Resumes and Other Written Materials for a Job Search (275-306)

“Resumes and Other Written Materials for a Job Search”

“Written Resumes and Letters in the Language of Employers” (Munschaucer)
-What can the candidate do for us?

Why Use a Resume
-purpose is to convey message
-conflicting ideas on structure and purpose (page length, what should come first, etc.)
-Concentrate on MESSAGE!
-Example of Cheryl the alto singer and former secretary

Giving Your Message
-Don’t think about what you want; think about what employer needs
-Example-Related problems babysitting to problems in publishing

Importance of Knowing What the Job is All About
-letter vs. resume

Letters of Application
Good ones
-looked like business letters (paragraphs were neat on crisp stationary)
-were succinct
-no misspellings or grammatical errors
-less is more when it comes to word count (ex. 283-84)
Structure
-stated who he was and want he wanted in 1st paragraph
-2nd, 3rd, 4th indicated about talents and qualifications
-final paragraph suggested a course of action

Hard Work and Attention to Detail Make for a Good Letter
-write and rewrite, put forth effort that most people won’t

Don’t Delegate the Job of Letter Writing
-it should be your own resume
-even if you don’t use it putting your thoughts on paper will help you organize your ideas and interrelate them

Resume Preparation
Nancy Jones-A Good Resume Made Better
-line about weight, height –questionable
-double spaced GPA to make it stand out
-sorority information and probation officer with tutoring math and chem.?
-everything about biology and other information of use to employer should be under own separate heading

Janet Smith –Proper use of headlines
-don’t put fluff/baloney in career objective
-capitalized Universal Methodist Church as heading instead of job held there

Mark Meyers-The Functional Resume
-preparing a resume for a specific job
-example editorial secretary
-different functions highlighted depending on what job entails

Bruce Gregory Robertson- A Resume Reflecting an Active Mind and Body
-depends on if position calls for active body and mind
-employers look for energy

Michelle Trio: The Curriculum Vitae
-resume for academic position and doesn’t need a statement of goals or interest
-look for prestige

The Job Objective
-objective in some form should be on resume
-Can’t have purpose with out resume, and can’t have a resume without a purpose

One Page or Two
-If it can be kept to one great!
-more tiring to scan a crowded page then to flip a page
-it is an outline so it needs white space
-it needs headings that stand out
-don’t sacrifice to make it one page

Additional Advice About Resumes
-test it before you send it to employers (give it to friends)
-hold a few feet away and ask for opinion on form/appearance
-questions for critics of resumes to ask: what qualifications does a person have, what can they do with qualification, what kind of employer would hire this person, does the resume project an image of a certain type of person if so what kind (energetic, thoughtful, aggressive)

Multimedia Component

For the multimedia component of our a project, we were thinking of doing a video. Since we will be unknown to our readers, we will have to employ some willing friends to be our actors. We were planning on visiting our five top restaurants (or all 4 star restaurants if there were more than five). At each restaurant we could scan the inside, show the meals, and most importantly of all interview the manager. This video would most likely be posted on our opening page to intrigue our readers to continue to explore the rest of the site. The video should be creative and exciting based on the subject matter of our project. We may also interview some random restaurant goers at our top choices and get their opinion on the restaurant to further add to our credibility. The video will be short approximately 5-10 min, but it will be entertaining and add a little something extra to our project!

Notes: Nazi Records pages 81-121

Notes “Nazi Records” (pgs. 81-121)
-deals with ethical issues about how technical information is obtained and how it will be used
-Nazi examples are used because they are stark examples and make seem important and less obscure because of the dire circumstances
-Scientific term used by Nazi researchers really meant racial abuse and mass killing
-It was not science for the sake of science but science for sake of racial supremacy

Organization, Dissemination, and Use of Information
-First view Nazi regime as historical fact
-Next review recent controversies about scientific and pseudoscientific information from the Nazi regime
-Then review the traditional view about the values behind Nazi medical sciences as an ethic of sorts driving its research
-Nazi key values are objectification of people, impersonalness, and emotional disengagement. Are these values of contemporary technology?

