Writing on writing and speaking, speaking for my speaking and writing

As the end of the semester approaches, with only one final presentation left for Biz Comm, this seems like an especially relevant time to ponder on the recently past trial of FOP/RW double combo.

The report was a relatively simpler piece of work, with my virginity for *pretentious academic writing* being broken last semester with the Ideas & Exposition module. It is evident that prior experience with such writing would have familiarised me with the structure and citation style required, not to mention the tone of writing required. As a result, I probably spent considerably less time writing compared to my peers, and had much more time to refine it into a masterpiece. Clearly though, my refinements are bad, since I couldn't even catch wrongly labelled section references.

Also, my use of "cryptic words", as quoted from the marker, just seems poorly executed in hindsight. My idea of introducing an element of mystery into the paper to pique interest just seems like a clumsy attempt that did not manage to articulate any idea now, and hopefully this can be rectified in future writing attempts.

And now it's time to review the atrocious (slightly) attempt at FOP. The delivery was mostly alright I suppose, with the unnaturalness of my speech largely remedied and mostly an improvement from the GT. Progress that should be celebrated, I suppose. But, that's where the good news stopped.

Again, I tried out something more risky, adopting a story-like approach to the presentation. Sadly, the organisation and structure was lacking as a result of inadequate preparation, and the whole presentation just could not persuade. The recommendation section was especially unclear. Time to go back to fundamentals I suppose, and perhaps if I had tested with a mock audience I could have refined it more too. With that in mind, hopefully FIPD turns out better.

Mirror mirror on the wall, reflect on GT, reflect on it all.

Hello dear readers. Today, the dish served is one of reflection, the bitter, and sweet impressions and thoughts of my GT presentation that occurred only a short while ago. These thoughts were compiled after an initial viewing of my recorded presentation, which has helped me in fully realising how... there exists large, gargantuan amounts of vacuous space that improvements can fill for presentations.

First off, it really is weird watching your own presentations, a surreal objective view of yourself recorded from a foreign eye, in jarring dissonance to the first person view that we are so used to conducting ourselves in. The third person view offers new insights into our conduct, and allows us effective scrutiny of even the smallest gestures that we don't pay attention to in our first person views. With that said however, the gestures we pick up in the videos may not be what we expect, and may be shocking. Certainly, my leaning/slouching posture was unexpected, and my hand gestures seemed restrained in my view. These observations have given rise to much distress, but better early realisation, than denial and stagnation.

My pitch variation was almost rhythmic, another startling realisation that means nothing but bad. It was no wonder then, that Brad found my presentation rehearsed, since it made any true injection of passion and emotion almost impossible, and I myself was inclined to feel that way.

All the critical stuff aside, I'd like to give a special shout-out to my group members for the GT presentation. Sarah, thank you for the beautiful slide formatting it was crucial in making my presentation effective. Annis and Hui Qi, the amount of effort you two put in is truly commendable, and it showed in the improvements to your presentations. The special Q&A session for our GT was a memorable experience, and I appreciate all of you for being such delightful GT mates.

Report Writing: Sketchy Business

With the report writing assignment close at hand, here's a post on the current version of my established outline of discussion.

First though, is the context for the report: NUS is concerned about faculty and student relationship extending into the social media platform in particular, Facebook. Administration is currently deliberating on a University wide guideline for teachers befriending students (and vice versa) on Facebook and would like more information in this area. (Yes this was cntrl c+v-ed)


With that out of the way, let us proceed into the outline itself, starting with the PPQ.
Problem: Teacher-student interaction on social media (especially Facebook), presents complex consequences.

Purpose: To develop guidelines for teacher-student interaction on social media (especially Facebook) based on the nature of these consequences

Questions:

1. How relevant (e.g. based on frequency of usage) is student-teacher interaction on social media to student-teacher relationships?
2. What are the consequences of student-teacher interaction on social media?
3. According to the consequences, what guidelines should be formed to govern student-teacher interaction on social media?


From that simple PPQ, here's the rough outline of my eventual report that I've constructed (and will hopefully be good enough for me to follow). 

1. Cover Page

2. Content Page


3. Executive Summary
-A short write-up to summarise the key points from the previous sections: a condensed report for all you lazy executives out there

4. Introduction
-The first section of any report, providing the PPQ, and a brief overview of the issues to be discussed subsequently.

5. Findings
-Showcase relevant findings that back up my cause, to provide a solid foundation for the 2 subsequent sections to come

6. Conclusions (or as I like to refer to it, Evaluation)
-As the name suggests, evaluation of the findings takes place here. Providing reasons for the data, and the section where the answers to key questions 1-3 should surface.

7. Recommendations
-Exclusively made to address question 4, and also the entire purpose of the report: to provide guidelines for teacher-student interaction on social media.

8. Overall Conclusion
-Revisiting the PPQ, Highlight the key findings, evaluation, and recommendations, all to end off for a highly persuasive call to action

9. List of references to hit the last single digit number 9

Intercultural communication: Whose fault was it again?

In an established multi-cultural society like Singapore, botches of intercultural communication to epic proportions would be a rare spectacle indeed. Hence, for this post, I would like to invite you, my dear readers, on a journey of spectacular failure, to Germany.

First though, some background information. In the city of Cologne, Germany, a fierce competition between several top League of Legends teams from around the world had just concluded. (League of Legends is only the biggest electronic-sport currently, also commonly known as "just another video game" to the less informed.)

In the aftermath of the intense virtual bloodshed, one Korean team stood victorious. (Koreans winning video game competitions? Who would have thought!)

Of course, these victors were invited onto the event stage for their victory ceremony, where a big paper cheque is presented to them, and photos are taken to capture their glorious victorious moment forever. The champions for the night were requested to do a superman pose for the cameras, and this happened:

 
Ladies and gentlemen, you may notice a resemblance of their poses to a certain individual, namely Adolf Hitler, of World War II fame, and made in Germany no less!

Naturally, there was massive media backlash, and the team captain involved had since made a video apology trying to clear the arising misunderstandings. Presumably, the "Sieg Heil" pose was unintentional, but a completely unrelated victory pose only visually reminiscent of the now infamous gesture. Regarding the whole incident however, could it be that although these Korean champions lacked cultural awareness by engaging in their obviously provocative poses, the Germans (and internet) were also being hypersensitive, especially given that no sane man would want to relate themselves to Adolf Hitler?

Applying this more generally: would there be a point where cultural sensitivity becomes hypersensitivity and it is no longer reasonable to fault the offending party for infringing on hypersensitive cultural territory? If so, where would it lie and what should be done then, to ease the touchy hypersensitivity?