Online Reputation: Kaelyn Loveless

To: Kaelyn Loveless, Fellow Classmate

From: Ashton Henderson, Member of Technical and Professional Writing

Subject: Online Personal Information Analysis

Date: September 27, 2016

Kaelyn I have been very surprised by the investigation I performed this last week. I began by searching for you on Google and started with your first and last name, as well as Utah. The first hit that came up was a site with information on whom I am assuming is your father. This article can be found here, and it actually lists you as one of his dependents. From this site I noticed you are from South Jordan, Utah. This was exciting to me, because I am also from South Jordan. My search then took me to Facebook where I easily found you, because of all of the friends we have in common. From your Facebook profile I learned you are one of four children, with two sisters and one brother. It looks to me, you are the oldest or the second oldest in your family. I also learned your middle name is Nicole. It is not often you see a person’s full name on Facebook, so it made me think your middle name must have great meaning to you. This information can be seen here and the picture included shows a picture of the whole Loveless family.

On your Facebook page I found some other interesting information. It appears you attended Bingham High School, just like I did. I believe you graduated in 2014, so you are a year younger than I am. It appeared you were very active in high school with dances and other school activities. I concluded my search on Facebook and my third step was then to return to Google where I searched your first and last name as well as Bingham High School. This search pulled several different links all discussing soccer. It seems you played soccer for Bingham High and were on the varsity team at some point. Max Preps provided information from the 2013 season. Kaelyn I discovered you played defense and you were number fourteen. You actually played with one of my really good friends, Madison Loftus. Overall it appears your team had a successful season and finished 28^th overall in the state of Utah. Unfortunately I was only able to find information on your senior season at Bingham, but I enjoyed the information I did find. Congratulations on a successful career of athletics at Bingham, I know there is an extra emphasis put on Bingham athletes and it’s an honor to be one.

As I searched for you again on Google, an interesting link appeared about five headings from the top. I opened it to find it was an event sheet for an LDS mission farewell you said you would be attending. This took my search back to your Facebook page where I discovered you are a member of the LDS church. I thought this was really impressive without being a friend of yours on your social media platforms, I could see your religious affiliations. To me this shows you are a dedicated member and have no problem sharing such things. I could also see this was not the only mission farewell you had attended, and you must be very supportive of your friends and their choices. I was also impressed you shared this on your Twitter and Instagram accounts. In your condensed personal biographies you clearly state your religious group and openly your beliefs. I thought this was very admirable. A tweet about your graduation from the Bingham LDS seminary can be found here. 

From these two other social media platforms I was able to find that you are actually a Utah State Ambassador and a cosmetologist. I was surprised  I could not find more on the fact that you are a Utah State Ambassador, but this may be because you are newer to USU. For the future, I would recommend you make information about your time and work as a Utah State Ambassador more available, because this is such a powerful experience you have taken part in. This opportunity will someday be a great resume addition for you and I am sure you will want to share it with those who will be looking to hire you. Throughout this entire process I have really enjoyed being able to get to know you, Kaelyn, and learn some things about you. It is amazing to me we can be from the same home town and go to the same high school, but know virtually nothing about one another. From all I can see, all of your profiles and links on the internet are clean and well kept. You should have no problems if a future employer of any kind were to search for you on the web. I hope you have found this information to be beneficial to you.

                                                                                            

Ashton Henderson 

Letter to Cousin

Dear Cousin Sarah,

When you asked me what technical and professional writing is I decided that I needed to get my facts in line before I gave you a response. I turned to the internet as I Googled “what is technical and professional writing?” The first link I clicked on was http://www.ncte.org/college/briefs/tpw. Although it did provide a definition, I felt as though they were speaking a different language. This was too technical for me at the time. I next turned to Wikipedia for a more simplified answer to the same question. Wikipedia broke the definitions up into two parts: Technical Writing and Professional Writing. It is segments from these two definitions that I would like to base the rest of my letter from. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_writing, “Professional writing… is writing to a standard and style demanded by a particular profession. It involves the use of clear language to convey information in a way that is easily understood by the intended audience, and may be focused on information, persuasion, or to stimulate debate.” The definition of technical writing was as follows, “…is any written form of writing or drafting technical communication used in a variety of technical and occupational fields.” After reading these two definitions I have formed my own thoughts on how technical and professional writing is defined. I define is as a form of writing that is specific to an occupation or situation where information is portrayed in a clear and clean manner, so that the specific audience may understand the ideas.

In a formal business email one writes completely different than they would a letter to a brother or sister. An email written to a sister would be completely different from a letter written to a lover. In any type of writing there is a specific tone that is used while writing. Owl Purdue gives a great definition as well as some tips on how to decide on the tone. I feel that in technical writing it is very important to ask your self one of the questions from Purdue Owl, “Who am I writing too?” Without a knowledge and understanding of who you are addressing, it will be very difficult to know what is and is not appropriate in your writing. Once you have recognized who you will be addressing and the tone of the paper, it is important to be concise. As mentioned in the earlier definition of professional writing it is important to use “clear language.” Too often our writing, and even our speech can be too “wordy” and distract from the point we are actually trying to make. In technical and professional writing, it is important to minimize the words that are used, and only use language that is necessary.

We have learned about proofreading numerous times throughout our school years, but do we actually know what proofreading is? This week in class my professor presented to us a poem that had been reviewed by Microsoft Spellchecker, but almost all of the words were incorrect. They may have been spelled correctly in some text, but not in the context we were using them. I was blown away. I know that I am guilty of “proofreading,” or in reality pushing the spell check button, before quickly submitting an assignment. In technical and professional writing, it is imperative that you proofread, and actually take the time to reread your writing. This rereading of the paper may have to be done several times to catch all of the mistakes or misspelled words. This might be time consuming, but I cannot express how important it is in this form of writing. A future employee or a professor will completely look over you for a few simple spelling or grammar mistakes. Sarah, believe me, I am not an expert about technical and professional writing. These are the things that I do know, and I can see how they can be very beneficial in both of our professional lives.



Loves,


Ashton