Readings for Unit Two

Readings

ePortfolio

In this unit, you will create an ePortfolio “Welcome Page” that includes a 100-word self-introduction, a job ad for a potential future career, a resume (for future-you), and a cover letter for that job.

The ePortfolio will be revisited at the end of the semester to showcase your revised essays throughout the semester. This will hopefully give you an online resource to strengthen your digital dossier. Begin that process by viewing the “Your Digital Dossier” video below and think about how you may want to consciously construct your online identity. Your ePortfolio allows an opportunity to construct an identity of a professional, well-researched student — and to put the rhetorical approaches for persuasion — logos, ethos, and pathos — to work for your own benefit.

 

 

In this unit, you’ll be building a website on a free platform. There are many great tutorials out there which compare the various platforms out there. I’ve been a professional webmaster for decades, so I’ll try to keep things simple and practical, although I hope to see an impressive portfolio site that you can continue to use in the future.

Cover Letter Tips

In a cover letter, watch out for minor errors, including formatting this formal business letter in any other way than as a formal business letter.

Also, while you’re trying to represent yourself, remember that they will be more interested in reading about themselves than you. Focus on the benefits you’ll bring to them, rather than focusing on how the job would help you.

So, instead of writing, “I did this and I did that and I want this job because money,” try to frame things in terms of how your education, experience, and job skills will help them. For example, “My [current experience] will help [organization] reach its goals in the future, including [a major project or part of their mission statement].”

I learned that tip from a friend, who was a grant writer at another university, who explained this was his secret to writing successful grant proposals — from which the school was granted over $100 million.

Now, it’s your secret, too. I hope you make $100 million with it! Good luck!

An ePortfolio Webdesign Tip

You can find free images to enhance your website, like these “portfolio” images at Unsplash or Freepik.

Getting Started on Your Semester-Long Debatable Topic

This class will cover the research process from general opinions to scholarly specifics. Curiosity in your academic interests and future career should guide much of the research you do. For this course, we will try to have you start with the most general ideas and methods, and move to the most specific, scholarly research.

You will be using the same topic for most of your assignments for the rest of the semester, so make sure you pick something interesting and related to your academic major or career. Topics are flexible because most of them have subtopics, or related subjects that you can change to, later, after you start your research. Topics will almost always become more specialized, focused, open-minded, and interesting once you have begun to research.

All the writing in this course should not only be merely informative, but persuasive, as well. Virtually any topic can be written about persuasively.

For example, if your future career plans included healthcare, you might write about issues surrounding Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). Such topics don’t work well with questions like, “Are you for or against FAS?” Obviously, no one wants babies to be damaged by alcohol, causing life-long problems.

Instead, convince us what the best solution is! Is it better to fund education programs to prevent the problem? Can we offer treatment programs for alcoholic mothers? Or what? To be clear: Complex problems seldom arise from simple reasons. Nor are they solved with simple solutions. So, for example, throwing all alcohol-drinking women in prison is not the ideal solution. So, your proposed solutions may be as complex as the problem. That’s the kind of complexities your topic should address, explain, and possibly, solve.

As you can see, for many topics, you will persuade your readers that there is some significant problem, and you will convince them to support some sort of action to solve that problem. You don’t have to solve all the world’s problems in your paper, but you should try to offer some possibilities. Through your research and reading on the topic, you will become familiar with what the experts are proposing, and you can decide which experts you agree with and feel you can support.

For example, for future mental health professionals, regarding issues such as teen suicide, eating disorders, or clinical depression, the solution might be for students or readers to be better informed about the problem, so they can recognize when friends or family members need help. For other topics, such as the need for recycling or using child safety restraints, the solution might be for readers to actually change their habits or support some new law.

Regardless, rather than choosing a cliche generic issue, please choose a topic that reflects on some aspect of your future career, avocation, and endeavors.

Selecting a topic should be based on curiosity about your career and academic pursuits. In other words, you should have an interest in your topic, even if you do not know that much about it. If you know a lot about it already, as the course continues, you will be looking for more specialized sources that extend your knowledge. If you know nothing about it, perhaps you’ll end up being an expert when the course is done.

Complete these readings as you work through Unit Two:

Job Ads:

Resume:

Cover Letter:

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