I did not do so hot on this second Recall Practice and I think its mainly because the group I had worked with tried to come up questions that would trick the rest of the class.  So since my group thought that way, I assumed the other groups were doing the same. Which was not the case when looking at the questions everyone put together. Since my group and I were trying to do some trickery, I was looking for the trickery in every question in the Recall Practice. In the end it lead me to choose the wrong answers on a few problems I knew. I guess the big takeaway is to think of legit questions and to try and not trick the rest of the class because you may be fooling yourself in the end :[.

Based on the three scenario’s in the team work exercise, I thought receiving/giving feedback was the most important take away from it. Each group could have alleviated either extra time spent by certain individuals, received better results and used less effort if feedback was used at the correct times and given/received respectfully. Scenario 1, where the two leaders pretty much did the entire project, although it resulted in good grades.  The leaders never gave feed back unless it was between each other. Never giving feedback and doing the other three’s parts in the group led to them inputting more effort and time than everyone else. Scenario 2, never gave feedback to each other. Instead they supported and agreed on everyone’s choices and decision resulting in a lower grade than they expected. Scenario 3, did not use feedback at the correct times and let individuals take on positions they knew they were not savvy in, leading in a lower grade as well. I believe feedback is required to be successful as a team. It gives the group/individuals the criticism and corrections to perform and provide their best product. It also opens up conversation which in hopes gets everyone involved, preventing mistakes or issues that may reflect in their grade if it is not handled and fixed during the process of putting together their final product.

My Group and I decided to start researching on Federal Financial Aid and all of our keywords were positives or general knowledge about Federal Financial Aid. I thought it was interesting when Lance suggested looking at the negative sides of Federal Financial Aid because most of us don’t know much or think about the problems when we think about Financial Aid. I chose to search Federal Financial Aid fraud after Lance suggested that and found tons of examples and information on what is wrong with Financial Aid. It was actually mind-blowing to browse through some of the sites, learning briefly how individuals don’t even attend class or college and are benefiting from Financial Aid. Or how individual’s lie about their income or living situations to receive Financial Aid, which may be taking away the opportunity for someone who needs it. Looking through sites based on Federal Financial Aid fraud led to others problems with Financial Aid, such as scams, lightly monitoring how individuals spend money, and the penalties an individual may face if caught abusing Financial Aid.

While researching our topic for our project Chad mentioned it would be a good idea to look into what exactly the GI Bill is. I thought it was a program that helped veterans go to school and may have other benefits as well but that lead me to wonder how it got started. While searching for the history of the GI bill or the Servicemen’s  Readjustment act of 1944 I ended up on the U.S Department of Veterans Affairs website.  I was shocked to read that  the bill nearly stalled in Congress and some didn’t like the idea of paying unemployed veterans $20 a week because they thought it would be an incentive for them not to look for work. I was also surprised that some questioned the idea of sending veterans to college to better their education because at that time college was a privilege reserved for the rich. I thought helping veterans who sacrificed and risked their lives would be a no-brainer, I definitely didn’t think it was something that veterans had to fight for. Its definitely messed up reading  for example during the Great Depression even though Congress passed the World War Adjusted Act of 1924  which provided a bonus based on the number of days served, most veterans didn’t see any money for 20 years.

I also learned their frustration came from  WW1 veterans who received “$60 and a train ticket home”. In the summer of 1932 a group of veterans marched on Washington D.C demanding full payment of their bonuses and when they didn’t get it some went home and those who stayed were  kicked out after a stand off with US troops. It wasn’t until Harry W. Colmery, a former national commander of the American Legion and former Republican National Chariman came up with the first draft of the GI Bill and Rep. John Gibson was rushed in to cast the tie breaking vote.

From

I’m here again blogging to make up for that perfect score. Luckily I reviewed Chapters 3 and 4 last night or I might be blogging till next week. I recall seeing somewhere in Laulima that there would be a Recall Practice 2 today although the ENG 209 calendar did not list it. Sure enough, there was a Recall Practice and I missed a question again. To make matters worse, it was the topic that I submitted for our group on “front loading”, but, it was not my question. In defense of my answer, I chose D. None of the above because after reading the question I understood that part of the question would also apply to Profiling the audience. This frontloading technique works best with audiences who are likely to be receptive to or at least not likely to disagree with what you have to say.  (See: pg.62) (or who are unlikely to view what you say as bad news) refers to Indirect Strategy (See pg.63). In my mind this is only half true as it makes no mention of getting to the main idea quickly thereby saving reader’s time, learning the purpose upfront and preventing frustration from excessive verbiage. Its still a win-win for me as I fulfilled the weekly blog requirement, made-up the recall grade plus defended my answer. I rest my case!

Active voice means that the subject in the sentence is the doer of the action, thats why the answer was B because the manager completed the performance reviews. A is incorrect because the subject is vague, and there is no clear indication of who completed the customer service blog.

