Major Presentation #2 Proposal

Smoking is a big problem on the campus of the University of Iowa. Even though smoking has been banned on all university grounds, it still occurs every day and is almost entirely overlooked. Smoking causes many health problems, even to people who don't smoke. Second-hand smoke is a serious issue and, according to the Center for Disease Control, since 1964 it has caused the death of 2,500,000 people. The primary focus of my presentation will be to try and provide areas for smokers to safely smoke away from the public and those who don't want to be harmed by second-hand smoke, and to have campus police start cracking down on those who do smoke on campus.

IMRaD Mandatory Draft

Patrick Kaufmann
Abstract
This study was conducted in November of 2015 on the campus of the University of Iowa. It researches the question: Do study habits from high school transfer over to college, and, if so, do they impact grades? It references an article by U.S. News that interviewed a former University of Iowa senior as well as the survey conducted in 2015. The article did not discuss specific habits that transfer from high school to college. The 2015 survey asked current first-year students directly admitted to the Tippie College of Business how many hours a week they studied in high school and how many they currently do in college, as well as how far in advance of an exam they studied in high school and how far in advance they do in college, and their high school GPA and anticipated college GPA. Over all the results were to be expected, with students usually studying less than 3 hours per week in high school and only studying for an exam the night before, where as in college, students usually studied 3-5 hours per week and 4-7 days in advance of an exam. This study aims to help future students successfully transition from high school to college.
Introduction
When studying for something, regardless of the topic, difficulty, or level of academic study, certain habits arise. These habits are very specific to the individual studying and encompass all aspects of the way that they study. Aspects such as how far in advance of exams they study, what materials they use to study, how long they study, where they study and many more are very central to how they study. With changes in the difficulty and the scope of the classes being studied for, these aspects may change over time. One big transition for study habits is the transition from high school to college. Do study habits transfer from high school to college and, if so, do they impact overall grade? This study aims to answer this question and in the process help future students transition from high school to college. In a 2013 news article by U.S. News, Catheryn Sloane interviewed a then senior at the University of Iowa, who stated that it was important to develop good study habits in high school in order to succeed in college. This research from 2013 is very similar to the study conducted this year at the University of Iowa, but the numbers may yield different results and the article does not analyze specific study habits of the students.
Methods
 When researching the topic of study habits, the material had to be narrowed down a lot. Not all aspects of studying could be analyzed in one survey. Still, the scope is broad enough to encompass the necessary aspects of studying in both high school and college. The questions asked were about studying in both high school and college, and the individuals’ grade point averages. The questions asked the individuals, in the sense of both high school and college, how far in advance they studied for an exam, how many hours a week they studied, and their GPAs or anticipated GPAs. The survey was conducted online in a multiple choice fashion on first year students at the University of Iowa that were already directly admitted to the Tippie College of Business.
Results
The study found that the majority of high school students, 60% studied 0-3 hours a week, with 60% of those students, or 40% overall, studying less than 1 hour a week. It also found that 70% of students only studied the night before an exam, with the other 30% only studying 2-3 days before an exam. Yet, with these lackluster study habits, 95% of high school students received above a 3.5 GPA, with 40% overall receiving above a 4.0 GPA
When asked about their current college performance, no students studied less than an hour a week, and only 5% studied less than 3 hours per week, a large departure from the 60% that less than 3 hours per week in high school. The most common answer received was 3-5 hours per week, which 50% of students chose. The remaining 45% were pretty evenly distributed between the last three answers, 5-7, 7-10, and more than 10 hours per week.
When asked about their study habits in advance of an exam, half of college students studied 4-7 days before an exam, while 40% studied 2-3 days before, and only 10% still studied the night before the exam, a clear change from the 70% that only studied the night before an exam in high school.
When asked about their anticipated GPAs in college, the majority of the first-year students, 55%, expected to receive a 3.5-4.0 GPA, while 40% expected to receive between a 3.0 and 3.5 GPA, leaving one person that expected to get a 2.5-3.0 GPA their first year of college.
Discussion
The results from this research were largely to be expected. Most high school students did not study more than 3 hours per week, and only 5% studied more than 5 hours per week. Only 30% of students did not study only the night before, while the remaining 70% studied only the night before an exam. The participants’ grades were surprisingly good, but not too surprising considering all the students were directly admitted to the Tippie College of Business, 95% of students received above a 3.5 GPA and 40% overall received above a 4.0 GPA.
In college however, students seemed to work a lot more, and expect a lot less. The median number of hours studied in high school was only 1-3 hours, while in college it was 3-5 hours per week. The most common night to study before an exam in high school was the night before, where as in college, the most common day was approximately 4 days before an exam. The most anticipated GPA for first-year students is between a 3.5 and a 4.0, but 45% of students expected to get below a 3.5, a far cry from the 5% of students that received below a 3.5 in high school.
These results are to be expected. With the increased course load, pressure, and the fact that students have to pay thousands of dollars per year to continue their education, effort in classes has naturally increased. But students appear to expect that their grades will fall, regardless of the increased effort in classes. This could be caused by the idea that all students will get bad grades in college, or that the average GPA falls, which is true, but it should not impact an individual’s expected grade.
 
