Free Topic

I am glad this week has a free topic for the blog even though I have no clue what to write about! You would think it would be easy to come up with a fun, easy topic but nothing has hit me yet. I really don't like having to blog even though it is easy and does not take a long, I really don't know why. I am glad that I am in a regular class and not the online section though. The only thing really on my mind now is internship stuff for this summer. I have applied to a lot of different companies hoping to get a decent paying one that would be a lot of fun and teach me a lot, but apparently every college student in America is doing the same thing. I have came to the conclusion that I want a really sweet internship anywhere or a crappy one at a big time Fortune 100 company that would look good on my resume. I do not have any good stuff to put on my resume for a summer internship, much less a real job once I graduate. (Random thought- I really don't like how this blog window does not automatically capitalize i when you don't do it, that is how lazy and accustom I have become of Word's auto correct of 'i' to 'I') It is looking like that I will be working in Memphis as a sports marketing intern for FedEx and living with one of my best friends. I am pretty excited about it but it has not came through yet. The only reason I even have a shot is because my best friend's family knows the whole city of Memphis and all of the FedEx hot shots. So that is my quick little blog for the week, had to squeeze it in before the midnight deadline. See ya next week

Cover Letters

I do agree with all of the articles I read because they seem like they are a respectable source and I do not have any background in writing cover letters. I am a very visual person so the cover letter check list outlining the main things I need was the most beneficial to me because it listed the information without any fluff and with bullets.
The postscript technique was very interesting, I had never thought about doing that or have I ever read about that until now. It said to throw in a P.S. at the end and right a achievement you have had to make yourself sound good. Then the fact the recommended to handwrite the the P.S. was fairly weird to me but I def think it would get right away so that would be a good way to start out for the reader. I would use that technique and then all of the checklist material for my cover letter that is to be included in my portfolio. See ya next week!

Yahoo Articles

The two articles I chose were 'Four Questions to Ask a Potential Manager' and 'Six Common Job-Interview Questions.' The first article was great because it gave me some good advice on how to turn the tables on the interviewer and impress him by asking quality questions about himself and them company. Out of the 4 questions it said to ask your potential employer, the most unique one was what approach does he take when solving problems. I would want to know if I was dealing with a hardcore stickler who was tough on mistakes or if he was lenient. The second article was the most beneficial because it listed six of the most common questions that all interviewers ask. It would look great if I had a great answer prepared for every question they asked. A lot of the 6 I had heard before and would normally expect but I did not really expect the questions asking about behavior on the job and with other coworkers.
So the two articles I read were very informative and obviously if I would have read the other articles I would have learned a lot more about the process of interviewing. Besides the things I listed already that I learned, the main thing that I realized was that preparation and studying for the interview is the most important thing since so much studies have been done to help us to do well in them. See ya next week.

Persuasive Communication

In today's world being able to persuade someone is huge, especially in the business world. For this blog assignment I have chose Barack Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address. Personally I have not decided who I am voting for yet but Obama has a good shot at getting my vote. I was interested to read the transcript of this address where he supported John Kerry in the 2004 election. I have no idea if he actually writes his own speeches but they are all amazing. No matter how good Obama may use rhetoric it does not compare to MLK's letter when I read both of them. I do not know that much about rhetoric or even english for that matter but I do know that MLK's letter is supposed to be the say all, end all when it comes to best use of rhetoric. Now once I compare Obama's speech to the Army recruiters presentation it seems that he is the best user of rhetoric that the world has ever seen. I mean no disrespect to the 3 presenters but they could not have convinced me to do one thing that day. Maybe they don't have a lot of skill in the area or they just weren't on their game. Granted, I know they weren't trying to persuade me that day but from what I observed they did not have a chance if they actually tried.

Here are a few examples of Barack Obama's use of rhetoric in his address:

Ethos- I understand this to be appeal based on the character of the speaker. His speech did not ever bring attention to the fact that Obama is highly educated and a "good person" because of his audience. He was at the Democratic National Convention so it was no big deal that he has a great education because everyone there also has the same education. The way he delivered, no recited, his speech really appealed a lot to me that he knew what he was doing and he was supposed to be there. He did once mention talking to mill workers that I think would help his ethos.

Logos- I understand this to be appeal based on logic or reason. This seems that it would be a lot of scholarly information and big words but i'm not sure about that. I think the best use of logos is his argument in the speech that the US should be about hope not cynicism, about accepting not condemning, and about togetherness not red vs blue states.

Pathos- I understand this to be appeal based on emotion. Barack Obama has a lot of this in his speech. He talks about union workers losing their jobs to Mexico and then not having benefits or money to pay for their children's medicine.


http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/convention2004/barackobama2004dnc.htm