Hello Class

I almost forgot about the blog post.  Last night I read all six pages of blogs from the class, and I have to say I am impressed.  I like all the post, and generally agree with what my classmates think.  I gained more insight from the blog post than I would have imagined when I started.  I am from the southern United States and the diversity is not as vast as it is in this classroom.  I like the diversity that is why I have made Hawaii my home for over twenty years.  I can identify with everyone’s feelings about the class as well as all the assignments. I know I have a tendency to talk a lot, so I will try to keep it short.

I have to do the clog today 09/13/2017.  I would like to say I have enjoyed the class, and the two gentlemen I have the pleasure of being on a team with are doing a great job.  Justin and Colten are well skilled on the keyboard and functions of the technology we will need to get through the assignment.  I am not so fluent when it comes to typing and navigation on Word. It has been pleasant working on the assignments with them, I know I can learn a lot from what they can contribute to the project,I hope I have something of value to offer them as well.

The research assignment we decided on is student aid funding. I think we have narrowed it down to federal student aid funding, we found over a dozen interesting sites on the subject, now we just have to do all the strings and validate the information.

I looked at Cory’s blog and his team seem to have the same general idea that we(the team I am on) have, except we are doing it on a federal level.  I know the class will come up with some interesting information on the subject matter and I look forward to what everyone has to say.

Our group, who is working well together I might add, are doing our research project on student debt. This maybe different than anyone else reading this, and that is one thing I really like about this class. We have been given a good parameters and the freedom to choose what we want our topic to be on, choices that a lot of teachers don’t give. I feel our team really has it together, we each bring something to the table, with different views, and each responsible for their work. So good job guys. Below will be some of our work showcasing our method of research and communication with one another.

I hope this helps anyone in our class who reads these maybe it helps you or your group and maybe we will learn from you as well.

 

English 209 Corey, Brandon, Brittany

Research Exercise 1

 

Search strings generated by our group on accumulated student debt?

• Average student debt after obtaining bachelors degree
• Average cost of tuition for bachelor’s degree
• Debt/income ratio after bachelor’s degree
• Average salaries 5 years after graduation
• Average salaries 10 years after graduation
• Average time to pay off student debt.

 

NOTE: I’m just picking a random general topic to use as an example for class. Can be changed if you guys like. – Brandon

NOTE: This sounds good to me. What or where is our target group? Should we go as wide as the Average of the United States, or narrow like the Average in Hawaii, California, and New York? – Corey

 

Let’s use both local and national search strings. That way, we can see if the info we can find for Hawaii is enough for a whole report. If not, we can use the results from the national ones.

Brandon

 

NOTE: I am lost in the sauce… But I do like all the search strings above. Sorry I haven’t kept up with this. I will do better! & work with you guys tomorrow NOTE: Not sure if you guys will see this in time, but don’t we need an EBSCO search by Wednesday also?

 

• Average student debt after obtaining bachelors degree

Google search:

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&q=Average+student+debt+after+obtaining+bachelors+degree&oq=Average+student+debt+after+obtaining+bachelors+degree&gs_l=psy-ab.3…987.987.0.1090.3.2.0.0.0.0.93.93.1.1.0….0…1.1.64.psy-ab..2.0.0.0.D1fp4jsQEZw

I/We believed that this search result would narrow down our original broad idea of researching student debt to a more digestible and relatable sources. What we noticed, however, is that the results from Google are mostly secondary sources that restate statistics (sometimes without providing their source) without any further information. Also, some websites are requiring payment or a login in order to view the full article. On the plus side, there are some websites listed that provide accurate data and sources; it requires a little scrolling.

 

• Average cost of tuition for bachelor’s degree

Via Google:

https://www.google.com/search?q=average+cost+of+tuition+for+a+bachelor%27s+degree&oq=average+cost+of+tuition+for+a+bachelor%27s+degree&gs_l=psy-ab.12…0.0.0.50123.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0….0…1..64.psy-ab..0.0.0.7muHgOpgQSE

I/We felt this search would be broad, as expected. Upon the search, google brought up sites that were general and majority were organization based. Quite a few of these were not current and dated back to 2012-2013, or were from magazines such as forbes. Hence, I am not certain these would be reliable. One good result I noticed was “fast facts” from https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76 that covers practically all areas that contribute to the determination of average cost of tuition for a bachelor’s degree through statistics, and seems current.

 

• Debt/income ratio after bachelor’s degree

Google search:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Debt%2Fincome+ratio+after+bachelor%27s+degree&oq=Debt%2Fincome+ratio+after+bachelor%27s+degree&gs_l=psy-ab.3…1705.1851.0.1989.2.2.0.0.0.0.100.100.0j1.1.0….0…1.1.64.psy-ab..1.0.0.0.NnMQHtc6088

I/We found that the results of this search are laden with spam websites. Most of the results include financial planning websites as well as websites stating which degrees are the highest paying after college. After viewing the results, we believe that further specification is needed in the results, or we need to use a different search engine such as EBSCO to view peer reviewed documents or other scholarly resources.

