Lesson 3:1

 Writing with the Right Attitude: YOU attitude

Objectives:

• Study and review writing techniques
• Learn how to write with “You Attitude”
• To initiate your search for a job, or an international volunteer position, or a graduate school. Keep good files because you will be writing a progress report on your search at the end of lesson 3:3

Readings:

• Technical Communications:
  • Chapter 11: Professional Editing
• The-YOU-ATTITUDE-and-Reader-Centered-Writing
• UBC Career Services website
• Instructor’s Blog

3: 1 Assignments:

PLEASE SEE Due dates on our Course Schedule

•  Writing with You Attitude posted on your Team Forum before midnight  [late assignments will loose 0.5 points per day]

Instructions for Assignments:

 Memorandum Demonstrating You- Attitude

The Context:

Students working to register in courses at UBC sometimes find themselves faced with the challenge of writing to instructors to ask for placement in a course that is full. Such correspondence frequently involves the use of e-mail, as in the example of an e-mail from an unidentified student to an English professor concerning a course:

Your Task

The writer of this e-mail, Evan Crisp, is disappointed that his message has not been answered. He comes to students in his English 301 class for advice. Write a memorandum of advice to Evan Crisp on best practices in writing an e-mail to a professor seeking to be added to a full course, and demonstrate the you-attitude toward Evan in the memo you write. Be sure to review section 1:7 of the handout. 

Please Note: The most common errors with this assignment include: 1. The use of imperative verbs at the beginning of the bullet list and, 2. The repetition of the word ‘you’ in the body of the email. Please proof read the message to ensure there are no imperative verbs in the list of actions to take, and the pronoun ‘YOU’ does not appear in the body of the message.

 

ONGOING: Initiate your Application Search:

The application package is a major writing assignment. Success on this assignment is predicated upon close reading and good command of the details and examples presented in both Technical Communication and the UBC Career Services website.

The full assignment is as follows:

• Draw a suitable, current, and career-relevant job advertisement from UBC’s Careers Online and prepare a full job application package in response.
• Or, alternatively, draw a suitable, current advertisement for an international volunteer position, or select a graduate program and prepare a full application package.

Please contact your instructor well in advance of the due date if you have having any trouble accessing the Careers Online website or if you wish to seek permission to use a current and relevant job ad from an accessible site other than the Careers Online site.

Your assignment will  include the following:

1. The advertisement or application instructions, accompanied by MLA documentation showing the source of the ad
2. A one-page cover letter addressed to the prospective employer or organization and designed to conform to the best practices for organization, content, layout, and design set out in Technical Communication
3. A pdf file resume maximum two pages following the format and layout of one of the resume styles set out in Technical Communications
4. An online resume post to your Web-folio.

Your assignment will be evaluated for the quality of its content including:

• selection of a suitable, current, career-related ad
• research you do into the job and organization to which you are applying
• the appeal and effectiveness of your resume’s organization
• the visual appeal of design in both the cover letter and the resume
• the appropriateness of tone and style, and the correctness of expression and documentation.

A meticulously edited set of documents is vital to the success of this assignment, as it would be in the job market and in the world of work. For now, begin the process of finding the perfect position for your future – and take notes on this research process, keep a file.