Brennan H's Ideas on How to Write a Great Thank You Letter

Writing a thank you letter is a very professional way of responding to situation that you have encountered in the past. This could be from a prior interview, a meeting you just had, or even as simple as sending your grandma a thank you letter for your birthday gift. I have never been one to write many thank you letters in my days, but I know it is a professional think to do, especially since I want to work in upper management.

A thank you letter is basically what it says it is. It is a letter you write someone to thank them for something they did. When I want to write a thank you letter I usually know what I am going to say to them right away. I am not one to sit and brainstorm for five minutes I like to free write my ideas and revise them. I would recommended if you do not like to free write, that you should free write because it makes your letter sound less boring and more creative.

Remember, when writing a thank you letter always be clear on what you want to thank them about. If you are thanking a manager for having you come in for an interview, than thank them for giving you the time to get to meet you. Also make sure that you check for grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes. I am not very good at checking my papers all the way through because my grammar is not very good. If you have the same problem as I do, than have a friend look over your work.

Here is a short You tube video clip on how to write a thank you letter. I hope this helps you in wriitng more professionally.

Adam V's Designing Technical Documents in Web-based Format

Designing technical documents in web-based format is something that I was not to familiar with before I started this blog post. This was a tricky topic, so I will do my best.

What is Technical Documentation?
Technical documentation means documentation with regard to a product. In terms that you may understand, it means documents and information that are passed on to the public by the person or company that wrote it. Examples of this include software manuals, installation manuals, servicing instructions, user instructions, and operating instructions. They are the papers that come with a product, for example, they are the papers on how to operate something like a lawn mower. This means that we probably use technical documents before but without noticing it.

No Technical Documentation?
If you ever lose the technical documentations that came with the product there is something you can do without going back to the store where you got your product. Most companies put their technical documents in a web-based format on their website for all their products. This is convenient because, you can just go to the website, search your product, and the desired technical documentations appear on your screen. I had to do this the other week, when my television all of a sudden started to turn off. I went online to the company and within minutes, I was viewing the technical documents on how to fix the problem I had.

Tips for Designing Technical Documents
When designing technical documents, you want to make the information simple. You do not want to put fancy words, because this will confuse your reader. Also, make it very easy to navigate through your technical documents, this is great for customer satisfaction. Using programs such as Adobe, are very helpful when creating the technical documents.

Video Example

Here is a six minute video on youtube that is very helpful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-PUmFdeJlI

Reference: http://www.transcom.de/transcom/en/technische-dokumentation.htm

Jason Fullen Writing reference letters

Writing reference letters

Writing a reference letter is very important because this where your teacher or past employers talk good about your writing and about your skills and knowledge.

Greeting

When writing a reference letter you should always use a proper salutation to the person your writing too. This is to make sure that your good word for this person means something.

Paragraphs to come

In the body paragraphs you would want to explain the connection between you and the person your writing the reference letter for. Also, you would want to explain why you are qualified to write this letter and talk about your line of work. Next, you would want to talk good about the person. Talk about his traits and his skills and talk about his knowledge. Talk about why this person is qualified for the job. And then finish with a proper conclusion.

Personal connection with reference letters

For this class and many more classes we always got practice in writing reference letters about our traits and skills but i never wrote it for someone else because i don't have a good enough position to help any out yet. The way i learned to write reference letters is talk good about the person and yourself so the people looking at the letter can pick you out of the crowd for the job.

Example Reference letter

http://jobsearch.about.com/od/referenceletters/a/sampleref2.htm

Chelsie Maddox - How To Write "Personal"

A great example of a “Personal” Business Writing I can give you is this blog. “Personal Writing” is simply a form of informal writing. Personal writing in business isn’t as informal as the everyday texting and instant messaging you and I do; however, in personal writing, shorter, simpler sentences are used unlike those in formal writings. To give you another idea what your “Personal” writing should be like, think back to those research paper you had to write in high school and college. Boy how I hated those things! I remember my teachers and professors constantly reminding the class, contractions were not acceptable. I have good news for you though, in this type of writing they are! You as many don’t(s), won’t(s), I’m(s), and can’t(s) as you want. Writing personal letters or emails is kind of like having a real conversation with someone, except it is in written words. Personal writing portrays your personality so don’t forget to be nice and polite. Also, remember not to talk too much about yourself and make sure that whatever it is you are writing about interests your reader. If you can remember these few tips I have given you, you will do just fine writing your next “Personal” letter.

