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Designing your life with clarity means you are clear about your choices, how they affect you and others. A simple way of putting purpose and clarity into your life that allows you to drive the choices you make is by creating a Mission Statement and/or Vision Statement.
Introduction to Analytical & Problem Solving
Understanding what constitutes good analytical skills that you can apply to your projects at work, career, and personal development is what this piece is all about. After gathering research, while trying to limit redundant information, it was my hope to collect a comprehensive outline of what you can do to learn and/or give you a resource to increase or maximize what you already know about analytical skills.
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For some, speaking in front of a group comes easy; for others, it is a challenge; and for others still, it is all out dread and fear. I think I fall between the “challenge” and “dread” classification. I have on occasion had to speak in front of a group of people. Not necessarily a formal speech, but nevertheless participate my input on the development or details of a project. I did give a speech back in college for a communications course that consisted of full-blown preparation. Even injecting myself in conversation in a social surrounding where I don’t know anybody conjures up feelings of insecurity. My heart starts pounding (like I am on the verge of a heart attack) and the onset of sweating (only a cool room will assist my appearance of looking flush and in the state of a fever).
The ability to communicate effectively is a valuable skill. One that requires continual development, practice, and assessment. There are two types of communication environments: Speeches, where you and your information are the focus; and social communication, where you are interacting and participating in an equal exchange of information and dialogue. Both extremely valuable, but very different skills are brought in.
Over the years, I have become better at mingling and socializing. Moving and living in various states across the US over the past 20 years has forced me to put myself out there, present an approachable personality, and have genuine and sincere interest in different personalities and cultures. Being thrown into the situation of having to learn “trial by fire” is not my favorite technique, but ultimately that is how you learn. By actually doing it.
How often do we get a chance to give a speech or presentation? Is this a skill that really needs to be developed? If I don’t need it for my job, why would I seek out training and learning opportunities for giving speeches? Well, here are a couple of reasons I can give you:
1. It boosts self-confidence;
2. It teaches you research and organization skills;
3. You learn social and skills of interaction;
4. You learn to “face your fears” by doing something that is out of your comfort zone and/or completely unknown virgin territory. Putting yourself at the mercy of scrutiny and criticism;
5. You increase your vocabulary knowledge and usage and express your communication more creatively;
6. You become aware of your body signals and what other people read from you that you, formerly, were not even aware of. This includes breaking certain body language behaviors that either send a mixed signal or turn your listener off.
7. You learn how to communicate in a way that makes your message interesting and your listener wants to hear what you have to say.
Toastmasters offers some great information and it costs you nothing. If you are interested in learning more about public speaking; tips and techniques; and even participating in a group that cultivates, mentors, and actual speech participation, Toastmasters is a great opportunity to receive continuous learning opportunities. It is not an expensive one- or three-day seminar that will set you back a couple grand. It is an opportunity to develop a network of like-minded people who seek personal self-development and desire to give back what they learn to others.
Some interesting links you will want to grab are the following:
This link gives you 10 Tips for Public Speaking.
This link gives you 10 Biggest Public Speaking Mistakes.
This link will give you access to the Toastmasters magazine in its entirety in PDF. You won’t have free access to the most current issue, but you can download prior magazines for each month in the years 2007 through the prior month of the most current issue. So, really, you are only one month behind. (I have to admit, I don’t always get to my magazines in the month of its publish.)
I have attended a Toastmasters a couple of times in the past. So, yes, I have to muster up the “courage” to find one that I like, that is local for me, and just “do it!”
Is there anyone who is involved with Toastmasters? What is your experience? Is there other programs or groups you would suggest in learning communication development skills? Share what you know here with us so we can learn from you! I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Do you find yourself debating whether to use singular possessive or plural possessive in your writing? This was my challenge this past week when helping a colleague figure out where to put her apostrophes or whether she even needed to use the apostrophe at all.
1. Determine True Possessive and Descriptive Possessive.
Possessive = whose
the employee’s personnel file
California’s laws
the Tinsleys’ residence
Descriptive = what kind of
the employee personnel file
California laws
the Tinsley residence
They are both correct, but keep it consistent in the document you are writing. Also, names of countries, governmental units, and organized groups ending in ”s” usually do not require an apostrophe.
