Thoughts

I am a college kid at Norther Arizona University. I am doing this blog for my English class. This blog shares my findings for how to write in the public relations career path. I share my hypothesizes, my research as I went, and lastly my conclusion.

Conclusion

My conclusion from this project is that I learned about not only english but more about my future career tactics. Many of my hypothesis guesses were wrong as I found out from my research. My first hypothesis thought that public relations was someone contacting the public as well as other companies on the behalf of the company they work for. This hypothesis was true. My job does entail all of those aspects. My second hypothesis stated the types of writing in my field would be tweets, blogs, and emails. This one again I was correct on. I knew they did those three but I was surprised by how many other types of writing there were. The citation format for public relations is AP but while doing online research I have come to the conclusion that AP does not cover all types of citation but APA is commonly the fallback for a citation. The results from my interview with Amy Hitt and my textual analysis had both similarities and differences. One difference is when Amy stated that she does use many text effects while in the article I read it had not a trace of text effects. One similarity is that both Amy and Jonathan used a strong sense of rhetoric. Both of them used all three ethos, logos, and pathos in their writing. The most interesting part of this project was interviewing Amy Hitt, my public relations professor. She was able to answer all of questions with not just one answer but many making it easier to write about the interview. The most important lesson she taught me was to stay up to date with technology because soon enough it will all be done over the internet. She said we have to learn how to connect with others and many ways over the computer. I can use this information i learned from this project by using AP style as much as I can to make sure I get good at that style. 

Writing in my field

For this blog post I am going to examine a piece of writing in my field which is public relations. The title of the article is SeaWorld hires Joel Manby as its new CEO by Jonathan Horn. "He has a masters from USC Annenberg School for Communication, and a bachelor's degree in communication from UC Santa Barbara.(San Diego News)" The title of the journal is UT San Diego. I originally found this article on twitter and it had a link to this article . The article explains how the movie Blackfish ruined San Diego's SeaWorld. They appointed a new CEO named Joel Manby hoping to fix this upset. He is already the CEO to multiple large companies so he should know what to do in a situation like this. The article gives examples such as, "The company this month launched a “meet the animals” series of ads, and in the coming weeks will launch another campaign aimed at improving its brand reputation. It’s also spending $300 million to improve the habitats for its killer whales.(SeaWorld Hires New CEO)" and ends it saying SeaWorld is a crucial part of the San Diego Community. This article has logos when Jonathan quotes and adds in exact numbers. It shows pathos at the end when they state that the theme park is a part of the community. Many people grew up with SeaWorld and it is a part of many lives. This article has ethos by being an article in a well known paper as well as having an author that had high degrees in his career. The author, Jonathan, does not use many text effects in his writing. The author uses strong active voice and this style is common as stated by Purdue OWL, "Active voice is used for most non-scientific writing."

1. Joanathan Horn. March 19 2015. SeaWorld Hires New CEO. UT San Diego. Retrieved from http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/mar/19/seaworld-hires-new-ceo-joel-manby-blackfish/

2. April Toadvine, Allen Brizee, Elizabeth Angeli. October 12 2012. Active and Passive Voice. Purdue OWL. Retrieved from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/02/

Interview

I interviewed Amy Hitt for this project. She has a past dealing with public relations and is now teaching public relations at Northern Arizona University. As I said Amy does have a past with public relations; She worked for a man running for congress as his media coordinator, marketing for a television as a news promotor, currently teaches public relations at Northern Arizona University and currently owns a communication business as well. Amy listed the different types of writing one might experience while in the field. Amy Hitt listed the most important first, "News releases, research responses, public relations plans, letters, emails, articles, and social media." One thing I noticed about all of these writing styles are that they all have a target audience. As I stated in my hypothesis that public relations is usually trying to be objective while slightly being persuasive is true. The next question asked about the main characteristics of writing in public relations. Amy shared that they usually write like a journalist or story like but with facts. They use visuals and flowery writing as well. The third question I asked her was, what does good writing in public relations look like. Amy responded with, "associated press style citing, clarity on the target and on the public, and honesty. In my hypothesis I thought this career path used APA instead of AP so my hypothesis was incorrect. Next I asked her who her favorite person is in public relations was. She thought for a second and then said Richard Branson. She then explained how he is not in public relations but the company that he owns, Virgin, has great public relations especially with social media and television. My next question asked what amy's favorite part of public relations was. She enthusiastically answered, "Videos! the shooting and the editing are fun." She then explained how now there are more technological ways to get public announcements out besides writing to newspapers and the enjoys them much more. My follow up question to that was, what is the worst part of public relations. She answered with dealing with complains and AP style. She has a large background with public relations and was a great interview.