Nazi Past
-Nuremberg trial for the Nazi war crimes; these trials termed the mass killings of the Jews genocide
-To Nazis Aryan race was supreme
-Concentration camps were used to isolates the undesirables from the general populace.
-Trials revealed the horrendous institutionalized abuse of people in the name of scientific and medical research
-Today before humans can be used as research subjects, the research and testing has to be reviewed by human subjects panel.
-Panels include non-scientists who are in no ways connected with research or its uses.

Controversy in the Present
Medical Specimens
-Issue with use of human anatomical samples (tissues, organs, etc.) for research
-In Nazi regime, people put to death just because they were Jews and also sometimes just to acquire a particular sort of tissue sample.
-Protests come not with informative value of the samples but instead with the circumstances under which they were attained.
-No consent, no possibility of choosing otherwise, no legitimate reason for the execution, no possibility of protest
-Therefore these samples should not be used in German universities due to the way they were obtained.

Research Information
-Similar situation in the United States
-Wanted to use information from Nazi hypothermia experiments in which prisoners were exposed to cold to point of death in some cases
-Wanted to use this info to improve survival equipment, etc. but some opposed due to how information was obtained.
-Two arguments: Information should not be used for any purpose, and the other side is that the information should be used precisely in order to give some purpose to the victims’ suffering as well as to relieve the suffering of those who might benefit form the information .
-Some critics claimed that Germans used medicine fro killing rather than healing.
-This view abandons the Hippocratic oath with its pledge against doing harm and abandonment of the tradition of supporting health of the patient above all else.
-Scientists tried to give scientific legitimacy to the notion that the Aryan race was superior. They presided over executions.
-EPA of USA was considering using Nazi information about subjecting prisoners to phosgene, a poisonous gas.
-This gas can be used in industrial processes and the EPA was developing new standards for pollution regulation of this gas. The EPA did not end up using the information. It was not even scientifically qualified for use.

Values in Nazi Medical “Science”
Traditional View
-Physicians were the most represented profession of the Nazis.
-Healer becomes the killer-paradoxical inversion.
-Be aware of accepting technical facts as absolute truths, you have to be aware of how they can be transformed by social circumstances.
-Killing of mass amount of Jews was justified as necessary for the sake of racial health and purity.
-Also since there was a war there was a need to conserve food, water, etc for soldiers so killing was economically sanctioned as well.
-Doctors controlled killings. At first killed mental/physical disabled children.
-At camps separated by doctors on who should be gassed immediately and who should be retained for slave labor. People selected were termed “already dead.”
-Used masked language. Euthanasia historically means mercy killing of someone with a sound mind who is terminally ill in misery. Nazi interpreted as putting to death someone in a humane way and on the basis of his or her unworthiness to live.
-Children gassed were happy deaths b/c not violent.
-Also the term “special treatment” normally means treatment for special, severe, dangerous, medical problems. However, Nazis used special treatment to refer to medical killing, special in the sense of lying outside of the mainstream as medicine as it is traditionally understood.

Nazi Antiscience
-Nazis’ science was racism with an underlying inhumanness and unethicalness.
-They did reflect the impersonalness that is supposed to underlie all science but to the extreme.
-They also show sciences to be unethical and an enemy of human values.
-It had objectification of humans.
-Dehumanizing seems to go along with modern science and technology in the sense that it is typically practiced on the disadvantaged and less powerful- sick, weak, poor, and powerless.
- Nazi pseudoresearch in terms of science or technology requires some serious assumptions about the nature of science and technology. It assumes science and technology are indifferent
-Indifference equals unethical principles.
-Nazis were actually opposed to traditional science. They believed in the assertion of aesthetic and political values over mechanistic reductivism of traditional science.


Research in the United States
-If information is obtained illegally then it does not exist and cannot be used as evidence.
-The Tuskegee syphilis incidents (1920-40s), where African American patients were told that they were being treated when they weren’t. The doctors did this to conduct a scientifically detailed, long term study of the unimpeded progress of the disease.
-Many died.
-Not a coincidence that they were African Americans.
-Kant would be against Aryan race because he believed that any reasoning specimen would outweigh any argument based on racial identity. To him Jews, etc. should have been treated as ethical peers by virtue of their mind.