Carolina M' How Useful is your Instant Messaging?

There are many different companies that offer instant messaging, such as MSN, AOL, Yahoo, and many more. Many people use the instant messenger for personal use; I include myself in that category because I use it to communicate with family members and friends that are far from where I am.

Then there are other circumstances for the use of the instant messenger, such as the business side. Companies now use this type of communication to talk to colleges in other countries, by doing this type of communication, the coompanies are saving money and helping the environment. The video that I found on YouTube talks about how a company uses this new technology to communicate with potential buyers or people that work in their company. Futhermore, Jim Vaselopulos talks about how e-mails are important and now instant messaging is following the pattern. In my opinion, the instant messaging is so much better that the e-mails, just for the simple reason that instant messaging is like the name says it, is instant while the e-mails are you just sending a message and then waiting for the other person to answer it.

Quote

YouTube - Enterprise Instant Messaging: Fuels efficiency and growth

I will love to work in a company that uses these kinds of media to communicate with other people and have a conference meeting through an instant messaging, I think that technology is now playing a big role in the business world and that is going to continue improving for better. It would be great if all the companies implement this communication. therefore, they can save more money and help the environment.

Luke C's Determining what the Reader Needs to Know

My full topic for this week is "Writing completely: Tips on how to Determine What the Reader Needs/Wants to Know." Although the subject is geared toward writing, the same content applies for giving presentations and speeches. Giving effective presentations is integral to being successful in almost any field.

There are two related things you first need consider before beginning to compose a piece of communication, no matter what the form it takes. The first thing to consider is what do you want the overarching and lasting message of the communication to be. Keeping this in mind throughout the writing process is very important, especially when you are making final revisions. Keeping to the point and leaving out distracting details will determine if the audience retains the message you are trying to get across.

The second part of what needs to be considered before you begin writing is identifying who your audience is and how they will react to the content. This will determine the tone and type of language that should be used in the communication. For instance you need to use a different type of tone when delivering negative feedback to a single employee than when you are delivering a motivational presentation to an entire team.

Sticking to a central theme and always keeping the audience in mind will ensure written communication is actually read retained as well as help keeping an audience engaged during a speech or presentation!

I am including a video of a speech given by Jim Valvano after he accepted the Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award at the 1993 ESPY awards. Jim died of cancer only eight weeks after delivering this speech. His purpose in the speech is to encourage people to enjoy and treasure every minute of their lives. I know it is long but you will not regret watching it!

Using Graphics and Software in Writing

Let’s phase it. Having a document that is full of words and contains no visuals is pretty boring to read. If I was reading it, it would put me to sleep. Face it, visual aides are vital to any document that has a purpose. If you want to get your boss to approve an idea that you think will boost production, than add a graph into the document you want them to read. There is a variety of visual graphic to use in your document. When trying to decide which one to use, remember these two points:

• How will this graphic improve my document
• Is the graphic I chose given being to what I am trying to say

Once you have decided that your paper will look better with a graphic than you must decide what kind of graphic to use. When writing there are a variety of graphics to choose from.

1) Icons

2) Graphs

3) Bar Graphs

4) Line Graphs

5) Pictographs

6) Charts

7) Pie Charts

8) Tables

9) Flow Charts

10) Line Drawings

If these choices are not right for the type of document you are writing, you can always add an image. There are four types of images you can add to your document.

1) Photographs

2) Screenshots

3) Video

4) Animation

All of these graphics can be added on to your document by using software based
programs at your disposal. The most popular program used today is Microsoft Word. Word is excellent in producing written documents and adding graphics onto them. If you wish to make a graph or table, Microsoft Excel would be the best program to use. This program uses spreadsheets to input data and produce any sort of graph you wish to use. Using Microsoft Picture It, and Windows Movie Maker will help you to add Photos to your document and embed videos on to your computer written document.