This presentation was done for my final group project.  We worked with a client concerning an issue that needed some recommendations on how our client could solve that particular problem.  I do not use PowerPoint all that much so it was fun putting parts of this presentation together.

I have heard that pictures are not always good because they distract form the over all message, but I feel that our presentation had just the right amount.  I think that pictures can be useful to help convey the information you are discussing.  I think that a presentation slide with a picture on it is more memorable that a slide filled with words. 

We received a bad evaluation from another student because she thought that the pictures used were not necessary.  She said that it distracted her and she couldn’t get the picture out of her head.  Well, that was the point.  We were trying to make an issue known to our audience and if that picture stays in her head then good.  She didn’t just hear our presentation and just forget what we were talking about.

Anyway, it is not very long, we took about fifteen minutes to finish it and I had a lot of fun.

For our final project, we were put into groups of four.  After meeting in our groups, we were required to decide on a non-profit organization to work with and write a recommendation report.  Our first task as a group was to come up with a Working plan and put it in writing.  This document is that plan.

As a group we decided who we were going to work with as well as a general idea of what we hoped to be able to accomplish in our report. 

This was a good leaning experience for the group because this was our first assignment as a group.  We had to be able to work as a group and communicate in order to produce a good initial plan.  We had to be on the same page and understand what was going to be required of us as a group.

I feel that this assignment in a way could have been considered a progress report.  We as a group decided what we were going to be researching as and decided on a schedule that we needed to abide by. 

Our goal would change after speaking with the client but our general schedule and communication remained the same.  This group work plan assignment really got the ball rolling in our group and got us on track.

This was our second group progress report for our final report.  We were able to put more useful information into this report because we had more work completed.  We had a better understanding of where we wanted our report to go and had a better idea of the amount of work we still had ahead of us. 

I feel that during the time in which this report was written, we had become comfortable as a group and were more understanding of the people in the group.  Everyone was communicating and meetings were being held about twice a week. 

This paper was formatted in a way that made the report easy to read.  I do wish we would have used some headings though to separate the different paragraphs.  That way, the reader could skip information they may not interested in and move straight to the information they are interested in.  There were some errors that I found concerning spelling and some grammar.   

Overall I was happy with our ability to work as a group and communicate.  Again, a lot of this report was completed over the internet and I feel everybody did a great job of sharing their information with the rest of the group.    

This was the first progress report that was due for our final group project.  Although short, I feel that the report did a good job of explaining tasks that we had completed as a group as well as listing our future plan intentions. 

The progress report in my mind helped to keep the group on track.  Not only did the report inform our professor of how our project was developing but it also helped to give us an idea of how we stood in the amount of work that still needed to be done.

I learned the value of having progress reports when working on group projects.  I feel that the progress reports help to keep all persons involved up to date on what has been done and what still needs to be done.  When members of the group have other responsibilities to take care of in their lives, it is easy to become distracted. 

By having a group progress report, we were able to assign different tasks to each member and are also able to set up deadlines for ourselves.  Overall, I feel that progress reports help to keep group members motivated and focused.

Another benefit from the progress reports was the fact that the group became comfortable keeping in touch with other group members via email.  I have been in groups when I have been unable to get in touch with other members.  With these progress reports we were not able to all meet at the same time so it was crucial for us to be able to communicate over the internet.

Here are some links to our final recommendation report as well as our PowerPoint presentation.  As a group, we were happy with our report.  We felt that we researched some good ideas to help our client with their problem. 

Although we did not go into too much detail concerning how to accomplish each task, we felt that we offered our client a good starting point concerning some ideas that maybe that had not thought of. 

I understand that there are going to be some errors that we did not catch in this report but this was my first recommendation report.  I feel that this was a good learning experience and I know now what changes I can make in the future if I am ever required to write a recommendation for another client. 

This report had many different parts to it.  We had to develop a work plan and write progress reports concerning the status of our report at different intervals.  I see now why all these aspects of report writing are needed.   

As for the assignment as a grade, I feel that there was a miscommunication concerning what was required of us as a group.  We were under the impression that we were supposed to develop ideas for our client to use and were not required to get too detailed in our report. 

I blame myself seeing that we probably should have talked with Dr. Fricke more about our report.  I should have made sure that we were are the right track rather than assuming that we were doing all that was required of us. 

