1. I picked this book because it is about historical war which interests me.
2. The book I chose has one author.
3. The book is titled "The Battlefields of England."
4. The book was in 1950 published. It was reprinted in 1973 by Methuen & Company in London and Barnes & Nobles in New York.
5. The book was printed in London.

The book I chose is called "The Battlefields of England", I selected this book because historical war interest me. "The Battlefields of England" was written by Lieutenant Colonel Alfred H. Burne and was published in 1950 then reprinted in 1973 by Meuthen and Company in London as well as Barnes and Nobles in New York. In the book "The Battlefields of England" Burne tells stories about battles that occured in England during the medival era. The first battle he covers is the Battle of Mount Badon, the author gives us a picture of the type of person the general was in this battle, "But Arthur judged aright. On what did his calculations? I suggest he shared that gift possed by all great generals-the power of being able to picture the enemy's position and attitude and to penetrate his frame of mind." (7)

Lt. Colonel Alfred H. Burne.  The battlefields of England. 

London and New York: Methuen and Company, and Barnes & Nobles, 1973.

How my group organized the presentation

We took the topic of writing in a business or technical sense. we split up the two, Clayton took the business aspect and Gabin and I took the technical side of it. we did it this way because Clayton is going for a business degree and is more familiar on the manner where as Gabin and I are going for mechanical engineering so we have a sense for the technical aspect. Gabin’s interest was in material analysis so he research what that would consist of. He reviewed some analysis papers and some other documents on the topic, he also looked up what components a general technical paper should have. The technical paper I researched was one that would deal with procedural steps and compilation of data. I took the same approach as Gabin, I found multiple documents  that these components in it to see how the compared and then I cross referenced those with a outline for what a technical paper should consist of. During this process we each came across unhelpful websites and documents, some were even misleading. I notice that in a google search of “technical paper”a lot of things come up that really should not so I made much more specific searches and used other websites to search as well. Once we had all the information we wanted we tried to put it together in such a way that it flow person to person by having Clayton open with the business aspect then Gabin and I would go into the technical writing. We really wanted the rest of the class to see the application of these styles of writing as well as the format, but we thought the application would grab the attention of the room because it shows the why of the writing rather then the how, the how is important but if you don’t think you need it you wont care how to do. 

Final Presentation

Clayton Athman, Patrick Murray, Gabin Tene.



 

Writing in a Business Setting

    I want to learn more of the business side of writing because I know that it will be a huge advantage to be well versed in how to write in a concise manor. I recently had an interview, and even though it was not for a business position, in order to get the interview I had to show that I could paraphrase a much longer peice of information into a short statement. Though I think that I do a good job at keeping my paper short and to the point, I want it to become second nature and habit to write in a business like manor. Employees do not have time to read long and detailed writings or memos and because of this the concept of abstract writing is something that is going to be very helpful in writing memos and other business type documents if I hope to run a business in an efficient way. Abstract writing is a form of writing used to fit a large amount of information into a limited amount of space. A technique that would greatly benefit a business.
The side of business that most interests me is the side of sales and learning to communicate with customers properly would give me a big advantage. If a customer opens an email and sees that it is a page long, they will be much more apt to skim through and miss valuable material that will benefit them. How does one go about preventing this? In the same example, if a customer opens and email and sees that it is organized in bullet points or in a short paragraph they will be more willing to read the entire email and gain all the information they need. This can take a large amount of time on the part of the writer because he must know inside and out what he is trying to communicate and be able to break it down and write it in a way that highlights only the main points. An indirect benefit of learning to writing in a business setting or writing to customers would be that if I learn to write this way, it will spill over into how I communicate verbally with my costumers and employees and overall will have a very positive effect on my work environment.

 

 

Writing in a Technical Setting

I want learn the technical side of writing because I will need to be able to write many procedure and analysis reports in my career.  Many people think that engineering is all math and science and nothing else, while engineering uses lots of math and science it is more of an application of them.  Engineers seldom work alone and for themselves, they typically work in groups and for a company. For this reason one needs to be able to communicate clearly and in detail about their work to other groups working on the project, their bosses, and most importantly customers.

                An example of this would be me working for a company that makes snowmobiles, my boss says he needs a new sled for 2014, so all the engineers get together and break up into groups to work on different aspects of the snowmobile. Group “A” is designing the body of the snowmobile and group “B” the engine, group “B” needs to know what group “A” is doing otherwise they will make two parts of a snowmobile that do not fit together. Group “A” needs to be able to document what they are doing and present it to group “B” so they know how big and heavy the engine is so it works with the body of the sled, they then bring it to their boss to get it approved.

