Facebook – Page 7 – TechCommGeekMom

I’m really excited about this! I’ve been waiting to tell y’all about this, and now I can!

A few months ago, the director of NJIT‘S Master’s of Science in Professional and Technical Communication
(MSPTC) program asked me if I would be willing to do a video about my experiences as an MSPTC student and graduate, and some of the opportunities the program has afforded me. Of course, I was honored that she asked me, and I said yes! So on several particularly hot days in late June and early July, a fellow graduate from the program who works for NJIT’s communications department came down to my hometown and filmed this video.

Yes, that’s really me in the flesh. Yes, those are my own words. I was just asked to talk about certain topics, and nothing is scripted at all (well, it’s scripted from my head, but nothing was memorized). I thought I was stiff during the filming, but my–I admit I’m rather animated! Just imagine what it’s like when I’m up doing a regular presentation! LOL

You can click on the image in this post (a still from the video) or you can click on this link: http://youtu.be/NN_nHOANR7k.

Or, if you’d like me to speak in person–contact me! (See the “About TechCommGeekMom” tab above.) Hey, if I can get some more speaking gigs, that would be good, wouldn’t it?

Let me know how I did in the video! 🙂

Harvard Business Review: I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why.

An English professor friend of mine posted this on Facebook, and it struck a chord with me. While I will never claim to be an expert grammarian (even though I did very well in my Professional and Technical Editing class in grad school), I have to admit I’m a bit of a stickler for good grammar as well. I suppose because some of the basics come so easily to me, I don’t understand why they don’t for others. I’m always surprised to see people who are pursuing Master’s degrees in technical writing have such poor grammar. Okay, not everyone, but a good portion of them. How did they get through high school and college and still not have some of these basics down as described in the article above? I don’t understand that concept. The whole essence of being a technical writer, to me, is being that precise and picky when writing or editing content. If words are not crafted in a particular way, their meanings or messages are lost or misconstrued, and that can be disasterous. I happen to know that the part-time job I have at an academic publishing house was originally gained because I was the only one who actually sent a cover letter that was written in a grammatically correct way.

This article truly speaks to me, and it’s why I try to work very hard at being as detail oriented as I can be, because it’s the difference between getting a job and keeping a job.