Sarah Bammel
(sbammel@emich.edu)

Writing Is Our Best Friend
Writing will always be thre for us when we need it. Writing gives us a way of making a record of something, in court we bring written contracts signed by all parties showing everyone agreed to the terms stated. Writing alo helps in personal ways giving us a way to communcate when we can't talk to someone in person. E-mail allows us to send a message at any time, so if we think of something at 3 a.m. we can get on our computes and send an e-mail that the person can read in the mrning. That e-mail also serves as a record that the e-mail was sent, and that the recievrs wre told of whatever was discussed in the e-mail.

Writing helps us stay organized and keep track of schedules and inventory. We put scheduled events and tasks in a planner to keep schedules straight. We also do inventory counts to keep track of items in the office.

Writing is our best friend because it helps us keep records of events and contracts that we agree to. Writing helps us stay organized in our busy lives. Writing is like a dog, it is our best friend.

The Team Introduction Memo (TIM) and Process Documentation Memo (PDM): Who Am I?

Contextualizing the TIM & PDM

The Team Introduction Memo was the first project of the class. It was to introduce ourselves to the class. We were all new to the class, and most had never had Dr. Benninghoff before. (I had him for English 324, and English 328.) Through the project we learned that the key to making an introduction was to make a connection between the people being introduced. So for the project we had to connect our experiences to those of others in the class; the challenge was that we didn't know each other, and didn't know each other's experiences. We used some problem solving to find some common ground, being that we were all in the class so we all had majors requiring the course, we had probably all had a technical communication experience, and the list could go on. In the memo, we also wanted to say how our experiences could be valuable to the team, being the class.

The Process Documentation Memo was to get us to think about the process we used in creating our Introduction Memo. The PDM shows what changed between the drafts and why it changed. This was to get us to see all the steps we were going through in writing the TIMs so that we could identify the basics being done, concepts we were applying and then be able to apply those concepts to future projects not only in future classes, but also in our future jobs.

Reflecting on the TIM & PDM

Lessons Learned
I learned that headings need to include something about the purpose of the section, otherwise readers will just skip the section. If someone were reading the first draft of my TIM they would skip the whole thing. My headings were real simple, like "Writing" which was the heading of a section describing what writing meant to me, and why I love it so much. I changed it to "Writing Helps Me Be Heard and Deal With Life" to show the purpose as to why the section was there.

The Creative Rhetoric Scenario: Sister Love

Contextualizing the Creative Rhetoric Scenario

Issues With Sisters
For this project I had to accurately portray my sister and me and an acutal conversation we might have, but also include what I understood the definition of rhetoric to be. This was somewhat difficult because chances are, this conversation will never happen. It was also difficult because rhetoric is a hard word to get a good grasp of the definition in just a few short weeks. It was also difficult to give dialog since my sister and I don't really talk; we hit, kick, and squeeze. But the hitting, kicking, and squeezing is our language, it's what we understand. If one we had a civilized conversation, I'd know the end of the world was just around the corner.

I learned about rhetoric, and how it's different depending on who you are around. At the movie theatre where I work we use terms that throw everyone off. Like what most people think of as theatre, we think of as house, we know the whole building to be the theatre, the room where the film is viewed is called a house. When we talk about a week, it means Friday through Thursday, not Sunday through Saturday. When I go home a house is the place I live, and a week is Sunday through Saturday.

Reflecting on the Creative Rhetoric Scenario

I learned a lot about rhetoric, and how it affects a situation. If someone from outside the group comes in and overhears something, they may not understand what is being said. Like a customer at the movie theatre hearing some employees talk about a pop spill in house 17, the customer may not realize what house 17 is and not know what the employees are talking about. It is also important to know the rhetoric of a place so that you can be clear in your meaning of what you want. For example, if one of the trainees came and just asked for a week off, they would get Friday through Thursday, so if they wanted/needed a Sunday through Saturday week they wouldn't get what they wanted/needed.

The Airbag Letter Case: Customer Relations

Contextualizing the Airbag Case

Issues With A Form Letter
In the Airbag Case we pretended to work for a car company that was getting a lot of customer letters concerned about their safety driving in cars with airbags. They were worried about all different things like having the airbag deploy when it's not needed, or if their child is sitting in the front seat. We had to address all these concerns in one letter. This proved difficult since we could not get into specifics about the customer concerns.

Reflecting on the Airbag Case

In writing this letter, I learned ways of addressing problems in the most general ways. For those concerned about airbag deployment, which was about all of the customers, I included a section of general safety guidlines that are simple for anyone to follow. I also said where the customers could go for more information if they needed more. I learned about dealing with customers, and dealing with many concerns, in the most general way. This is important for me to have learned since I plan to work in customer relations.

The Context & Genre Analysis Project: English 328-Web Portfolio

Contextualizing the Context & Genre Analysis Project

Limiting the Scope
For this project we had to go back to experiences in a context, either class or work related, and look at how writing is used. We saw how writing can have an effect on the context and the context can have an effect on the writing. To do this we took the entire context and gave a general description of what goes on, and then focused on one document in the context.

Usability vs. Usefulness
We looked at how the documents were used, and what purpose they held in the context. The context I looked was my English 328 class, and I focused on the Web Portfolio we did at the end. With this document there were certain lessons we were suposed to learn, and I looked at how well students learned these lessons.

Reflecting on the Context & Genre Analysis Project:

Lessons Learned
From this project I learned how writing effects the context and how the context effects the documents. That some places are unorganized and so the writing is to provide some organization, and the context also calls for some kind of record because of all the unorganization. This lesson will be very useful when I get to the work world and have to develop documents for products, and write memos. I will see the real purpose behind the documents and therefore will put forth a better effort than I would have.