What's Your Method?

What’s your method?

Let’s face it not everyone learns the same. In fact not everyone does anything the same for that matter. This is pointed out in:
http://vizedhtmlcontent.next.ecollege.com/CurrentCourse/priorandshipka.pdf

I was asked to present a visual of my writing process. This is what I came up with:

Usually I have the television going quietly in the background when writing. If I sit in complete silence I just want to take a nap^_ taking a nap is very counterproductive.

(My surroundings usually looks like this before I get started)

Once everything is set and I get myself settled, typing a list of the key components I need is an excellent way to help me organize, create sections and make sure I cover all points required. I continue to go through one section at a time until I am satisfied with my rough draft. I get by the Writing Center to make sure I understood the assignment properly and all requirements are covered. This is my way of double checking before I move forward.

Now that I have a sturdy foundation, I can continue to fine tune my paper and finish my final draft. After my final draft is complete I have a peer or someone else review it to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Before turning my paper in I like to read it one last time to make sure the delivery of my words and thoughts are to my liking. If I don’t like something I can correct it real quick before saving it and turning it in.

It's an Abomination!

It’s an Abomination!

                There is so much controversy surrounding grammar, spelling, and that language over-all is being ruined by texting. “Texting is not really writing at all” says John McWhorter in a TED Talk I recently watched.
  https://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_language_jk#t-133449

Some consider texting as “fingered speech” instead of actual writing, while others still consider it writing. I am certain some in the past have opposed new methods of grammar or words when they were first introduced. Taking the “fingered speech” approach, for the first time ever we are capable of writing how we speak in real time. If we look back at how language and writing has developed we can see the evolution through time. Is texting one of those incidences?

http://community.cengage.com/GECResource2/info/b/bus_comm/archive/2013/05/30/does-texting-hurt-grammar

As a student, I hate working in groups simply because I have to go back through my younger peers portions making ridiculous corrections on written work that should be formal. Not only is this frustrating, but it is time consuming and complete garbage that I have to do other’s work so I don’t have to worry about my grade.

People lack ambition and self-pride, they have become lazy. People everywhere, everyday have become so complacent about how they speak, write, and carry themselves that others can hardly understand what the other is saying. The sad part is that they don’t even care what people think.

I recognize that everything evolves and becomes more complex or “efficient” but an understanding needs to be grasped in order to maintain a professional setting. Let’s face it, we are not writing contracts or laws in “finger speech” and the line needs to be defined.

What's Your Problem?

What’s your Problem?

There is a lot of hype about mentoring in the business world. The more I have read about the success of mentoring the more intrigued I am. What I don’t understand is, men still advance higher and more rapidly than women. The question is why?

Why has mentoring become stagnate?

We know that some people are still stuck in their ways with that “good old boy” mentality and their perceptions of commendable women contending for equal pay and higher positions is never going to change. No one knows for sure if this will fade with the retiring of older generations.

We also know that women tend to be insecure and second guess themselves. The concept of feeling like a fraud tends to lead individuals to not trust the capability within themselves making them feel fraudulent. Just because women are not likely to articulate their own desires or wants, does not make them inept or less deserving of career enhancement.

The mentoring problem is within the concept itself. The terminology of mentoring needs to improve in order to correct what is lacking, to establish vital progression for one and all.

Let’s shed a different light on the matter. Consider mentoring to be more of a sponsorship, where a senior not only mentors, but contends for their protégée’s deserving respect allowing developmental growth for individuals and companies to flourish. After all a well-developed company is a strong competitive business.

Well That's Smart!

Well That’s Smart!

                Recently I wrote an Annotated Bibliography for the first time. For those of you that don’t know what that is don’t feel bad because up until recently I didn't either.

An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to references trailed with a brief summary and analysis of each reference being cited. This type of writing is to describe the relevance and quality of the source you are citing.

In this annotated bibliography I used articles from newspapers, scholarly journals, blog posts and I’m still in search of other genres of research that I might be able to use for my paper.

As informational and useful as the scholarly journals are, they were really thorough with tons of studies but quite lengthy, and sometimes awfully hard to gain access to some. On the same note, I found the scholarly journals to be tremendously helpful.

