PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Group Member Names: Jonathan Robinson
Jalisa Foster
Jennifer Cluney
Deanna Johannsen
A. Introduction
How will we gain the attention of the audience? First, something needs to be exciting, able to get the attention right away. This is something we haven't quite thought of, or have designed a well thought out idea enough to gather the attention really quick. We are trying to emphasize a lot on this, for I know that I took a lot of classes with our Tourism Department and they emphasize how important it is to catch the audiences attention really quick.
B. Thesis statement
What is the argument/point my group's presentation will prove? We are going to try to make this a one clear sentence.
Our groups solutions is to propose the "Save Our University" solution proposal to the budget crisis from a student's perspective or idea to help save money to potentially protect current staff and programs from leaving this great university. Below are goals that we hope to find success in helping The University of Southern MIssissippi to save money. *** This is our idea of our thesis sentence, and we are conducting an approach to be able to adapt this whole paragraph in one sentence.***
C. Supporting evidence
Provide examples of evidence or "proof" that support your thesis (e.g. quotes, statistics, images, case histories, etc)
1. Example supporting thesis (Freshman Competition within their dorms) (graphs)
2. Example supporting thesis (Eaglepalooza Week; competition among the city)(statistics)
3. Example supporting thesis (Greek Life Competition)
4. Example supporting thesis (Raise City Tax, Local Politcal Alumni Event)
5. Example supporting thesis (Other ideas or events that may be thought upon different date)
D. Conclusion
Repeat thesis statement, wrapping up how the presentation has proven our argument/point. Offer suggestions for future research or propose solutions to problem.
E. Bibliography
In presentation, “cite” our sources verbally throughout. Sources can also be cited in PowerPoint presentation slides.
In written research papers, include in-text citations and bibliography for all sources used as supporting evidence.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Progress Report
This blog is regarding the recent project that I was assigned to do within a group that our professor, Mr. Billy Middleton, assigned group members together. I am writing this blog to share with the readers my criticizing thoughts on our group's performance and what we should do different in order to make a more efficient and effective style group writing project. In simpler words, this is my progress report of my groups performance.
Our writing project was a proposal of the budget crisis that our university's president, Dr. Martha Saunders, gave to The University of Southern Mississippi staff. In the next paragraph is a brief introduction of the writing project.
Introduction:
We are currently enrolled in an English 333 online class through The University of Southern Mississippi. We are assigned to develop a budget crisis plan for The University of Southern Mississippi to successfully save the university money and to educate our students on the budget crisis and to involve the students of the university.. We hope to accomplish this assignment through a professional collaborative writing assignment as group project.
Problem:
Dr. Martha Saunders, President of The University of Southern Mississippi, has developed a budget crisis plan that will possibly save the university almost 15 million dollars. This budget crisis entails many of the departments of the university of to be cut, several professors losing their jobs, even tenured jobs. The budget crisis is may not seem much to incoming or current students, but this is very detrimental to The University of Southern Mississippi. As students of this great university, we need to be willing to lend a helping hand to the university, students, and staff in the "Saving Our University" project.
I realized several different things while trying to accomplish this proposal, especially working in a group project style. I think working in a group for this online class was one of the more challenging things that I have had to do for this class. The reason why I think it was so challenging was because it was online class and then the members of our group all living in different locations of the state. It really challenged us in making appropriate time for the project around everybody's schedule and actually meeting. Also, at first the brainstorming part I thought would be very easy, but after reading several of the example proposals we didn't want to copy some of the other examples. We really took in thought some more detailed thoughts, and went at an opinionated style of brainstorming ideas. Even though, some of the ideas seem to be a little more out of the box, especially with the voting of raising taxes idea, we truly do believe ideas like this would help the budget criss problem which is what really think is needed.
In conclusion, this project has really tested me and pushed me in my writing and communicating style with fellow peers and within my own self. Time management was really one of the most frustrating things to try to accomplish, and our group seemed to become side tracked a lot, but in the end we accomplished a lot of grounds for this project. I think with group projects its hard to find a common theme and goal in a writing project, and especially when selecting the best idea. I realized the most important trait in group project is to be extremely open in any idea that somebody has and not to close it off so quick, but to talk about everything. In the future of this project, my main goal to accomplish is a smoother transaction of work between group members and a little better understanding of communication.
Our writing project was a proposal of the budget crisis that our university's president, Dr. Martha Saunders, gave to The University of Southern Mississippi staff. In the next paragraph is a brief introduction of the writing project.
Introduction:
We are currently enrolled in an English 333 online class through The University of Southern Mississippi. We are assigned to develop a budget crisis plan for The University of Southern Mississippi to successfully save the university money and to educate our students on the budget crisis and to involve the students of the university.. We hope to accomplish this assignment through a professional collaborative writing assignment as group project.
