ENGL 420: Business Writing

This week’s reading was about plagiarism, copyright, and ethics. Plagiarism is something that everyone should be fully aware of at this point in college; however, it is still being stressed everyday the importance of not doing so in colleges. The consequences of plagiarism were put into our heads at a very young age. What better time to teach a person about something so important than at the time a child is a learning sponge. Even then, people today are still plagiarizing even after all the warnings and teachings of the matter.

This week our group, 10, met with Ms. Stirratt and delivered our proposal to her. After looking over our proposal, and us giving her a brief walk through it in addition to her reading it, she accepted. She thinks that our idea will really work and that it is very beneficial, not only to her, but the entire Boiler Blast team. We discussed what would be done during our time working with her and she agreed with our proposal of four specifically written letters to the major businesses in the Lafayette and West Lafayette area. Ms.

Due to the fact that this week and the previous week have both been focused on the white paper project, we have not had readings to write about. I have decided to just write about the peer reviews that we have done recently. On that note, as much as I hate to do them that early in the morning, when my brain does not seem to be functioning fully, they are still beneficial. Looking at other people’s work and mistakes or great ideas makes it helpful for my own white paper and gives you more of a guideline to go off of by learning from other people’s mistakes.

We have finally gotten everything together at this point. Joey worked on the design of our paper and did an AMAZING job! We broke the problem and three solutions up between us and we each did our own part. We have not met physically other than in class time recently, but we do keep up with each other's work on google docs and through email. Jessie will be turning in our final paper on Friday. Overall, we have done a nice job of getting things put together and doing what needs to be done.

So far, these past couple of weeks, there has not been many readings to respond about. We have mainly been focusing our attention on certain aspects of the white paper and the importance of certain things about it. Since I have already written about the one reading that we had these past couple of weeks, I think I am going to discuss the white paper and the library visit that we did Wednesday. I thought that the library visit was helpful and very informative. I had never used Microsoft publisher so that was a first time for me to see what you could do in publisher.

I think that the Group Work and collaborative writing reading is very appropriate at this point in the semester because of the group project that we are currently doing. This article gives examples of good and bad group works which is very helpful because it gives you something to go off of so that you and your group are heading in the right direction. This reading also describes the group phases of forming, storming, planning, and norming. I learned about all of these my sophomore year in one of my OLS classes. It was a good reminder to see these in the reading.

So far so good! As far as my part of the white paper, it is coming along and my rough draft for my part will be done by tonight (Wednesday). We all decided to break up the problem and solutions between us and then we volunteered to do the introduction or executive summary or summary. So I am doing the hybrid solution and also the summary to the white paper. We plan on putting the whole thing together through Google docs Wednesday that way if we do have to meet we will still have time to do so before the due date. Overall, I think we are working well together and getting the job done!

So far our group is working well together. We have distributed parts as to who is writing which part of the paper and then we will collaborate about it later. I have been assigned to do research and my part of the outline on hybrid cars. I have finished this and our outline will be done by Friday. With the outline done, I think we will be able easily put our rough draft together for next Friday. Our group meetings have been constructive and have so far been every Wed at 6 or 7pm. So far so good for this group!

I thought that the reading on Memos was very interesting and beneficial. In the article, it discusses the importance of a memo and its content. The article states the importance of knowing your audience and the purpose of the memo. It then goes on to talk about the parts of the memo and how is should be addressed to the person in a certain format and formal. The article said that if you address the president of your company as “Maxi” on the golf course you should still address this person in a formal manner by using their name.

Overall, my group has been working well together thus far. When we meet our meetings are constructive and beneficial. I think that we equally do a great job. So far the research that I have for this topic is as follows. I found this website http://www.biodiesel.com/why_biodiesel.htm that has a great article on biodiesel and gives helpful information on what is it, how it will work and how it can be beneficial. In the article it talks about how biodiesel is safer and cleaner for the environment and I would agree.