                A technical paper may include the following elements;

1.       Introduction

2.       Procedures

3.       Results

4.       What the results mean

5.       Recommendations for future work

6.       References and acknowledgments

        

Writing in a Technical Setting

          My name is Gabin Tene and I'am going for mechanical engineering. Writing about this topic will be a great benefit skillswise because engineers are most of the time asked to write technical reports. A great example to come up with would be for instance, a car company (Mazda) would like to get some specific steels from another company (US steel) in order to manufacture cars frame. One of the engineers from the Mazda company is then asked to write a report concerning the exact steel specifition they want the contractor (US Steel) to manufacture. Meaning that the report should include maximum shear force and Strength the steel must support, temperature the steels must support when exposed to either hot or cold temperature, and many other specification.

After the report is done, It comes now to the contractor to follow step by step the specifications on the report during the manufacture of the steels. If there are mistakes or on the report, the manufacturer could wrongly manufacture the product. And this will cost a lot for the company.

That's some of the reasons why writing a technical report is very important for me.

My portion of the presentation

Writing in a Business or Technical Setting

I want learn the technical side of writing because I will need to be able to write many procedure and analysis reports in my career.  Many people think that engineering is all math and science and nothing else, while engineering uses lots of math and science it is more of an application of them.  Engineers seldom work alone and for themselves, they typically work in groups and for a company. For this reason one needs to be able to communicate clearly and in detail about their work to other groups working on the project, their bosses, and most importantly customers.

                An example of this would be me working for a company that makes snowmobiles, my boss says he needs a new sled for 2014, so all the engineers get together and break up into groups to work on different aspects of the snowmobile. Group “A” is designing the body of the snowmobile and group “B” the engine, group “B” needs to know what group “A” is doing otherwise they will make two parts of a snowmobile that do not fit together. Group “A” needs to be able to document what they are doing and present it to group “B” so they know how big and heavy the engine is so it works with the body of the sled, they then bring it to their boss to get it approved.

                A technical paper may include the following elements;

1.       Introduction

2.       Procedures

3.       Results

4.       What the results mean

5.       Recommendations for future work

6.       References and acknowledgments

.

The first topic I have chosen is "Writing in a Business or Technical Setting" because my major is mechanical engineering and someday my job will require me to write many technical reports.

The second topic I have chosen is "Writing to Get a Job" because if I want to get into the professional world of engineering I need to be able to present myself well.

The third topic I have chosen is “I'm never sure how to revise or catch errors in my writing.” 

A Heart Beat Away

        The year was 2100 A.D. The earth had run out of oil and governments all around the world started to fall apart. Countries started to fight over the reserves of oil, but this only made it get used faster. Once the last of the oil was gone there was no way to get new fuel to the power plants and maintenance on the wind mills and dams required large machinery that could only be fueled with diesel, the only source of electricity was solar panels but they produced so little power it could not sustain cities. The smaller and poorer countries did not struggle as much at first because they were not very dependent on oil from the start. The cities became war zones for gangs and many people fled to less populated areas and had very small groups that they lived with living off the land. 

        There was a tall South American woman named Lucia living in a part of Mexico that was controlled by a drug cartel, the ruler of the territory was very harsh to the people living under him.

One day Lucia went to the market to find some food, she had not eaten in days because the cartel hoarded the food, there was a stand that a variety of food but she noticed that the were tons of chestnuts, she thought to self “there are so many chestnuts they won’t notice if I take a few” she went over and grabbed three chestnuts and walked away. There was man playing a drum who saw her steal the food, he yelled at her and then pointed at her telling the cartel guards what she did. Lucia ran but did not get far because she weak from lack of food. Lucia was thrown in prison and stamped with a Chinese character for identification reasons, she was certain she was going to die there. The next the day they brought her a little bit of food on a small dish, it was enough to keep her alive for another day, she thought, “What is the point of keeping me alive? They’ll probably are going to kill me soon” just then a bald man walked in and said, “Lucia we must hurry, we don’t have much time” she didn’t asked questions she just went with him, where ever she was going was better than a prison. 

The bald man told Lucia “There is a river a head that divides the territories, we have to cross to be safe” Lucia was very confused at this point “Why are we rushing like this?” she asked, he said “The wallet I gave them had some European and Dog coins in it, well at least thats what it looks like, they are fake, and they will figure it out soon” she still did not understand why a random guy saved her, but right now it didn’t matter. 

          They finally got to the river and got in a birch canoe started to cross, suddenly people started shooting at them from the bank they came from, Lucia got hit in the right arm, she tore a piece of her clothing off and tied it around the wound, she could not help row anymore and they were not moving fast and still getting shot at, but then people from the other side of the river were shooting back. They reached the other side, but Lucia was bleeding out, the bald man’s friends had a vase with filled with some chemical that poured on the wound and the bleeding stopped.

The next day Lucia woke up and sitting next to her bed was her bother “Alejandro! I thought you were dead!” she yelled, “No, I have been here the whole time, this my territory now, when I heard you were in prison I sent my best man to get you.”

“Thank you so much, but where is the rest of our family?” she asked, Alejandro said, “Well thats the next step, to bring them home.”