Nazi Technical Memorandum
-article on page 99
-technical expediency can mask goals for which technology is being used.
-People referred to as capacity, etc. The load is active and fear used can realized that it is people.
-Technically excellent document. Disguised the intense personal nature.
-Another document page 104.
-Document is explicit and scientific.
-Uses a scientific institute for collection place of skulls (like point of honor).
-“Induced death”
-Flat tone that is factual.
-Another document page 106.
-No compassion for castration and sterilization of people.
-Science valued over rights.
-Only talks about research not about ethics.

Graphical Images
-Darwin survival of the fittest.
-Science made to serve politics
-Illustrations to determine blood purity
-Subject like a lab animal in chart on page 110.
-Escapes values because just following along a formatted chart
-Page 111 image shows the measuring of the ear; images of the face rather than blood/marriage used here to display racism
-makes racism appear scientific and technical
-Distancing between technician and subject

Ethical Appraisal
Aristotle
-Would condemn the Nazis based on virtue and attitudes. Goodness/doing right thing
-he would use technical information already on hand. It could benefit others.

Kant
-Equivalence of all people, who are all rational beings.
-Treat as want to be treated
-Unclear on information already on hand

Utilitarianism
-Greatest good for greatest number
-Good done to Aryan group which is seen as more important, but no utilitarianists would see a radical difference in human worth.
-Would use the information already on hand because would be more useful than just sitting there.

Feminist and Ethics of Care
-Feminists find Nazis completely unethical
-Ethics of Care want caring relationships not value for this relationship so not in support of treating humans like objects (Nazis).
-Would use information already on hand.

Rough Draft

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"The Ethics Tradition" (38-81)

“The Ethics Tradition” (pages 38-81)
-Chapter focuses on ethical theories of Aristotle, Kant, utilitarianism, and an ethic of care.

Aristotle
-Ancient but time honored.
-Aristotle helped to shape Christianity, he influenced St. Thomas Aquinas.
-Metaphysics serve an indirect role in Aristotle’s ethics (unlike Plato where it was at the forefront).
-Metaphysics is abstract thinking, so Aristotle is more concrete in his teachings.
-He said that Ethics is the study of what is involved in good actions.
-Ethics is not a subject with hard and fast answers like Math.
-Don’t try to make ethics more definite than it is; a code of ethics has to be very general.
-Ethics is very indefinite while technological matters are very definite, but they can be coupled together.
-Ethics is about what is sought for its own sake (goodness itself) not for the sake of money or success.
-Right thing does not mean something that was easy or typical but rather it means going beyond that and doing more than was expected, easy or understandable. It also carries over to doing it just because it was the right thing to do that is for its own sake.
-He said we are unique because we have a lower animal nation and a divine nature. Our divine nature is our rational powers, and we must cultivate these carefully.
-From him, ethics is to seek after the good; therefore, only a person and not an action can be virtuous.
-Virtue is habit that must be adopted; it is a habit to choose and to will ethically. Repeated actions shape out habits, so if we continue carefully deliberate our ethically choices it will become habitual.
-Each person is responsible for his or her character. This may sound abstract, but what he is saying is that if you solely follow the rules and regulations or say your corporation this would not necessarily constitute ethical behavior. For example, if you are doing it for the sake of retaining your job and financial situation this would not be ethical.
-He says ethics comes from reason. We don’t admire what comes easy. Ex. Rich person returns excess change to counter attendant vs. poor person doing the same action. So this is why Aristotle says it depends on the PERSON and not the action.
-Ethics is not mathematical (ex. Apples fall to ground –cannot go anywhere else so there is no otherwise but the possibility of the otherwise matters in ethics.)
-A friend does what is good for the sake of a friend, so like in this situation the basis of ethics is the abandonment of self interest.
-Ethics cannot be reduced to politics or law because it must guide us when politics or laws are silent or are in error.
-Whistle blowing laws means obligation is specifically in opposition to practical concerns such as pleasing one’s boss or retaining one’s employment. Ex. Roger Boisjoly lost his job because he refused to follow certain organizational procedures and decisions. He wrote “smoking gun” memo. He was repositioned after he threatened to file suit against employer under whistle blowing laws. But his boss make work environment so unpleasant that he quit.
-Aristotle separates ethics from science and technology. Many contemporary thinkers disagree. They say that you can use science to help define ethics. For example, it is safe to live with HIV patients as long as certain behaviors are avoided.

