Excellence in Communication Certificate Sign-ups

You've heard me talk about the Excellence in Communication Certificate (ECC) a couple of times now in class.  As the semester ends, we're encouraging interested LA 101H students to sign up for the program now.  If you're in Schreyer, or if you're a Paterno Fellow Aspirant, I strongly encourage you to sign up.

You're more than welcome to put me down as your preference for ECC advisor--I'd love to stay connected with you for the rest of your time at Penn State!  But if you feel like you'd rather get some feedback from someone else, I completely understand.  (And I won't be checking up on who is assigned to other advisors, so no need to worry about any awkwardness should you choose to go elsewhere.)

So what does "signing up" mean?  Essentially, it simply means you'll be assigned an advisor to walk you through the process, and will receive occasional emails updating you on changes to the program.  You'll also have the opportunity to meet with your ECC advisor to discuss your work at any point until submission.  (Submission is usually second semester junior year or first semester senior year.)  Other than access to an advisor, the benefit of registering now is that you'll stay updated on the program, which can help keep it on your radar.

So I encourage you to read more about the ECC program, or to sign up at the link below:

Sign up here!

Sample E-Portfolios

Here's a set of links to some of the better portfolios we examined in class last week, as well as two (truly excellent) newly crafted ones.  Hope it helps as you think about your own!

As a reminder, some of these are for the Excellence in Communication Certificate (ECC), so the included components may vary slightly from what I've requested.  But they should give you a sense of how communication portfolios function overall.

Rose Monahan's E-Portfolio (ECC)
Marvin Johnson (LA 101H)
Ashley Conner (ECC--minor navigation concerns; otherwise sound)
August Dombrow (ECC--Very nice discussion/introduction; executes (mostly) black-and-white design really well)
Sara Battikh (Professional!  Lots here, but the variety is necessary for a Telecomm major)

PowerPoint Resources

We covered a lot of things about presentations today.  Several links are within the PPT itself, but I also wanted to give you a few other quick resources:

How to create a graphical agenda slide
Turn bullet points into multiple slides--with impact!
Very short slideshow on the psychology of bullet points and how to fix it
Different evidence types to use in the Assertion-Evidence model

Rethinking PowerPoint Design

View more presentations from Ben Henderson.

Motivational Speech Topics - Section 6 (11:15am)

Please reserve your speech topic by commenting on this post.

Also, remember that we'll meet in 014 Life Sciences this Friday, rather than Hammond (or Wagner.)  Life Sciences is between Thomas and Eisenhower Auditorium.

Motivational Speech Topics - Section 7 (2:30pm)

Please reserve your speech topic by commenting on this post.

Also, remember that we'll meet in our regular room in Thomas this Friday, rather than the computer lab.

Motivational Speech Topics - Section 8 (4:15pm)

Please reserve your speech topic by commenting on this post.

Also, remember that we'll meet in our regular room in Thomas this Friday, rather than the computer lab.  But we'll meet at the normal Friday timeslot (3:35, right?)

Monroe's Motivated Sequence

 Here's the PPT from Monday's class.  You also can find out more about motivational speaking from the assignment directions, or be doing a bit more research into Monroe's Motivated Sequence online--there's a lot written about it.Monroe’s Motivated Sequence Steps

Public Policy Institutes / Think Tanks

When considering possible policy recommendations for the upcoming persuasive essay, it might be beneficial to consult those who've thought carefully about the issue at hand.  Here's a list of domestic public policy institutes from Wikipedia.  And here's a list (slightly outdated) of the 25 most cited think tanks in the media, along with a one word label of their political bias.

Argumentation

We reviewed argument types, ultimate terms, and fallacies in class this week.  Here's the link to the exhaustive list of fallacies.

And, here's the PowerPoint I showed in class (controls are near the bottom of this post):
Argumentation - Types and Fallacies