 

• Average salaries 5 years after graduation

https://www.google.com/search?ei=czK3Wf-cFc-MjwPK9bJo&q=average+salary+5+years+after+graduation&oq=average+salary+5+years+after+&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.1.2.0l2j0i20k1j0i22i30k1l2.1616631.1659760.0.1660824.62.45.17.4.4.0.467.8068.1j36j5j1j1.44.0..2..0…1.1j4.64.mobile-gws-serp..2.60.7639.3..35i39k1j0i67k1j0i131k1j35i39i70k1j0i10k1j0i13k1j0i13i30k1j0i8i13i30k1.hNBlCfR6HVs

I/We used this string to find a base search on the data we needed. The first search showed a rise in salary of students after they leave college with their bachelor’s degree. A few of the searches yielded data of too narrow of number of bachelor’s programs (10) in total. We are looking for more of an average that has a wider coverage

• Average salaries 10 years after graduation

https://www.google.com/search?ei=3La4WYWMA8aV0gKonq2YCQ&q=average+salary+10+years+after+graduation&oq=average+salary+10+years+after+graduation&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.3..0j0i8i30k1.2977.7414.0.9721.6.6.0.0.0.0.199.728.0j4.4.0….0…1.1j4.64.mobile-gws-serp..2.4.724…0i7i30k1j0i8i7i30k1.rCpDlUN2LUo

I/We found on this search, that the top 3 slots were all from Business Insider. They were as we found on the previous search, that the scope of the data was just too narrow for our group’s direction. Followed by salary calculators and sites that tell you who makes more money than you. We will need to adjust or fine tune our searches to find the most accurate data for our project.

 

• Average time to pay off student debt.

https://www.google.com/search?q=average+time+to+pay+off+student+debt&oq=average+time+to+pay+off+student+debt&gs_l=psy-ab.12…0.0.1.141.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0….0…1..64.psy-ab..0.0.0.qah8ZDO51Ug

I/We used this string to get an idea of the average debt pay off. To our surprise as we began scrolling, there seemed to be a lot of perceivably valuable sites to get current, thorough information for the topic. Generally, there were some spam sites and “news” sites, but there were government based sites that I tend to learn more too as they seem reliable and viable. After reviewing sites, we feel as if something more narrow via EBSCO would serve better.  

 

Research exercise 2

Brandon

1) I believe that the most important topic for our research is student debt. The overall aspects of our research is to determine how much accumulated debt the average student has upon graduating from a four-year college. The reason that this is the most important is because debt sometimes isn’t considered when students select a degree or university they want to attend. For some, money isn’t an issue but to most, it is. I hope that the outcome of our research paper will demonstrate the effects of long-term student loan debt on graduate and non graduates adult lives. By establishing the negative aspects of long-term debt, we will also demonstrate the value of scholarships, grants and other various subsidies available to students.

 

2) Some follow-up research options that we have are to use EBSCO for peer-reviewed articles or academic journals, use Google’s advanced search to specifically look for data from governmental agencies or for PDF’s, search Sallie Mae for state-by-state  data and possibly contact Steven in the financial aid department to see if he has information.

 

Brittany:

1. I feel that the most important topic for our research is also student debt. To be more specific, the amount and amount of time it would take to pay off such debt. As Brandon had mentioned, often times students do not take into account the amount of debt they will possibly be racking up when they choose a degree and university. I’ve taken notice to others who have signed up for college and didn’t realize exactly what they were getting into, and struggled. I know this can cause a strain on well-being, and that is very important in and of itself. I hope our paper will bring even more attention to student’s careful choices.
2. Some options for follow-up research on this topic would be EBSCO, government based websites, and student loan websites. All of these could provide much more accuracy and reliability on the topic.

 

Corey:

1. Our group focus is student debt, I believe the most important role in this is how the students get into that debt. Ranging from the outrageous prices of classes, housing and books, classes being too hard for some, lack of income as well as lack of aid or funding, lack of motivation. It is my hope that this paper will present positive message and clear guide to avoid student debt. Even if that is not the case, I believe that with accurate data and our direction the research will show the rising cost and expectations of the new work world is rising beyond its capabilities, just my thought though.
2. We could as a follow up on our research data, ask or seek out the answer to when college will be or no longer be a benefit for those not seeking x careers. When will the debt ceiling out weight that of not going to college.

 

Our group ( Chad, Spencer and myself) was originally going to research topic #5 Pell Grant for our next assignment on college financing. But then, I thought about changing to research the GI Bill instead as it wasn’t on the list, I really didn’t know much about it and I knew that Chad was a recipient. Spencer seemed okay with our new topic and immediately started his research. I’m glad our group switched because I learned something new that many people are aware of and have utilized benefits from,; but don’t know of the improvements that were made for our servicemen and women and especially for our veterans. How appropriate that we researched this bill today on 9/11/17.

Since there were no specific topics assigned for blogs this week, I decided to comment on Chapter 4. I really appreciate what was covered in the reading  because this is my kind of writing. In English 100 word count mattered and now in English 209 Business Communication Writing Intensive its about getting your message across in positive, simple, and concise sentences. Profiling your audience helps you to taylor your writing to keep their attention and peek their interest. As business emails replace the inter-office memos, content and brevity become assets.