Kant
-Immanuel Kant is a European philosopher, whose ethical theory is based on a sense of duty.
-He uses deontology which is an ethical system emphasizing obligation or duty; he emphasizes a categorical imperative rule of ethics.
-It is based on moral reason, which involves reasoning with unseen principles. It does not involve our intuitive feelings according to him.
-His ethics are based on one’s freely chosen decisions to act in good will out of a sense of duty.
-We are distinguished from other creatures due to our reasoning capabilities so these are meant to serve as a basis for judging ethics.
The Categorical Imperative is to act in such a way that if you could you would make the principle guiding your action a universal binding law that everyone had to follow. It would apply to everyone, everywhere, and always without exception.
-So since the law comes from our reasoning power it provides common ground.
-Even though his law is based on duty, it is based on an independently arrived at definition of duty. Therefore, in a sense it is duty based in freedom and not based on force or limitation of freedom.
-It is based on the centrality of reason to all human beings.
-It combines personal with universal because he says that a person should arrive at a decision that is a guide for everyone in the same situation. The decision must be identically understood by all rational beings. Therefore, the decision can never be egocentric or self serving.
-Useful to us because emphasizes a sense of duty or doing what is right regardless of competing interests or outcomes; it states that ethics is both a individual and social matter; and it is comparable to the Golden Rule.
-But we need to keep in mind that real ethical decisions are never strong and clear as the categorical imperative states.
-However thinking in terms of what any other reasonable person would do in your situation to make the right ethical decision can be helpful.
-The principle guiding one’s actions is what determines goodness. For example, if a merchant doesn’t take advantage of a customer when the business is thriving because it would negatively impact the merchant’s business in the long run. So decision not to cheat customer cannot be judged at face value because the merchant could not cheat his customer solely because he doesn’t want future negative impact on his business. So his self interest could still rule a so called honest ethical decision.

Utilitarianism
-Based on usefulness. It is based on accomplishing the greatest useful goodness for the greatest number of people.
-Connected to science and technology because it is sensitive to the masses and it allows for quantitative calculation of what to do ethically.
-Ex. FAA didn’t install fire detection and suppression technologies into commercial aircraft due to cost-benefit analysis. But ethically summed up a human life in dollar amount. Another example is the FDA and drugs.
-This approach is especially useful in medicine.
-Ex. 3 livers but 10 people in need. So have to rank the 10 patients and only given age, sex, current health, complicating medical conditions, martial status, and number of kids. Then after you rank based on these criteria, you get the social, economic, religious, and political characteristics. How you change your rankings based on these new factors reveal your values. This method forces you to confront how you really make decisions and what you hold important.

Feminist and Care Perspectives
-Postmodernism challenges traditional authority such as religion; it views knowledge as complex and socially conditional. This criticism of traditional views applies to ethics as well.
-Feminism can be linked to postmodernism.

Feminist Perspectives on Science as a Value System
-Science and technology are both value systems in themselves.
-Values in scientific method are more favorable to men.
-Science rejects emotions, and women historically have been seen to value emotions more than men. Therefore, women are discouraged from science.
-Feminists argue that scientific investigations isolate and nullify relationships which are characteristically masculine.
-Critics discredit feminists that consider dispassionate logic as masculine because it implies that women are illogically thinkers. Or on the other side considering women as emotional also satisfies stereotypes.
-Don’t use sex related terminology in technical communication.
-Since women tend to avoid conflict and men value interpersonal conflict, in complex organizations where interpersonal conflicts reign men rule.
-Feminism questions the universality and gender indifference traditionally supposed of ethics. It questions if ethics favors men over women. It questions whether or not ethics can be considered one thing or many things constantly evolving.

Ethics of Care
-It characterizes the difference in moral thinking between women and men.
-Women value relationships marked with a caring concern as well as the other person more in moral judgment and ethics than men.
-Men base ethical decisions on justice and impersonalize ethics.
-Traditionally male way of thinking about ethics has been taken for granted and be applied to all humankind generically.
-This view silences women and implies their ethical judgments are incorrect.
-Dichotomy between caring and justice.

