Word of Wisdom

So I'll offer a few words of wisdom to next semester's students in Angela Rogers' Business Writing class. At first things may seem a little overwhelming,writing the blog every Sunday, completing the daily assignments, learning the daily lessons and looking to the future at the multiple presentations and portfolio creations, but the key is to plan your work schedule for the current weeks assignments. Here are my suggestions:

• Print out the PowerPoint slides and taking quality notes
  
• Write the weekly blogs, they are a small 10 points that add up to a lot in the end.
• Take good notes during the 5 Minute Review for the grammar quiz
• Attend class-I know this might sound crazy but it's really interesting and you learn a lot about business writing

You will create a resume, a cover letter, conduct a mock interview, learn the difference between direct and indirect organizational styles and when to apply each and how to conduct quality presentation. If you are taking this class, you're in luck!

Unethical Practices in the Workplace

There are many unethical practices that occur in large, big-name corporations every year. Some are bigger than others and easily identifiable. For example, Martha Stewart sold her shares of stock before disclosing the information to all shareholders the day before the stock plummeted. In 2004, Dick Grasso, former CEO of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), resigned due to unethical practices and replaced by "Mr. Fix-It," John Thain. Recently, former CEO of Merrill Lynch, Stanley O'Neal resigned after unethical procedures and risky investment. At the end of that year (2007) Merrill Lynch posted a recored high $8 billion loss. And who did they call on to fix the problem? You guessed it-John Thain. After stabilizing the NYSE, John Thain was hired by Merrill Lynch as CEO. Other unethical practices, such as pocketing money and sexual and race discrimination happen everyday and may never be reported by employers. Many of these incidents go unreported because employers feel uneasy about reporting it to upper-level management or a anonymous, formal reporting procedure is not offered. Although it is morally correct to report these issues, employees may feel that their confidential reports may end up in the wrong hands and this could lead to an uncomfortable work environment. The best solution is to create an anonymous, formal reporting procedure to address unethical issues in the workplace. By doing this, upper-level management will pay closer attention to possible unethical claims.

Modern Doesn't Always Mean Better

Writing on the Web can prove to be much different than writing on paper. There are many reasons that cause this difference. They include: format, tone, speech and font. While writing on paper has a standard format: sender's address, recipient's address, date, salutation, body, closing and signature, the Web offers a more open-ended structure when it comes to format. Often the sender's address never appears in an email. A second reason is tone. Usually a formal tone is taken when writing on paper, while a more casual tone usually appears on the Web. When writing emails to colleagues, many people fail to capitalize their letters. A third reason is speech. By speech I mean Web lingo, like that which appears in all the Cingular commercials. One in particular has a grandmother stating, "Idk my bff Rose," which translates to I don't know my best friend Rose. It almost as if we have created a Neo-English language. I know we are trying to "go green" but does everything have to become hybrid? Something of this nature would never appear in a letter or memo. Finally, you need to be careful of the type of font used in a Web document. The best fonts to use on the Web are Arial and Verdana because they are more readable on a Web page. So, if you are transferring a Word document that is typed in Times New Roman to the Web be sure to change the font style.