asgarland's blog

Well, this is the last week for this class and a very important week. On Monday, July the 20th, at 12:00 pm, Group 2 met online to put the rough draft of the white paper together. Also, the summary was written together. Everybody wrote their parts as expected. The next step was peer review, which is a great idea. We gained some valuable insight from Group 1 which I think made our paper much better. On Thursday, July the 24th, an email was sent out to our group to include the sources we used in our paper, and to edit the paper due to the feedback by Group 1.

I would like to post that our white papers is coming along. It seems that our research is done, as everybody posted three or more links and did a great job describing them. We are on the next phase of our project now, the rough draft. Over email and some AIM communication, it has been decided who will write what, and the what is the sections of the paper. It also has been decided that we as a group are going to have our sections of the rough draft done by noon on Monday, and put it together and write the executive summary.

The white papers that where provided this week were great examples. I can say that I clearly understand what I am supposed to do now and have a good prospective on what white papers encompass. After reading the white papers assigned, my definition is that a white paper is a professional report that documents facts and ideas on a particular subject in an unbiased form for a reader. The reader, whether it is your colleague, boss, or professor should be able to gain a full understanding of what the white paper is written about.

For this weeks project log, we established email contact very quickly. Everyone has also posted up on the Wiki, but this is hard to get to, so we probably won't use it that much. It looks like email will be the way our group will remain in contact. I am still a little confused on what a white paper on Google docs will have in it, and our group is discussing it and making sure everyone is up to date. Our Google docs account is set up, and everyone has the information on how to log on. We are also currently trying to decide what we are going to write the white paper on.

Attached are my resume and cover letter for a job listing I found on Center of Career Opportunities Purdue. The job listing is for a company called Exponent. I plan on actually applying for their job later in the year. Therefore, this is very serious to me, and I need some great feedback. All comments are welcome and I will take them into account. Thanks, and enjoy learning about me!

I found the readings to be very insightful. The pages are now bookmarked so I can reference them for all of my upcoming job searches. I then found website number 1, http://www.careercc.com/resumpr.shtml#General%20Cover%20Letter, that has a few cover letter examples. I only looked at the “specific” example, not the general cover letter example. In this cover letter, I find the format to be not quite right. The introduction starts out great, but then just ends, not stating at least two topics why one would be a great for the job to be discussed in the body of the letter .

Here is my T-letter for an add I found on CCO. The job listing is from Exponent, which is an engineering contractor the solves problems for the military and individuals using todays technology. If anybody has any comments on my T-letter about how I can improve it, please let me know. I really want to be very good at this before looking for a full time job this fall!

In the first reading by Douglas Richardson, many important points are made. The idea of writing a summary for the objective I feel is bogus. Many resumes go through companies’ hands everyday, and I feel writing such summary is a waste of time. Once can write what they want in bullets and get said things accomplished in much less space, and without wasting the company’s time. Also, when one writes in third person through out the resume, I start to laugh. Usually there is a heading on a resume with the name of the person who wrote it, so why name oneself throughout?

For a refresher, my project entailed removing the wheel of a car, and then switching out the coil-over suspension with a replacement. I had multiple people use my instructions (my dad, and two friends) so I could gain more insight on what is needed to make them better. One of my friends already knew what exactly what to do, so they just followed my instructions to make sure I didn’t leave out anything tiny and important that I would do naturally and not think about. He commented on a few details about stripping bolts and techniques on how to break bolts loose if they are stuck.

These two chapters provided great insight. I wish I would have known about this book a long time ago, in my other English classes. Chapter 24 talked about why images are important and how they are needed in different works. This chapter also talks about how to integrate visual content while having it make sense and be more than just a picture to stare at. Citing the visual content is equally important as finding the correct visual for a document. The reading then switches gear as one reads into Chapter 25. More about how to apply a visual is talked about in this chapter.