Other Views

Confucian Ethics
-Philosophy of eastern Asia.
-Grounded in immediate realities not in timeless absolutes.
-In the immediate world is where morality is played out.
-Human responsibility is in relationships not individual.
-Need for social harmony so individual egos are subordinate to obligations of social relations.
-Morality is one’s behavior towards others in immediate circumstances, so it is not abstract.
-Ethical study involves interpretation rather than reasoning so it is hermeneutic. Interpret particular historical cases (analects).
-Cultivate virtue through activities that compose the tao or way of virtue.
-Li is the principle of propriety that helps to compose tao. Li involves acknowledging one’s place in the world.
-Sense of rightness or appropriateness is yi and it helps achieve tao. It is a sense of justices due to social standing. Related to justice in terms of obligations of relationships.
-The virtue of humanness is ren. Need a fundamental awareness of others and attitude of love.
-It does not define everyone equally. But, it says you should accept your social position. Therefore social context determines ethics rather than Kant’s indifferent ethics.
-Relationships are key. They define duties.
-Tradition is valued while American value innovations in cooperation. They don’t value profits.

Levinas
-Finds ethics in encounters with other people which he terms “the other.”
-Have to understand other person in the relationship in order to determine how to behave.
-Ex. Vietnam Memorial

Gert
-Relates morality to rational thinking, universal audience, and to traditional moral principles while distinguishing it from emotion.
-Morality involves action not feelings, and social relations (not absolute relations) in terms of all including oneself. It is about avoiding evil rather than pursuing good.
-Rules and questions.
-System people can actually use in dealing with real moral problems.
-Combo

Reports and Other Longer Documents Continued (pg 207-275)

Reports and Other Longer Documents Continued (pg 207-275)

Creating Visuals (Oliu, Brusaw, and Alred)
-Plan visuals as you are drafting (incorporate them into your outline)
Criteria for Visuals
-Have a reason for a visual
-Eliminate unnecessary arrows, labels, boxes, etc.
-Define all acronyms, add a key if needed. Keep terminology between text and visual consistent.
-Give units where needed
-Keep lettering readable; have concise captions.
-Assign a figure number for documents with 5 or more illustrations; also include a list if five or more following the table of contents.
-Refer to figure number in text of document.
-Place visuals as close as possible to the text where they are discussed.
-Let the visuals stand out by putting white space around them.
Tables
-Table number, title
-Boxhead-column headings with units
-Stub-left vertical column and includes all items to be shown in body
-Body-data
-Rules/Lines-used to separate table into various parts; don’t use vertical rules to enclose sides of table?
-Source line-below table and states where you got the data
-Footnotes-used to explain items in the table
-Continuing tables- if continue to next page repeat headings with a continued label as well
-Ethics- have to get permission to use copyrighted illustrations
Graphs
-They present numerical data in visual form showing trends and distributions better than tables.
-Less accurate than a table so often accompanied by a table, which gives exact numbers.
Line Graph
-Shows the relationship between two or more sets of figures
-Vertical axis represents amounts usually, while horizontal usually represents increments of time
-Have a zero point where the axes intersect, and equally proportioned divisions for horizontal and vertical (increase by 5 each time, etc).
-Include enough points, gridlines, and a source line.
-Ethics- Don’t distort data!
Bar Graph
-Often used to show different types of information during different periods of time; quantities of the same kind of information over different periods of time; quantities of different information during a fixed period of time; and quantities of the different parts that make up a whole (examples 217-20).
Pie Graph
-Shows part of a whole; circle often equals 100 percent.
-Try to begin at 12 o’clock position and go from largest fraction to smallest.
-Make each wedge distinct (shaded, striped)
-Provide the percent value for each wedge.
Picture Graph
-Modified bar graphs that use pictures to represent the item for which data are presented.
-Easy for nonexpert audiences to understand
-Each symbol should represent a specific number of units, and show larger quantities by increasing the number of symbols and not the size of the symbol.
Dimensional-Column Graphs
-Complicated appearance so can be harder to interpret.
-Can obscure information depending on appearance.
Drawings
-Useful when reader needs an impression of object’ appearance or overview of a series of steps or directions.
Flowcharts
-Diagram that shows the stages of a process from beginning to end.
-Flow left to right or top to bottom in order in which steps occur.
Organizational Charts
-Show how components of an organization are related to one another.
Maps
-Can be used to show specific geographic features (roads, rivers) or to show information according to geographic distribution (houses, populations).
-Make sure to include a scale and indicate direction.
Photographs
-Used to show surface appearance or to record an event or the development of a phenomenon over time.
-Color can help communicate important information (medical books).