Problem:
Dr. Martha Saunders, President of The University of Southern Mississippi, has developed a budget crisis plan that will possibly save the university almost 15 million dollars. This budget crisis entails many of the departments of the university of to be cut, several professors losing their jobs, even tenured jobs. The budget crisis is may not seem much to incoming or current students, but this is very detrimental to The University of Southern Mississippi. As students of this great university, we need to be willing to lend a helping hand to the university, students, and staff in the "Saving Our University" project.
I realized several different things while trying to accomplish this proposal, especially working in a group project style. I think working in a group for this online class was one of the more challenging things that I have had to do for this class. The reason why I think it was so challenging was because it was online class and then the members of our group all living in different locations of the state. It really challenged us in making appropriate time for the project around everybody's schedule and actually meeting. Also, at first the brainstorming part I thought would be very easy, but after reading several of the example proposals we didn't want to copy some of the other examples. We really took in thought some more detailed thoughts, and went at an opinionated style of brainstorming ideas. Even though, some of the ideas seem to be a little more out of the box, especially with the voting of raising taxes idea, we truly do believe ideas like this would help the budget criss problem which is what really think is needed.
In conclusion, this project has really tested me and pushed me in my writing and communicating style with fellow peers and within my own self. Time management was really one of the most frustrating things to try to accomplish, and our group seemed to become side tracked a lot, but in the end we accomplished a lot of grounds for this project. I think with group projects its hard to find a common theme and goal in a writing project, and especially when selecting the best idea. I realized the most important trait in group project is to be extremely open in any idea that somebody has and not to close it off so quick, but to talk about everything. In the future of this project, my main goal to accomplish is a smoother transaction of work between group members and a little better understanding of communication.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
PUSH America Website "Letter"
June 22, 2011
Attention: Mr. Chadwick F. Coltrane
CC: PUSH America Website Staff
Dear Mr. Coltrane,
Hi, my name is Jonathan Robinson, and I am an active member of the Pi Kappa Phi-Theta Alpha Chapter at the University of Southern Mississippi. You might recall who I am, for I participated in The Journey of Hope philanthropy event my sophomore year in 2009. Recently, in one of my classes at The University of Southern Mississippi, English 333, I was asked to select a website of interest that I care about and critique it basically in an informal SWOT analysis style. I have participated and worked with PUSH America, and attempting to spread funds and awareness about people with disabilities, and that is why I picked your website to critique. I truly care about PUSH America and all the events its offer and by participating in this activity I hopefully can return to you some friendly but helpful critical advice. In case you are unfamiliar with what a SWOT analysis stands for, I will be more than happily to tell you. In a short sentence, a SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) is an overall assessment of an item, company, product, or even a website.
Let’s begin with the letter S (Strength). After researching PUSH America’s website, I found several strengths within the website. I found it very easy in searching for the PUSH America website, even though I figured it was an organization, I knew to type .org at the end of the web address, but if someone who is unfamiliar with PUSH America, I found it to be clearly found as the first related link after searching PUSH AMERICA in the Google web address search bar. The layout of the website is very optimal and simple, but containing a lot of links to offer a variety of different information about PUSH America. The Organization of the web page is unbelievably organized and easy to direct traffic to different links on the web page. The website provides an incredible amount of information about our philanthropy such as history, facts, pictures, quotes, newspaper articles, donation selections, events, how to join a team, and the list goes on about all the variety of information and selections that the website provides to the reader.
Next, I will discuss the letter W (Weakness). One of the major weaknesses that I discovered is not even on PUSH America’s website. There is another identical site of Push America that is established by the Pi Kappa Phi-Eta Phi chapter. I am happy to see other chapters participating and promoting our philanthropy, but it’s an outdated website that is in non affiliated site that is attracting web-traffic to another PUSH America sight and not allowing for a smooth layover from a search engine to directly to the original PUSH America website. I am sure that you are aware of this situation but I think it is deflecting potential donors and cliental of PUSH America to another website that isn’t well kept up or attractive as the actual PUSH America website. Since, the website is owned and operated by a Pi Kappa Phi property then it should not be hard to rid the website of the Internet. Another weakness that I found that could contribute to somebody not fully understanding any of the philanthropy events is there should be more physical images and videos that somebody could understand. There are plenty pictures of participants and fraternity brothers in the act, but I think there needs to be more information on the actual events. It’s perfectly described in text, but in today’s society a website needs to be more physical and viewable attributes towards these events. Finally, I think the website could use more curb appeal. In saying this, I think the website could use a make over and more of an enthusiastic layout and structure. I understand that the point of the website is not to sell people on a website but more of the philanthropy, but it needs to be a strong eye catch.
Next, I usually would imply Opportunities in this analysis, but the PUSH America website provides plenty of opportunities to future fraternity and non-fraternity associates to acquire access in these variety of philanthropy events. The website gives excellent opportunities for people to donate, track events, enroll in events, and to even create your own PUSH America challenge.