Received Mar 20 2015 from https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2337672624/bwmed5bhf6swngauab3w.jpeg

Citations

Public Relations uses AP style when citing in the field. AP style is associated press style. This style is mostly used for journalistic writing but not in all as stated by Purdue Owl, "Although some publications such as the New York Times have developed their own style guidelines, a basic knowledge of AP style is considered essential to those who want to work in print journalism." When originally researched I found that APA was the style for public relations, but in my interview I was enlightened that AP style is more regularity used in this field.  Some principles behind AP style are: consistency, clarity, accuracy, and brevity. Amy Ess explains some of the characteristics of AP style, "AP style requires consistency in spelling, capitalization, puntucation, and terms ranging form sports, business, and now food." Here is how to cite a journal article, book, webpage, movie, and interview with an example under each.

1. Journal Article:
Author. Date Published. Title of the article. Name of the Newspaper. Retrieved from URL.
Joanathan Horn. March 19 2015. SeaWorld Hires New CEO. UT San Diego. Retrieved from http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/mar/19/seaworld-hires-new-ceo-joel-manby-blackfish/

2. Book:
Author. Date. Title. Location:Publisher.
Dell, L., Vacca, R., & Irvin, J.L. (2001). Elements of language. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

3. Webpage:
Author,. Date Published. Title of Article. Title of Publisher. Volume. Retrieved from URL.
Irving, I. & Kuan, X. (2009, August 25). Crime, punishment and poverty in the United States.
     Retrieved http://ideas.repec.org/p/dal/wparch/uspov.html 

4. Movie:
Producer. Director. Date of Publication. Title of Motion Picture. Country of Origin: studio or distributor.
Davidson, F., Davidson, J. (1999). B.F. Skinner: A fresh appraisal. United States: Davidson Films.

5. Interview:
Only given incite citation of interviewee.

Citations:
1. RDC LIBRARY. Feb 13, 2015. APA Citation Style 6th Edition: A. Motion Picture http://rdc.libguides.com/c.php?g=76261&p=493594
2. Joshua M. Paiz, Elizabeth Angeli, Jodi Wagner, Elena Lawrick. Kristen Moore, Michael Anderson, Lars Soderlund, Allen Brizee, Russel Keck. Oct 7 2014 APA Formatting and Style Guide. Purdue OWL.Retrieved from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/11/

Hypothesis

When I research public relations writings I expect public relations practitioners to be tweeting or blogging to their employers public or customer base. They are the companies voice that they talk through to get to the audience. Some types of writing done by public relations practitioners are blogs, tweets, and emails. I do have some practice with tweeting. I have had a twitter since 2009. I have tweeted in the past and I do read tweets as well. They are tweets about my day usually, not what the publics want to read. I also have experience with  blogging. Around four years ago I opened a Tumblr account and blogged on that for the next two years. Today I do not use it as much due to my increased work load in college. I have experience with emails as well. In college the main to contact a professor is through email. Email is also a good way to branch out and make connects in areas that are not close to me. The citation formatting that I would assume is the public relation way is APA. This is because MLA is for science related films and since I switched to a communication major majority of my papers have been APA. The writing in my field is different than writing works I have done in the past. In my field majority of the written word is directed toward someone, not a broad essay. The point of a public relations announcement is to inform the public. So far in my past with writing I have only been informing my teachers of the books they assigned. This type of writing is different then what I am used to because I have to seem objective to a subject while still being persuasive to an extent. I am looking forward to this new challenge.