Chapter 2, 9, 10 readings

Chapter 2 discusses the four main activities that should be considered when making a resumes. It also ties in the principles for writing in a reader centered format. Like Chris said in his response to my post last week. This point really is being drilled into us. It is a good thing because it is not just something I read and forgot about because it was never mentioned again. So I guess I am thankful that it is always revisited because it stays in my head and when I am writing I am thinking of the reader more often. The four activities in resume writing are defining objectives, planning, drafting, and revising. The first step is deciding what to say and how to say it. Know who your potential employers are and what qualifications they are looking for. By knowing this you will be able to show your ethos and hopefully it will fit with the qualifications of the job. Planning is when you decide what you should include in the resume. The book describes the drafting stage to be the most difficult. Figuring out the best way to design your resume is important. You want the employer to be able to find all key information quick and easy. And lastly, always revise your draft for usability, and grammatical errors. It also helps to have other people like professors or students in same career path to look over your resume before submitting it.

Chapter 9
This chapter is about how to effectively create a beginning to a communication. For example, email, research paper, or proposal. One of the guidelines provided is to give your readers a reason to pay attention. Make it something they want to know or have to know. I liked this guideline because it sounds relevant to increased amount of communication through email. The book talks about people get so many emails everyday and don't understand why they should read all of these. My email for example gets so much mail everyday that when i open them typically I am looking at the subject and if it isn't something I need asap I don't open it. This happens all the time i bet in the business world. This chapter gives some good tips on how to get "your" email opened. It says to grab the readers attention you must do 2 things. Announce your topic and tell your readers what they will benefit from after reading your communication. Opening sentences are of stressed importance but in emails more importantly your subject is of extreme importance. You want your reader to look at the subject line and immediately open the email. Making a strong subject sentence will help this happen.

Chapter 10
Like chapter 9 talked about the beginning of a communication, chapter 10 discusses how to end a communication. Most intersting to me is different types of communication have different types of endings. Some require conclusions and some do not. For example, most research papers require a conclusion of some sort in which your are restating your main claim and also mentioning again the most important points made throughout the paper. However, proposals or instructions normally end after the last point or step is made. No conclusion is necessary.