Strategies of Persuasion (Ewing)
Rules for Persuasion
1. Consider Whether Your Views Will Make Problems for Readers
-use empathy and tact

2. Don’t Offer New Ideas, Directives, or Recommendations for Change Until Your Readers are Prepared for Them
-Depends on extent of your audience’s resistance to change, the amount of change you are asking for, the uncertainty in the readers’ minds as to your understanding of the situation, and the “perceived threat” of your communication.
-Use common sense but remember you must be explicit in writing because it lacks expressiveness and visual

3. Your Credibility with Readers Affects Your Strategy
-Two types of credibility: given and acquired.
-Given may result from position in organization.
-Acquired credibility is earned by thoughts and facts in the written message. Can cite authorities to gain credibility.

4. If Your Audience Disagrees with Your Ideas or Is Uncertain about Them, Present Both Sides of the Argument
-Shows you are objective
-Treats readers as a mature, informed individual.

5. Win Respect by Making Your Opinion or Recommendation Clear
-Don’t maybe this or maybe that-because in that case nothing gets done.

6. Put Your Strongest Points Last if the Audience is Very Interested in the Argument, First if It Is Not so Interested
-Should be either first or last not in the middle.
-First is primacy and last is recency

7. Don’t Count on Changing Attitudes by Offering Information Alone
-Depends on conditions.

8. “Testimonials” Are Most Likely to Be Persuasive if Drawn from People with Whom Readers Associate
-People’s attitudes and opinions are strongly influenced by the groups to which he
or she belongs (churches, social clubs, ethnic associations, etc.)

9. Be Wary of Using Extreme or “Sensational” Claims and Facts
-Write in terms of the real world as you and your readers perceive it.
-Outlandish comments gain attention but provoke distrust and suspicion.

10. Tailor Your Presentation To the Reasons for Readers’ Attitudes, if You Know Them.
-Especially important if you are trying to change the readers’ attitudes.

11. Never Mention Other People without Considering Their Possible Effect on the Reader
-Mentioning another person can alter your relationship with readers.
-The person could be a friend or an enemy, and the readers will begin thinking
about how your communication will impact their relationship.
-Be careful who you copy reports to as well.

Be Knowledgeable about your readers and remember they are real people.

Proposals (Kolin)
Guidelines for Writing a Successful Proposal
1. Approach proposal as problem solving activity- Solve a problem that affects the reader. It will keep you on track.
2. Regard your audience as skeptical readers-Don’t be overconfident.
3. Research your proposal carefully- Concrete examples persuade readers, unsupported generalizations don’t.
4. Prove that your proposal is workable- No if statements; shouldn’t exceed capabilities.
5. Be sure that your proposal is financially realistic- especially in today’s economy.
6. Package your proposal attractively- Appearance can determine acceptance.

Internal Proposals
-Help company run more efficiently and economically.
-In house message so informal and brief.
-Remember audience
-Parts include: Intro, Background of Problem, Solution/Plan (workable/cost effective), Conclusion.

Sales Proposals
-External proposal, and it is used to sell products or services.
-Audience-business executives; how does it meet requirements (“you attitude”)
-Parts include: Intro (purpose and background of problem), Description of the Proposed Product or Service, Timeable (show can do it in right time), Costs, Qualifications of Your Company, Conclusion

Writing Proposals with Style (Richard Johnson-Sheehan)
-Style works at different levels from sentence to paragraph to document, etc.
-Write plain sentences-use appropriate sentence structure (subject, verb)
-Avoid excessive prepositional phrases
-Sentence should be spoken in one breath.
-Plain Paragraphs- transition sentence, topic sentence, support sentences, point sentence
-Given/New Method: sentences should contain something readers know and something new.
-Appropriate to use passive voice when readers don’t need to know who or what is doing something in the sentence and the subject of the sentence is what the sentence is about (ex. 273).