Press Release Assignment

For this blog post, I wanted to discuss my plans for the press release assignment, as the due date is approaching. For the press release, our professor asked us to imagine our dream career. Once we have our dream career in mind, we are supposed to use that organization in the creation of a press release aimed towards journalists. We have to come up with something that is news worthy, such as an organization about to do something, receiving an award, or changing a product line/service.  

The dream career I chose would be working in PR or communication for the NHL team, the Pittsburgh Penguins. I plan to write this press release about an event that already happened as a result of winning an award. Though I will pretend this event has not yet occurred. In 2015, Kraft Hockeyville held a competition for ice rinks to compete, and share their stories in hopes of being named Hockeyville USA. The winner of this award was granted $150,000 for arena upgrades and the chance to host an NHL preseason game at their rink. The winner was determined through fan votes sent in by phone or internet. The Cambria County War Memorial of Johnstown was named the first ever Kraft Hockeyville USA and scheduled to host a Pittsburgh Penguin preseason game.

The press release I plan to write, is going to pretend the hosting of the preseason game did not occur yet. I will convince a journalist that this story is worthy to write, in order to announce the game to not only the local community but also to hockey/sports around the world. The purpose of the writing would be to make the War Memorial arena look good and also Kraft Hockeyville for the donations to make this game possible. It is going to draw in a crowd to the event, spread the word about the upcoming game, and also raise awareness of Kraft's new competition to be held annually. This piece will interest hockey/sport fans, other teams that play in the War Memorial that will benefit from the rink upgrades, Pittsburgh Penguin fans, and the local residents of Johnstown.

This particular press release will have many new values that will appeal to the journalists is they were to read my press release. The news values it would contain would be impact, proximity, timeliness, novelty, and possibly celebrity. It contains impact because the event may result in some road closings which will relate to the audience. It has proximity because it is a local event for the people that live in Johnstown. It relates to timeliness because it is a current event that is about to happen. Novelty is involved because it is an event that is different considering it has never occurred before. The final news value it contains could be celebrity, being that the Pittsburgh Penguins are an NHL team which generate a variety of die-hard fans. I would hope these news values could encourage a journalist to publish a piece of writing about the upcoming event. 

Evaluation Assignment

The due date for my next assignment in professional writing has been quickly approaching. Unlike the last one where I knew exactly what I wanted to do for it, I have been struggling to come up with a topic regarding the new one.

The assignment is to write a review/evaluation that I could potentially have to write in my future communication career. The first thing that came to my mind was a literature review. I have written multiple literature reviews since I have been in college. I have written some for communication classes regarding communication theories and also one for a literature class I took. Since I have already written a few of these, I wanted to expand my knowledge by writing a different type of review. This is where I got stuck. I searched for some ideas using internet sources and also a professor and classmates opinion. I weaved through a series of potential options and came to the conclusion to write an evaluation memo to my professional writing professor regarding a specific form of social media's success.

I went through a process that we discussed in class regarding the success of the mobile app, Snapchat. I have designed my memo into sections with headings including, an overview, measuring success, quality, and lastly a final argument. Judging the success of social network is primarily done by measuring the growth over a large period of time. I answered a question in regards to social networking, as to what makes Snapchat a unique form, compared to Instagram, Twitter, and/or Facebook. I found that there were many positive attributes that weighed into the success behind Snapchat. I found that there are shockingly rising numbers regarding the amount of active users Snapchat has. According to AdWeek, as estimated in 2015, Snapchat has 200 million monthly active users and 100 million daily active users.

I believe the multiple, unique features is what draws consumers into the mobile app. One could argue against my accusations, in saying that compared to its competitors, Snapchat is very different and used for different functions thus should not be compared. One could say Snapchat is used for more of a private form of communication whereas, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook is public for the purpose of expressing oneself. This is true, but that privacy feature is exactly the one that makes Snapchat so appealing and interesting to a variety of age groups. The uniqueness of the app cannot be found on other social networking forms of communication.

"January 13"

One may be asking themselves why I would've entitled this post "January 13," when it is in fact February 5th. The answer relates back to my professional writing class, when I was assigned to read a piece of writing entitled "January 13." The author of the piece is Rick Bass.

The piece was very short in length, which I found very strange at first. My initial thought was that it couldn't possibly be as detailed as my professor made it out to be, when she announced we would be close reading for detailed descriptions. I was wrong.

"I've seen flakes as big as my fist, and monstrous, wet, stuck-together flakes as big as wadded-up sheets of newspaper, falling among the myriad other, smaller flakes plummeting madly down, tumbling like planes crashing, but landing silently, or nearly so."

Bass's very detailed description, allows for his readers to experience this blizzard as if they were along side him, seeing/hearing everything exactly as he did in that moment. The way he can describe the snow flakes is fascinating to me. I am sure everyone has experienced what wet, stuck-together newspaper pages are like, or even wet paper for that matter. I love how he relates the snowflakes to something that most people would have experienced at one point in their lives. That description is something I admire of his writing style that admittedly, I probably would not have thought of myself. The plane crash description makes me think back to last week, when we watched the pilot episode of the TV show, Lost. The plane definitely tumbled, yet there was nothing silent about the blades crashing into the island. Unlike, snowflakes, that have that ability to seem to come crashing down, yet at the same time, do it ever-so gently and silently.