Newspaper articles were useful due to the more current take on my topic. The authors tended to give a more updated informational based point of view without just giving the cold hard facts. Articles of this fashion didn't take up a huge chunk of my time to sift through and were fairly easy to find.

Blog posts tend to be more opinionated in general yet have a lot of truth and experience behind them. Aside from being extremely easy to find they were quick reads. This was a great resource to use in order to gain different personal perspectives as to how they felt about being a woman in business and having mentors or the importance of having one.

Writing an annotated bibliography made it a fairly simple and more organized way to handle a research project. It definitely made it way easier to tell heads from tails. Inserting cites will also save me a lot of time later.

How Are Cohesive Networks Important?

Attitude and Relationships…Do they make a difference?

In anticipation of broadening my viewpoint and references for my research I looked in my own backyard. I came across Mary E. Vielhaber’s paper “Communication and Attitudes Toward Work-related Change.” Vielhaber is a professor who teaches managerial communication, human resource development, organizational behavior, organization development, and leadership at EMU.

                “Communication and Attitudes Toward Work-related Change” takes a look at how employees are more accepting to change when they have positive work relationships by means of a survey of 131 employees. Another conclusion her study had was that employees were more motivated towards work related change when they had constructive official networks.

                In my experience as an employee I am much more productive and receptive at a place I feel comfortable at. When I say comfortable I mean that I know my colleagues and bosses and have healthy work relationships with them.

                Most concerns in my field are how to retain employees and obtain more productivity and cohesiveness for long-term growth. When companies keep a low turn-over rate they acquire more talented employees and tend to receive better financial projections.

I feel this supports my theory that mentoring, sponsorship and/or positive work relationships are not only good for employees but companies too. When everyone gives a helping hand the results are motivating and beneficial for all parties involved.

http://nca.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00909888309365227#.VNLTUJ3F-_Q

The Verbal Standstill

Why can’t we end the war? Why is stereotyping still an issue?

Diving further into my research, I found a blog post written by Leona Charles, titled “Why You Need a Female Mentor.” In this blog post she claims that women are better mentors to other women because they have a better understanding of their gender than their male-counterpart. With Charles giving different examples, she is pretty much stating that there is a connection between women that you cannot find in an opposite gendered colleague.

The things she writes in this blog post are intended for female readers. She shows no inclination of targeting both genders, she gives example that “only women would understand” with no scientific evidence to back it up. This particular blog post Charles wrote is more opinionated than anything.

Sure, I get what she is trying to say but I do not believe that those qualities and connections can only be found in other women. I do believe that this feeds into limiting perceptions of males, which we represent to be our own problem to begin with.

 In my opinion the best way to get your point across is to keep an open mind. I feel that in the first half of her post she limited her point by focusing on gender instead of qualities to look for in general. Yet she was not as definitive towards gender in the end by testifying that she has learned from both sexes. However, I feel the best way to change peoples’ perspective of women in business is to erase the line that separates us in the first place. By practicing what we preach, we can set a standard or trend so that others follow and return.

http://www.womenonbusiness.com/need-female-mentor/

Is Equality For Women Still Trending?

In light of pinpointing more on my research development I conducted an Ngram Analysis. I established an inquiry set for 1975-2008 (this was the latest year available to examine.) Entering the words mentor, protégée, council, and mentoring gave me the following results:

Mentor, Protegee, Council, Mentoring

With another attempt to narrow down my results, I decided to exempt the word council from my next analysis, leaving me with the following graph:

Mentor, Protegee, Mentoring

In my belief this shows me that my topic was a stagnant concept in the 1980’s, with development in the 1990’s, and a progressive realization in the new millennium. As women’s rights developed so has the concept of mentors and mentoring protégées.

Even though protégée is still not a common word, my topic area trends more frequently than before. If you enter gender differences, gender equality, and mentoring the following results are shown:

Gender Differences, Gender Equality, Mentoring

Like I stated before, it appears that my topic has grown and trended with the development of women’s rights in the workplace beginning in the 1980’s.

The only question I really have about these graphs is what would it have shown for the years 2008-2015?