However, I neither understood how to get the margins "just right" so that the document looked nice in email format nor know the benefit and purpose of saving a resume as text only. Also, I always assumed that filling out the field-entry resume form on websites was the "best" way of getting my resume noticed. Now that I think about it, I actually avoided copying and pasting my resume into the field for fear of it reaching the hiring manager and looking awkward. Actually, I didn't think the fields made the resumes look badly until I was on an interview and two upper management officials had to fumble through 3-5 pages of resume jibberish. Even though the managers themselves brought it to the interview to ask me questions about it, I was so happy that I brought extra hard copies of my standard resume. After they realized the information was the same, they used the one-page copies I brought with me.

Resume Reading

Munschauer's article was informative on a number of levels. In particular, I intend to use the section on C.V. to help me to better plan my own vita. Reading this article made me think of several things.

One of my hobbies as a recent college graduate was to apply to new jobs. During this time, I already had a job, but was very unhappy with it. I thought I was doing the "right" thing by simply changing the companies' names and my objective. Now I realize that not adjusting the content and layout potentially costed me the chance for several interviews. I was sure that as long as I changed the company name, objective, and had soft yellow resume paper that I would get any job. I was terribly wrong.

Secondly, this summer I was able to see firsthand how a hiring manager wades through stacks on resumes. The hiring manager I observed, my sister, explained to me that she looked for keywords and presentation in resumes. Even though I tried to slow her down to get her to consider some applicants I thought she may have overlooked, she exclaimed that more people will eventually apply and that the discarded resumes lacked clarity and relevance.

Lastly, one of my students in ENGL 103 class asked for help writing resumes. After almost two years in the MAPC program, I felt obligated to remind him that he needs to consider his intended audience and its purpose or needs for offering the position. I am hesitant to give him an example for fear that he, as an impressionable freshman, will take my example and use it as the "Ten Commandments of Resumes" as I had when I was younger. Consequently, I think I will let him write what he believes to be a "good" resume and talk with him about it. Maybe I will even benefit from helping him.

Curriculum Vitae

Education

2009 MA Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina

2003 BA Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, Virginia

Thesis

The Rhetorical Influence of Color in Residential Real Estate Design Marketing. Clemson, SC: Clemson, University 2009

Research Interests

Professional communication, organization design, visual rhetoric, technical writing, interior design, graphic communication, advertising, marketing, technical editing, digital literacy, usability testing

Teaching Experience

2006-2008 Clemson University – Accelerated Composition ENGL 103

Other Experience

2003-2007 – Management Assistant
2001-2003 Lynchburg College – Alton L. Wilmer Writing Center Tutor

Publications

Refereed chapters and articles

April Davis. [“NEED TITLE”]. Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA) 2000.

April Davis. “Mother.” In The Agora, 2003. [Publisher]: The agora, 2003, pp. ??-??.

April Davis. “A Day At the Park”. In The Agora, 2002. [Publisher]: The agora, 2002, pp. ??-??.

April Davis. [“NEED TITLE”]. In The Prism, 2002. [Publisher]: The prism, 2005, pp. ??-??.



Personal Statement

Introduction
Throughout my life, I have always maintained a passion for writing, technology, and design. I enjoyed watching decorating shows and drawing pictures just as much as I did playing video games, making PowerPoint presentations, and typing creative writing papers. Yet, as a Lynchburg College undergraduate studying English, I never thought that I could combine all three of my interests to be used in academia or the workforce, so I chose to focus solely on writing. Fortunately, graduate school changed how I began to see myself professionally. It ultimately set me on course for pursing a Doctorate of Philosophy in English with a specialization in Professional Writing and New Media from Old Dominion University.