Last semester, I took a creative nonfiction class. I enjoyed getting to go back to reading a creative nonfiction piece of writing, even though it was for my professional writing class. The very close details draw me in as a reader. I believe it was a nice change and also nice to get back to a well-known topic.

Lost

In class on Wednesday, I was excited to hear that we would be watching the Pilot episode of Lost on Netflix. One may ask: what does Lost, the TV show, have anything to do with a writing class? But it does in fact have a lot to do with writing.

We took notes during the viewing of the show. We were guided to pay attention to potential categories for the TV show and what kind of show we thought it was. This has everything to do with the writing that went into the script before the show was directed. I would think that the script was written in a suspenseful way that makes the show very serious and intense. The show began with a plane crash in which resulted in the passengers being stranded on an island. In my opinion, it also as aspects of mystery to it pertaining to a creature they created that is killing people off. The creature is a mystery to the viewers within the first episode.

I have been taking trips on airplanes since I was very young and have continued to do so at least once a year for family vacations. With that in consideration, my next sentence may make absolutely no sense. I still have such a great fear every time it comes time for me to step onto that airplane. There is just something about how something could go wrong in a matter of seconds and it could cause the plane to go down. This may sound ridiculous to people who do not even bat an eye while stepping onto an airplane. I realize this, but this show seemed to heighten that fear for me. The plane crash is very similar to what I could imagine happening. The viewing of this show came at a not so convenient time for me and my fear considering my mom is getting on a plane today. She is doing this the day after watching this show. She is heading to California. There, she will have a great time visiting my cousins who just had baby #2 which is super exciting yet; I cannot help but to have this show in the back of my mind. Yes, I know it is a made up story for the sake of a suspenseful TV show, but I suppose that is just how my brain works.

I have not watched this show before the class viewing although, I do see it having a great story line with the potential to form into a great show. I can tell the writers did a wonderful job of making sure this is a show that viewers will want to binge watch for the desire of wanting to find out what happens next.

Entry 1 Style Guide

In class on Wednesday, our professor had us break into groups to discuss an article within our field.

Our goal was to discuss the following:

1) who the intended audience is
2) identify purpose/goal
3) style and tone of the writing

The article I looked at with my partner was about new moms and the use of face negotiation theory. Face negotiation theory is a communication theory that I learned about in my Special Topics class last semester. The theory goes into how people chose to save "face" pertaining to certain situations. I found it very interesting because it talked about women's attitudes towards motherhood and seeking acceptance.

We decided that the intended audience would be new moms and/or those who are studying something involving face negotiation theory or parenthood. The purpose/goal was to inform readers about results of a study as to how new moms use face negotiation theory to save "face" and why. I found it particularly interesting that these new moms claimed they do not seek to maintain "good mother face" around friends or strangers yet, when they admitted to seeking acceptance and approval from others regarding their parenting style. The last thing we were asked to discuss was the tone and style of the article itself. The article also talked about how the new moms will say they're doing good or fine when in reality they could be struggling and not be "good." Some new moms will not admit to this or to any kind of emotional turbulence. This article does a great job of showing women's identities involving motherhood and what it means to be a mother. As far as style is concerned, the article is set up with subheadings to keep all the information organized since it is a pretty lengthy article. The article also is set up with a decent size font to make it easily accessible to most people. It is set up in a particularly complex and active style. I believe the attitude in which the piece is written by the author is not meant to be insulting in any way and in my opinion did not come off this way.

From this article, I learned some new little tricks when working with a lengthy article that has a lot of valuable information to be put into it. I also gained knowledge about rhetorical awareness using purpose, audience, stakeholders, and context of a piece of writing. This article also dealt with my field of communication and also something that interests me regarding face negotiation theory.

If this article sparked an interest, it can be found at the following link:
http://www-tandfonline-com.pitt.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/01463370802448246

Interview Assignment Plans

So I've received my first assignment for my Introduction to Professional Writing course. This is one that I'm surprisingly not dreading because it could potentially help me decide what I wanted to use my major for in terms of career choice. I have not yet decided what exactly I want to do with my communication major and writing minor that I am going to graduate with.

In my class today, we discussed our assignment and decided who we wanted to interview for the assignment. The person we choose to interview should be someone in our future career field. The first person that came to my mind was my cousin because he graduated from IUP with a major in communication media. He informed me that he isn't using his major for his current job. My next thought was to ask one of my communication professors that I've looked up to over my years here at UPJ. This is what I am planning to do. In class today, we put ourselves in groups similar to our major to discuss possible questions that we could ask during our interviews. We came up with some pretty good questions in my opinion, for example:

What was your deciding factor that made you want to get involved in the communication field?
Who is your career role model and why?
What are your connections with other people in the communication field, besides other professors?
What types of writing is involved within your career?
Would you say your writing skills sharpened since you've been involved in your career? If so, how?

I really think this interview should help me in giving me some ideas that maybe I have not yet considered as career options for my future.

Beginner Post

This blog thing is new to me but I will admit it has been an idea that always interested me. I follow some people that I went to high school with on Instagram and some of them have been posting links to their new blogs. They post the links with the purpose of getting their page out there and gaining followers. I have not thought about following them until I have set up a blog for myself. When I first saw these posts, I never actually went to check out their pages but I think I might now. It seems to be something I am noticing a lot more of now.