syllabus
calendar
blackboard
student.email resources

last.updated 4.23.06

 

Workshop Presentations

Purpose

 Today each group will do their respective workshop treating your peers as the appropriate audience.

Group 1 (Jeri, Linda)

This workshop will cover how to compose and effective business email. In the past, email users were encouraged to ignore style and grammar due to the informality of email messages. Emails in the past have been used solely for internal use in businesses much like the interoffice memorandums. However, emails are now used internally, externally, and worldwide within businesses.Ê For this reason, it is important for the students in the workshop to learn the do's and donts when writing emails. The way an email is composed represents the company and the company employee.Ê Ê

Therefore, in our workshop we will discuss the following:

  • Reasons for using emails:
    • Inform Employees
    • Request Data
    • Supply Responses
    • Confirm Decisions
    • Give Directions
  • Smart email practices
  • Content, tone, and correctness.
  • Formatting emails:
    • Margins
    • Guide words
    • Salutations
    • Complimentary close
  • Writing plan for emails:
    • Subject Line: Summarize memo contents.
    • Opening: State the main idea.
    • Body: Provide background data and explain the main idea.
    • Closing: Request action, summarize the message, or present a closing thought

Again, students will learn that emails can be the first impression of you to another employee, supervisor, or client. Therefore, if your email is grammatically incorrect or there are misspellings, the receiver of your email might have the impression that you are careless. In any case, it is important to proofread and edit your documents before you hit that send button.

Group 2 (Kristen, Mary, Starr )

Group 3 (Alauna, Laura, Mary Cate)

Through our presentation, we will put on a workshop in writing a public relations type letter for a non-profit organization based mainly in fundraising, education and importance of audience. We will also include a legal discussion of the "dos" and "do nots" of the legal side of such a letter.

These subjects need to be addressed, because these types of public relations letters dealing with fundraising are often very difficult to word and need special attention to get the desired message across without offending the audience. The legal facet needs to be addressed because often times such letters can get non-profits into unforeseen trouble if the necessary precautions are not taken. The presentation will address all of these issues.

We will write a seamless fundraising letter from a non-profit theatre company. This letter will be used in the workshop to show the best means of writing a fundraising letter while taking audience into account. The letter will the be analyzed from a legal standpoint to find out why this letter is legally sound. Examples of poor legal decisions with similar letters will be presented as well to show what not to do in similar letters.

At the conclusion of our presentation, the audience will know how to write a fundraising letter for a non-profit organization, and how to keep these letters legally sound.

Group 4 (Jennifer, Liz, Sarah)

Within a professional context, originality can often be the deciding factor in the effectiveness of a document. As we have discussed in class, creative elements such as descriptive language or narrative are sometimes out-of-place within certain genres. However, in the case of a proposal, creativity and style serve a rhetorical function and ultimately influence the outcome of an argument.

In our example proposal, we chose to exhibit very plain language by using very simple sentence structure and excluding any creative elements. While this document has the necessary elements to qualify it within the genre, it lacks the pizzazz that might make Lance's argument stand out. In writing, there is always opportunity for originality, and it is often the "freshest" ideas that get noticed. If the purpose of Lance's proposal is to sway his Red Bull audience, how can his argument be presented more creatively? We want each student to consider stylistic changes that they would make to the language, by either rearranging sentences, elaborating with descriptive language, or inserting creative elements such as metaphor or synonyms. Each student will be expected to complete a re-write of the proposal in class (within a 10-15 minute time frame, in small groups).

After the rewrites are complete, we will expect each student to justify the changes he/she made to the document. We want the class to specifically consider the appropriateness of creativity in professional documents, and will discuss which version of the proposal is the most effective and why. "Flare" in language allows a text to "stand out" in a crowded mass of words. Why might this be advantageous in a professional context? Why are creativity and originality crucial in writing as a whole?

Please read and consider Lance's letter to prepare for the workshop.