This was a good experience though, I had working with the group, especially on the day of our presentation and I leaned a lot about myself. 

  I was excited about this assignment because I was going to have full creative control over the assignment.  There was no true template for writing this assignment.  I was able to choose my rates, letterhead, font, images to use and overall format of the proposal.

This assignment proved to be a bit more involved than I anticipated.  I had fun creating the idea of my lawn care business but I failed to present my information that was clear and concise.  This proposal was a valuable learning experience for me.

I feel that I did a good job of listing my rates and did an alright job listing information that may have been useful to potential clients, but I failed to organize my information in a way that was beneficial to my audience. 

Looking back on the assignment, I feel that I did rush my proposal a little bit.  I should have given my self an extra day to two to iron out all the kinks in my proposal.  I learned that I need to pay more attention to detail and organization.  If I produce a proposal that is not organized effectively and is just pages of what I will and will not do, the client may just disregard my proposal entirely and I am left with no clients.

FYI:  This post has two links, one to my table of contents and the other to the main body of the proposal.

  This assignment was our first group project.  Our objective for this assignment was to notify our customers that we were going to be increasing our shipping rates.  This assignment was also intended to submerse ourselves into a group asmoshere in a business setting.  We were not just working on a class project.  We had deadlines to keep up with and we had to manage to keep our customers happy even though we were increasing their shipping rates.

This assignment not only tested our ability to work in a group atmosphere and manage to produce a final product that all group members were happy with, but this assignment tested our ability to anayze our audience in a way that was beneficial to the company.

Increasing the shipping rates to customers often times causes your customers to become angry.  They do not want to spend more money.  Our ability to write a letter that left our customers still feeling good about using us over a competator was put to the test.

  This was our second major assignment for my writing class.  This assignment was a bit more detailed but I did have alot of fun writing it.  We were allowed to create different scenarios which were really fun.  This assignment educated me about what exactly is required when writing an incident memo.  

In this assignment, we were told to write a memo to the owner of a trucking company concerning four accidents that all happen within a week of each other.  We were allowed to determine the type of accident that occurred, the cost of each wreck and how each event was handled. 

I enjoyed having creative control of this assignment and it allowed me to learn valuable information about how I can write incident reports in the future if my job requires me to write the reports.

As in all of our assignments, we learned how to evaluate our target audience.  We were required to format our memo according to the audience and occasion.  In this case, we were writing the owner of the company and the report was an incident memo which may not be formal, but still needs to be clear, concise, and to the point so that the owner knows that the incidents are being taken care of. 

  This was the first major assignment I completed for my professional report writing class during the spring semester of 2008.  I actually had fun doing this assignment and received some help from my cousin.  He is a CFO at a hospital her in Lubbock and he came over and proof read some drafts I had created.

I feel that this assignment could have been a bit more concise but overall I feel that my report was effective. 

This assignment allowed me to explore a different side of my writing by allowing me to focus on a more formal business aspect to my writing which I had not done before.  I felt that this assignment did a great job of getting me into the mind set that I needed to be in for this class. 

Upon receiving my grade and criticism, I found my self a little disappointed in that I should have read the directions a bit more closely.  With this assignment being an informal email, I could have been a little more straight forward and not as wordy in my report.  I found out that the key to a good report is not the vast amount of vocabulary you can use, but the ability to convey your message with clarity to your target audience.

As the semester progressed, I found that this site is useful not only for school, but also in the business world.  This website is worldwide and my audience is whoever visits my site which could be a variety of people.  From close friends and family to teachers and business associates, this blog allows me to post documents I have been working on and collect valuable feedback from readers.  My goal for this blog site is of course to receive a good grade from professor Fricke, but also to post different documents of mine for the world to see via the internet.  By posting drafts of some of my assignments, I hope that I can earn valuable criticism from viewers that can help me to improve my writing skills. 

I do not have a my space or face book page so I am new to the blogging world.  This site has shown me that it can be fun designing your own blog site.  I thought that this site was going to be boring and waste of time but I have learned that this site and other blog sites are useful and fun.  I aim to continue updating this site so that in the future I can show others the work I am capable of and I feel that the more comments I receive about my work the more I can grow and improve as a writer.   

 Anyway, browse my site and leave comments please.