Peer Blog Review

Select three of your fellow students’ blogs to review.  Post a comment on each of the Blogs that you have selected, and provide feedback regarding purpose, design, content, and audience.  Please be specific as to your recommendations for enhancement and revision.  Make every effort to post comments to Blogs that have not already been critiqued.

Conflict Experience

 

In my workplace, the floors are arranged in a honeycomb of interlocking cubicles where employees share walls, and can hear everyone else’s conversations and exclamations.  In my great unfortune, of the thousands of employees in the company, I am seated at a cubicle sharing a wall with an incessant talker.  Not just any talker, but a talker that only talks about himself.  Usually, I just sit in my cubicle, happily working away.  However, on one particular day, my overly verbal coworker would not stop talking about his love of exercise, diminishing body fat percentage, and all around physical fitness for solid hours, to anyone who would listen.  I sat quietly trying to tune out his unhelpful diatribes for a few hours with the help of my iPod, before I told him angrily to “shut up!” over the wall of our cubicle.  He quickly replied, “turn on you headphones!”  I, just as angrily answered, “they’re on!”  He replied, “ well, turn them up!!”.  At that point I just said forget it, and took my 15-minute break in the hopes that it would all be over by the time I got back to my desk. 

Personal Values

How do your values compare to the dominant United States cultural patterns?

After completing the values checklist, it is apparent that my values align with dominant United States cultural patterns with a few exceptions.  According to the course text, it is widely accepted in the United States that “change is basically good” (Jandt, 2013, p. 211).  I disagree with this value as I dislike change once I have become accustomed to a certain process or product.  Additionally, the belief in a personal God value is a point where I differ from the dominant pattern.  The United states “is the most religious of the world’s industrialized states”, and while I feel that I am religious, I do not believe God is as accessible as a friend (Jandt, 2013, p. 222).  Lastly, I disagree with value number three on the checklist as well as the correlating U.S. cultural pattern.  Though I believe humans are more powerful than earths plants and animals, I do not necessarily “place a higher value on human life” than other life forms (Jandt, 2013, p. 222).  

Effective and Ineffective Use of Font in Web Design: Blog Review

When creating a layout design, it is important to use varying types and sizes of fonts in order to draw the target audience’s eye through the work from beginning to end.  Additionally, using a limited array of fonts in varying sizes makes the document easier for the audience to read as “Fonts with exaggerated x-heights are easier to read (x-height refers to the height of a lowercase x within a typeface) (Marsh, Guth, & Short, 2009, p. 103).  According to the course text, “Georgia or Lucida Grande” is suggested “for body type and Veranda for headlines” (Marsh, Guth, & Short, 2009, p. 103). 

Technical Communication/Technical Writing

What is the difference between technical communication and technical writing?

According to the course text, technical communication “conveys information that serves the needs of various people in various settings”, this type of communication may be used to “complete a task, answer a question, solve a problem, or make a decision” (Lannon, 2008, pg. 2).  Technical writing accompanies technical communication as more of a subset of the latter; it is a process of translation as “You start with a complicated piece of technology, and your mission is to explain to a non-expert how to use that technology” (Garret, 2002, p. 5).  In laymen’s terms, technical writers “deliver “understandable language” for instructions, manuals, and catalogs” while technical communicators focus on all facets of the user experience, from updating manuals, to developing videos and podcasts, as well as traditional print materials (“What’s the difference”).

Anticipating and Managing Work Group Conflicts as a New Leader

In a professional setting, group conflicts are bound to occur as one must realize “workplace relationships are more or less mandatory relationships (if one wants a job and intends to keep it), and the conflicts of interest to us here involve a “mismatch in expectations of the proper course of action for an employee or group of employees” (Abigail & Cahn, 2011, p. 230).

The Effectiveness of Humor in Persuasion

        

Tell a joke.  Go ahead; use your comedic powers of persuasion to try to make someone laugh.  In essence, when humor is employed in some fashion, whether it is a simple joke, sarcasm, irony, or prank, the target is being persuaded to respond with an emotional reaction.  For example, comedians are the great persuaders of all time.  They work hard to perfect their craft in order to elicit a calculated emotional response from their audience.  Additionally, “humor is widely used as an aid to persuasive messages such as advertisements and lesson plans” (Lyttle, 2001).  If one looks closely at the relationship between humor and persuasion, it would be plainly revealed that the two are closely intertwined.  By examining the effectiveness of humor in persuasion, the risks with attempting to use humor in persuasion, as well as how the technique of humor can support or limit the effectiveness of persuasion, more may be revealed about the symbiotic relationship that is evident between persuasion and humor.