Clemson University’s MA of Professional Communication program trained me to recognize writing, technology, design, research, and usability as rhetorical elements. Moreover, I learned that these interests were closely interrelated, and in some cases, interchangeable. Essentially, writing is both design and technology. My graduate thesis project is a marriage of this very concept and is road map of what I will pursue for a career. I welcome the experience of earning a degree from Old Dominion University in hopes of honing the analytical skills I have developed and preparing myself for leadership roles within the technical and professional communication community.

Academic and Professional Goals
Immediately after graduation in May of 2009 from Clemson University’s Master of Arts in Professional Communication, my goal is to enroll in classes at Old Dominion University as a part-time student. Excited about a career in industry, education, or a combination of the two, I intend to begin working with an organization while earning my doctorate and using the skills I learn. Applying the extensive historical, theoretical, pedagogical, practical, and research knowledge about professional communication that I learned from Clemson, I will focus on how form, purpose, technology of composition, audience, cultural location, and communities of discourse affect the creation and reception of texts and media.

My professional interests are in visual rhetoric, technical writing, technical editing, proposal writing, real estate, information technology, and organization/interior design. Earning this degree will ensure my goal of securing a successful career and enable me to apply it to many a number of different industries.

Importance of this Degree
During college and as a working adult, my recognized strength was and is my ability to operate efficiently under pressure while remaining creative and on task. The ability to manage my time well while also working on several projects is a trait I have continued to perfect over the years. The technical writing field requires one to conduct research in addition to writing. Fact-finding has always been something that I have done well because I am very patient and am thorough in my work. I have always been motivated by the desire to put forth my best effort in whatever I do. I want to excel and to be successful as a student, employee, and for my own personal satisfaction.

Kostelnick and Petroski

These two texts argue that seemingly typical design decisions such as using bold lettering or choosing a bridge layout not be treated arbitrarily. Kostelnick's article is important for any form of professional writing. Specifically, as I read this article, I thought about how easy it was for me to put my thesis headings in bold, large letters. Yet, Kostelnick and Foucault's articles reminded me that ease of use and convention should not be the basis of solving a problem.

Design is rhetorical; hence, I should have considered the fact that although bold text is easier for an audience to find on a page, my audience, three MAPC professors, read student thesis proposals every year and can recognize headings and sub-headings. Therefore, it was not necessary that I used bold lettering. Also, Kostelnick's article suggests that (which I had forgotten) bold text can also be offensive if used in the wrong context. Certainly my intention was not to offend three of the most important people currently in my life, but this point proves that I have to be very careful as to how I implement such choices - even if my audience is design professionals who know the difference.

The Petroski text was a perfect complement to both Kostelnick and Dorothy Winsor's articles. Obviously, Winsor's article talks about how engineers write themselves as engineers and Petroski's shows how engineers go about being engineers: invention through previous design interaction. For instance, Petroski discusses at length about how many people were fearful of using iron in railway bridges because of the numerous failed designs. Consequently, many engineers and their audiences rallied behind using wooden bridges because "that was the way things had always been done". Yet, Petroski points out that although the wooden bridges were widely used, they too were not without problems.

Another example of "good" design gone wrong is Alcatraz. Built as an impenetrable keep for the nation's most notorious prisoners, Alcatraz, or "the Rock", only lived up to its name for a short while. Made of mostly iron and concrete, the building is located on its own island in the San Francisco Bay. The design was effective as far as the intimidation factor was concerned; however, the salt water surrounding the island wore on the building over the years causing it to deteriorate and foster prison escapes. Although the inmates themselves actually did the crime, this design oversight could be blamed for numerous prison guard murders and the mass hysteria in San Francisco during the building's operation years.

I really enjoyed reading these two texts and don't have any nasty commentary to make about them. As a change, I thought I would show a clip from YouTube.com of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster. Ironically, I saw a special on the History Channel about bridges, and this one was mentioned. I did not see this situation in a rhetorical light until I read Petroski's article. I also commend Petroski for daring to combine the two extremes of writing: poetry and professional writing (Robert Frost's poem).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mclp9QmCGs