2. Add an Apostrophe “s” to Form the Possessive of Singular Nouns Not Ending in “s” and For Plural Nouns Not Ending in “s.”
Linda’s condo
The dog’s bark
The woman’s voice
The women’s voices
3. Add Only an Apostrophe to Form the Possessive Both Singular and Plural Nouns ending in “s.”
Jess’ class
Sears’ blowout sale
the boss’ directives
Some writers prefer to add both an apostrophe “s,” especially if the new word has an extra syllable.
Jess’s class
the boss’s directives
the actress’s screen debut
This practice of using the additional “s” is declining.
4. Use Only a Single Apostrophe “s” when Joint Possession is Intended.
Layne and Lynda’s music
Clarify if the item is not owned jointly.
Layne’s and Lynda’s music
or
Layne’s music and Lynda’s music
5. Add an Apostrophe “s” to the End of Personal and Organizational Names and Abbreviations Showing Possession.
Borders’ hiring procedure
SMUD’s payment policy
Yale’s orientation
Check the letterhead or other correspondence for exceptional cases.
6. Some Possessives Occur Without a Following Noun.
My job is similar to Lynda’s.
She was at the dentist’s.
7. Use a Possessive to Modify an “ing” for of a Verb Used as a Noun.
Lynda’s speaking skills are a little rusty.
I appreciate my colleague’s writing skills.
I suggested to my colleague, to make it easier to figure out whether to use the singular or plural use, to insert her own name in determining whether to put the apostrophe before or after the “s.” It helps, but remembering that the singular use indicates one and the plural use indicates more than one is what you want to make clear.
Simply put, singular and plural indicates whether it is one or more and possessive indicates ownership or, in other cases, other close relationships.
What tips and ideas do you have that helps your writing? English is definitely one of the more difficult languages and we have so many rules, as well as exceptions. Sometimes it is tough to figure out what rules to apply. It is also a fun language to get creative with your writing as well. With practice, you will get better and the more curious you will get about learning writing structure and technique. Let me know how you are doing with that.
With great affection,
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I just finished reading an article about whether or not blog comments are essential to a site, such as this, or not. The biggest issue that comes up from having a comment section on a site has to do with controlling spam, self-advertising, and just random crap. I take a couple of precautions for this. One is that I moderate comments seeing that it reflects what is written, as well as information that contributes to others using a plugin called Diques Comment System. I also use the WP-SpamFree plugin. I have found these two tools to be very helpful in managing the degree of random comments and allows me to focus on the quality comments. It is an extra step, but it also allows me to stay on track and respond in a timely manner.
I don’t plan to discontinue them at this time because I believe there is more than one point of view. This allows others with similar experience in what I write about to contribute or an alternative way of doing the same task. It also allows a person to disagree and detail why, an alternative point of view. I use Feed Reader to manage quite a few blogs that I like to keep up with that provides me lots of ideas and suggestions, and some purely for entertainment. Personally, I find the comments entertaining and informative.
It could be viewed as self-aggrandizing that is if you are merely looking for a “pat on the back.” I appreciate the comments for two reasons, the opportunity for someone to give their feedback and the opportunity for others to provide their experience and suggestions. Personally, I comment on someone’s blog when I feel I have something of value to contribute. Many times, as I generally read through my Feed Reader, I don’t get to view the comments, but can quickly read through the articles. I will click on the article link if I am interested in what comments others have made or would like to contribute a comment myself.
At this point, I don’t believe that a comment section is a “make or break” option for a website. However, I believe it is the quality of the content that dictates a websites traffic. If you provide quality content that is written well, your followers will come. I must admit that I don’t believe I get that much commenting. I don’t know if that is good or bad, but do find my website traffic increasing over time. This I track with both a Google Analytics plugin and FeedBurner. If people find your information interesting, they will keep coming back and will refer others who may enjoy it as well. As you will see on my sidebar, I share many of my favorites to you as I love sharing really great things, opportunities, and ideas. As if you couldn’t tell by the information that I write on here to share.
I would love to know your view on comments, whether you use them or not, and your personal experience with them. So feel free to share your experience on both the commenting and the moderating sides of commenting.