Finally, I will discuss the letter T (Threats). As we were taught in our associative program, Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity is the only Fraternity that owns and operates its only philanthropy in the world. In recent years, I have noticed the absence of publicizing Pi Kappa Phi in any PUSH America event, and I know the reason is that fraternities usually have terrible reputations. I understand in keeping a positive and a clean reputation, but by eliminating the Pi Kappa Phi name in majority of philanthropy events and in marketing ideas is causing many fraternity brothers to be discouraged to volunteer for these events. I think this is a huge threat because only Pi Kappa Phi brothers can participate in these events. Since, Pi Kappa Phi started PUSH America, I think we should embrace the fraternity’s name and is partnership.
As I stated in my first paragraph, this is a friendly letter from a brother’s opinion on your website, and I hope it is found to be helpful and informative. I thank you for all the opportunities and blessings that PUSH America has provided for me.
Thank You,
Jonathan D. Robinson
Theta Alpha, The University of Southern Mississippi 230
Attention: Mr. Chadwick F. Coltrane
CC: PUSH America Website Staff
Dear Mr. Coltrane,
Hi, my name is Jonathan Robinson, and I am an active member of the Pi Kappa Phi-Theta Alpha Chapter at the University of Southern Mississippi. You might recall who I am, for I participated in The Journey of Hope philanthropy event my sophomore year in 2009. Recently, in one of my classes at The University of Southern Mississippi, English 333, I was asked to select a website of interest that I care about and critique it basically in an informal SWOT analysis style. I have participated and worked with PUSH America, and attempting to spread funds and awareness about people with disabilities, and that is why I picked your website to critique. I truly care about PUSH America and all the events its offer and by participating in this activity I hopefully can return to you some friendly but helpful critical advice. In case you are unfamiliar with what a SWOT analysis stands for, I will be more than happily to tell you. In a short sentence, a SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) is an overall assessment of an item, company, product, or even a website.
Let’s begin with the letter S (Strength). After researching PUSH America’s website, I found several strengths within the website. I found it very easy in searching for the PUSH America website, even though I figured it was an organization, I knew to type .org at the end of the web address, but if someone who is unfamiliar with PUSH America, I found it to be clearly found as the first related link after searching PUSH AMERICA in the Google web address search bar. The layout of the website is very optimal and simple, but containing a lot of links to offer a variety of different information about PUSH America. The Organization of the web page is unbelievably organized and easy to direct traffic to different links on the web page. The website provides an incredible amount of information about our philanthropy such as history, facts, pictures, quotes, newspaper articles, donation selections, events, how to join a team, and the list goes on about all the variety of information and selections that the website provides to the reader.
Next, I will discuss the letter W (Weakness). One of the major weaknesses that I discovered is not even on PUSH America’s website. There is another identical site of Push America that is established by the Pi Kappa Phi-Eta Phi chapter. I am happy to see other chapters participating and promoting our philanthropy, but it’s an outdated website that is in non affiliated site that is attracting web-traffic to another PUSH America sight and not allowing for a smooth layover from a search engine to directly to the original PUSH America website. I am sure that you are aware of this situation but I think it is deflecting potential donors and cliental of PUSH America to another website that isn’t well kept up or attractive as the actual PUSH America website. Since, the website is owned and operated by a Pi Kappa Phi property then it should not be hard to rid the website of the Internet. Another weakness that I found that could contribute to somebody not fully understanding any of the philanthropy events is there should be more physical images and videos that somebody could understand. There are plenty pictures of participants and fraternity brothers in the act, but I think there needs to be more information on the actual events. It’s perfectly described in text, but in today’s society a website needs to be more physical and viewable attributes towards these events. Finally, I think the website could use more curb appeal. In saying this, I think the website could use a make over and more of an enthusiastic layout and structure. I understand that the point of the website is not to sell people on a website but more of the philanthropy, but it needs to be a strong eye catch.
Next, I usually would imply Opportunities in this analysis, but the PUSH America website provides plenty of opportunities to future fraternity and non-fraternity associates to acquire access in these variety of philanthropy events. The website gives excellent opportunities for people to donate, track events, enroll in events, and to even create your own PUSH America challenge.
Finally, I will discuss the letter T (Threats). As we were taught in our associative program, Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity is the only Fraternity that owns and operates its only philanthropy in the world. In recent years, I have noticed the absence of publicizing Pi Kappa Phi in any PUSH America event, and I know the reason is that fraternities usually have terrible reputations. I understand in keeping a positive and a clean reputation, but by eliminating the Pi Kappa Phi name in majority of philanthropy events and in marketing ideas is causing many fraternity brothers to be discouraged to volunteer for these events. I think this is a huge threat because only Pi Kappa Phi brothers can participate in these events. Since, Pi Kappa Phi started PUSH America, I think we should embrace the fraternity’s name and is partnership.
As I stated in my first paragraph, this is a friendly letter from a brother’s opinion on your website, and I hope it is found to be helpful and informative. I thank you for all the opportunities and blessings that PUSH America has provided for me.
Thank You,
Jonathan D. Robinson
Theta Alpha, The University of Southern Mississippi 230
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