Summary Reflection

The part about writing that I find difficult and causes me to spend hours writing a paper is coming up with ideas and organizing those ideas so that it makes sense to the reader. So writing persuasive essays or research papers are not my favorite. Summaries on the other hand don’t require the writer to come up with his or her own ideas or opinions. The purpose of a summary is simply to put the key points of someone else’s paper into a short description of what the article is about. This way if someone wants to find out what a paper is about without reading the whole thing they can just read the summary. Summaries can be really useful tools for people doing research on a particular topic.

The other reason I like summaries is because they are generally short and to the point. There isn’t any filler information, random facts or anecdotes. If someone writes a summary that is almost as long as the original paper then the summary is pointless because it would be better to read the article at that point. This means that summaries are required to be considerably shorter than the original piece of writing whereas if I were to write a rhetorical analysis on a journal article they would probably end up being closer to each other in length.

Lastly, I think writing this summary helped me understand the article better because I had to find all of the main points and try to understand the full article before I could begin. Writing summaries can be really helpful if you are trying to understand an article or want to use it for research because not only do you have to break the article down and read it many times but once you have a completed summary you can reference it later more easily when you have more than ten sources.

Memo

SFD (Software for Dummies) is a start-up company that connects small businesses with developers to make improvements to any software their business uses on a daily basis.

To: All SFD Employees                       

From: Joseph Hage, CEO

Subject: New Partnership with SAE

Date: January 28^th, 2014

Greetings,

As I am sure many of you are already aware, we have been in contact with Iowa State University’s SAE for a couple weeks now and I am pleased to inform you that their president Ali Daly has just decided to use our company to improve their baja car design software. Ali Daly is a mechanical engineer and she is very devoted to her work so I expect you to show the same kind of devotion. Please make sure your contact with her organization is informative but brief and make sure we do everything possible to meet their needs. SAE is the customer and so the answer is always yes. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me. Thank you for all your hard work.

Joseph Hage

SFD Chief Executive Officer

Writing in My Field

            If I wanted to learn more about how communication works in MIS I would start by talking to different upperclassmen of MIS club, hear what they have to say and then also try to figure out who they would recommend I talk to. After narrowing it down to a few professors or other people to talk to I would go talk to them to find out as much as I can so that I feel confident going out on my own to research communication in my field. I’m sure there is plenty of information online but without talking to anyone first I would have no idea where to begin or what to search so that I find relevant and credible information.

MLA Citations

Daim, Tugrul U. "Exploring the Communication Breakdown in Global Virtual Teams." Exploring the Communication Breakdown in Global Virtual Teams. Science Direct, Feb. 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.

Bostrom, Robert P. "Successful Application of Communication Techniques to Improve the Systems Development Process." Successful Application of Communication Techniques to Improve the Systems Development Process. Science Direct, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.

Thought Piece #2

            I have always found academic reading to be really boring. Even the article itself wasn’t very interesting at first until I realized that I was the audience and I could relate to a lot of the author’s struggles. When I have to read something for a class I usually try to read it as quickly as possible and hope that I remember enough to say I read it. But this article really did offer some new insight into academic reading. I was always encouraged in high school to read things multiple times and divide it into sections to understand meanings so that part wasn’t new. Reading something multiple times definitely doesn’t make it more interesting that’s for sure. But when Rosenberg says that before trying to understand an article I should try to figure out why I was assigned to read it that made a lot of sense to me. As obvious as that seems, it is not something I usually do. I just assume there is a purpose and leave it at that. But as the reader, if you don’t know why you are reading it then how do you know what to look for? You have to make it interesting and challenging somehow in order to stay awake. When I read a book because someone tells me it is really good I start reading and even if it is not interesting at first I keep reading and waiting for the “insane” part of the book that they told me about. It’s the same with academic writing; if you know what to look for then it gives the reading purpose and if it has a purpose then it is worth reading. While you may have to trick your brain into thinking that the reading has a purpose, sometimes that is the only way to learn the information effectively without reading it and forgetting all the information right away.