Writing is an art. It’s about providing information that is, not only informative, easy on the eyes, with the reader’s perspective as the objective. In reviewing written material, I come across the same issues over and over, and they are easy to overcome. Here are my observations and suggestions.
1. Use lists.
Lists break up thoughts and allow each item to “pop.” When used throughout a paragraph, it can make the paragraph long and cumbersome and the likelihood of passing over information can happen when reviewing later. A great example is writing about a process. It is easier for the eyes to follow down a list and make sure that a process in the series isn’t missed. Kind of like a checklist. Use a numbered list when it is important to follow a series of steps to a specific procedure. Use a bulleted list when the order in which you do things is not important.
2. Use heading formats, bold, and italics.
These will delineate thoughts and ideas, create sections of information, and allow certain words to stand out. Published works should always be italicized. Bolding is great for headers to divide sections, and also to make a word more emphatic for understanding, without using all caps and come across like yelling. Such as, “It is not required to include attachments or documents to your submission.”
3. In memos, letters, and reports, use full-justified paragraphs.
The page flows better and visually appears less choppy; your lists and headers pop more, and the page actually appears cleaner and more organized.
4. Clean up your commas.
I regularly see works where the commas are random. Commas are actually pretty easy if you have some guidelines and are the worst offenders in written material.
- Use in a series. When listing three or more things, put a comma after each one. Such as, “Chicken, fish, and salad are healthy choices.” When you say, “Chicken, fish and salad are healthy choices,” the fish and salad appear to go together. I will also see within the same document the comma used before the last item and not used in the last item in other sections of the document. I will comment about consistency in a little bit.
- Always put your comma inside the quotes. No explanation necessary here.
- When using sets of series, be sure to use a semi-colon. For example, “I have lived in Cleveland, Ohio; St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota; San Francisco and Sacramento, California; Atlanta, Georgia; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Austin, Texas.” This clearly breaks up each one, defines each section, and eliminates confusion.
- Use commas for introductory thoughts or phrases. Such as, “such as,” “also,” “however,” “in reviewing….” Introductory clauses set up the sentence that is coming. Also, make sure that the sentence following can stand on its own and makes complete sense without the introductory sentence. Use a semi-colon or a period when both sentences each stand on their own and make sense.
5. Use em dashes when appropriate.
The only time you use one dash is in a hyphenated word, it is a hypen. Use an em dash when reinforcing a thought. Also put a space between the words on each side of the em dash so it does not appear as a long hyphenation. In Word, and most other programs, all you have to do is type two hyphens and when you hit the space bar it will automatically convert to an em dash.
6. Us the active voice when possible.
I discussed the active voice in a prior article, which you can access here. The active voice is just that, stronger and active.
7. Consistency.
Use consistency in your formatting, headers, footers, and overall look. Otherwise the piece will look unorganized and reduce the flow of clarity and readability. It creates a work that appears well-thought, organized, and professional.
These are just some very simple suggestions to the most common errors I come across. It is all in the presentation to the reader. If it is difficult to read, understand, or follow, your reader will move on. It’s all about presentation to keep the reader engaged and to clearly assist the reader in understanding the point you are trying to get across.
Please let me know your thoughts and ideas on best presenting written works. Also, what common mistakes do you come across? Also, if you like what you read here, pass this information on to your fellow professionals who could use little tips like this. And, thank you for coming by my little website.
This is a referral post. More self-improvement for your writing.
One of the many things I do for work is review memos, reports, presentations, really anything that must form a coherent sentence and structure a thought. A big misunderstanding is the use of commas. Sometimes the rules may be flexible, but the idea is to be consistent. For example, using commas in a series. If you use it to separate every item, then make sure you use that style throughout. I prefer using the comma to separate every item because there are times when some things go together and the comma ensures that each thing is distinct in being presented. Just my preference.
I am attaching the link here for you to get some insight into the use and misuse of the comma. I couldn’t have put it better.
http://www.dumblittleman.com/2009/10/dumblittleman-guide-to-comma-use.html
Add Your Image to Your Comments
You can add your image to your comments and when contributing to forums wherever you go with Gravatar. It is recognized globally and free, easy to use and adds a little “pop.”
Just view the video below and visit the website to set yours up here.
Leave your personalized stamp wherever you go and make it easier for people to know its you every time you participate. I can’t wait to see you out there!