Reflection and Conclusion

Technical communication is a vital part of everyday life. Whether we realize it or not, we use technical communication everyday. I have always viewed myself as a strong writer, but I had no idea how difficult technical writing was. My English 365 course really taught me lots of valuable technical writing skills and techniques. I am now able to display those skills to any future employers.

One of the first things that I learned how to do in my English 365 course was to write a memorandum. I had no prior experience writing memorandums prior to this class experience. Writing memorandums became an every class period exercise. I also learned how to use active words and phrases after putting together a group proposal to change our university's scheduling system.

Technical writing is concise. The first group project that our class had to work on stressed getting straight to the point but to be as clear as possible. Another classmate and I had to create instructions about how to create and upload a YouTube video. My partner for this project was of a different nationality, so it was difficult understanding his accent. We worked through these difficulties and presented a great project.

Speaking in front of crowds, whether large or small, has never been a problem for me. I have great experience with all of Microsoft Office software. For an individual oral and visual presentation I chose to use Prezi instead of powerpoint. Using Prezi was indeed a challenge, but I conquered the challenge and put together a great visual presentation. I learned how to cut out redundant phrases while working on this project. I also learned how to avoid using filler words like "um" and "like."

I am a very strong technical writer thanks to all of my experiences in college and specifically in my English 365 course. I am well suited to do any job that requires technical communication. Along with my technical communication skills, I am patient, obedient, respectful, and honest. These are all qualities I believe employers are seeking for in job candidates.

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Benefits of Blogging and Blog Reviews

I had to make continuous post on this blog as a requirement for my English 365 course. To be completely honest, I had never kept up with this type of blog before. I am very familiar with Tumblr, but my tumblr is more of a visual blog. I learned what makes for a good overall blog throughout my time in this English class. Below I will review 3 interesting blogs.

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Law Cents is a blog where potential law students can go to receive helpful insight about law school. "Economical Lawyer" is the author of this blog. This blog was once updated monthly, but hasn't been since February. I would suggest potential law students to view this blog as it would be very insightful. I recommend that "Economical Lawyer" change the design of the blog so it could be more appealing to readers.

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The Shoe Game is a blog for urban shoe collectors. There is a host of authors who writes for this blog, but one of the most continuous of them is Ray P. The shoe game provides detailed information about all of the upcoming and potential urban sneaker releases. I would suggest that the authors of the post provide more detail in order to make their post better. Besides that small suggestion, I would recommend this blog to anyone who is interested in urban footwear.

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Study Hacks is a blog by Cal Newport which outlines good study tips for college students. This blog is often updated with valuable information. I stumbled upon this blog about 3 years ago when I was a senior in high school seeking knowledge about life in college. A better design would allow for readers to be more attracted to this blog, but other than that I would recommend this blog to any college student.
 

Formal Research Reports and Technical Communications

Being a college student is probably one of the hardest things to be. There are many different things that we have to worry about. We all want to progress with our college careers, and at my university, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, it's difficult for some students to progress within their degree plan because they cannot enroll in certain classes. Why can't they enroll in these vital class? The University of Louisiana at Lafayette's scheduling system is inadequate.

Gia, Kaleb, Markell, and myself designed a new scheduling program which will solve UL Lafayette's current scheduling problem. The program is modeled just like Harvard University's schedule of classes. This new program will eliminate the many pop up windows that the current system has.

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We had to interact with quite a bit of people while putting this project together. A survey of UL students was conducted. While handing out this survey, our group members had to remain polite and cordial. It was pretty difficult getting many people to take part in our survey. We worked through this problem by being more assertive.

Another problem we faced was getting everyone on the same accord. Personally, I was going through much in my life at the time this project was due. I was also the group's leader. We found a way to work through these communication problems once we bolted down and took the assignment more seriously.

Visual and Oral Presentations

One of the hardest things for some college students to do is giving oral and visual presentations. A lot of preparation time goes into giving an oral and visual presentation. If the hardest part of the presentation is not selecting a title, then the hardest part is deciding which presentation medium will be used. I am personally tired of the formats and features of Microsoft office. I really prefer Prezi over any of the modern presentation mediums. This blog post will inform you guys about the features of Prezi. I will also write a little about my personal experience with Prezi during my first time using the medium.

Draw out an overarching design of the Prezi. Think of how the presentation would look if it was completely zoomed out. Some of the most successful Prezis have a structure that the path of frames will follow.Use the main points of your presentation as the anchors for the path your Prezi will take.

The template of your Prezi defines how the text, colors and objects will all interact on the landscape. You can pick between 2D and 3D template. 2D themes are flat and the camera moves across the canvas. 3D themes allow you to zoom in and out of the background. I found selecting a template some what difficult because I wasn't in total control of how the presentation looked.

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I would recommend an individual giving an oral and visual presentation to use Prezi. I was tricked into paying $59 unfortunately, but the presentation that I presented looked beautiful.