Citations
Sloane, Cathryn. "Practice College Study Skills During High School." <i>US News</i>. U.S.News &amp; World Report, 14 Oct. 2013. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.

Introduction and Methods

Introduction
When studying for something, regardless of the topic, difficulty, or level of academic study, certain habits arise. These habits are very specific to the individual studying and encompass all aspects of the way that they study. Aspects such as how far in advance of exams they study, what materials they use to study, how long they study, where they study and many more are very central to how effectively they study. With changes in the difficulty and the scope of the classes being studied for, these aspects may change over time. One big transition for study habits is the transition from high school to college. Do study habits transfer from high school to college and, if so, do they impact overall grade? Methods
 When researching the topic of study habits, it had to be narrowed down a lot. Not all aspects of studying could be analyzed in one survey. Still, the scope was broad enough to encompass the necessary aspects of studying in both high school and college. The questions asked were about studying in both high school and college, and the individuals’ grade point averages. The questions asked the individuals, in the sense of both high school and college, how far in advance they studied for an exam, how many hours a week they studied, and their GPAs or anticipated GPAs. The survey was conducted online in a multiple choice fashion on first year students at the University of Iowa that were already directly admitted to the Tippie College of Business.

Survey

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Interview Questions

Topic: Do study habits from high school transfer to college and if so do they have an impact on grades in college?

Q: How many hours a week did you study in high school?
Q: In high school, did you usually study well in advance of exams or cram the night before?
Q: How many hours a week do you study in college?
Q: In college, do you usually study well in advance of exams or cram the night before?
Q: What was your high school GPA?
Q: What do you think your college GPA will be this semester?

Freakonomics and Economists Sell Bagels

When analyzing these two writings I noticed there are many similarities, and many differences between the two pieces. Both analyze similar ideas and have similar content, but the way they go about presenting this is very different. "Freakonomics" seems to be a narration, where as "Economists Sell Bagels" is structured in more of a reporting format. These pieces are both very similar, and very different.

Research Questions

Question 1: Do study habits from high school transfer over to college?

Research: I will poll 20-30 first-year students at the university and ask them how many hours a week they studied in high school, what materials they used, if they studied well in advance of exams or crammed the night before, etc., and if they still had these habits in college.

Question 2: Does working out regularly help grades in college?

Research: I will ask 20-30 students at the university how regularly they work out, how long they work out, if they do cardio or weight lifting and, anonymously, their GPA's.

Speech Outline

Introduction

1. Greeting: For my analysis I chose a local called Coca-Cola. Coke is a cola-flavored soda-making company was founded in 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia.
2. Thesis Statement: By making it seem like drinking Coke signifies happiness, Coca-Cola heavily relies on the use of the pathos element of rhetoric. 
3. Overview: I am going to describe the company briefly, introduce my chosen advertisements, the banner advertisement and the polar bears video advertisement, and state my thesis last, at the end of the introduction.

Body of Presentation

1. Transition: All of their ads seem to focus on the pathos element of rhetoric. Their ads are always up-beat, and make it seem like drinking coke will make people happy.
2. Banner Advertisement: One of the advertisements that I plan to analyse is an online banner style ad. The ad has a red background and says "Good things come in fours" in white lettering. To the left of this are four bottles of different types of Coca-Cola available. In the bottom right is their new logo that states "Choose happiness" next to it. This is a very obvious use of the pathos element.
3. Video Advertisement: (Show video) As you can see, the main polar bear is clearly disgruntled by the football game he is watching. He glances outside and sees other polar bears drinking Coca-Cola and enjoying themselves, and gets a bottle tossed to him. He tips it around repeatedly and runs into all the other bears. After this whole ordeal he catches the bottle and looks around and back at his friend, and he is finally happy. A bottle and the phrase "open happiness" are superimposed on the screen, furthering the obvious use of the pathos element.
4. Outside Source: I will be using an online article by Marketing Week written about the banner advertisement. It discusses the advertisement and the new direction it takes the company's advertising strategy. 

Conclusion:

1. Both the banner advertisement, and the video advertisement, rely heavily on the pathos element of rhetoric.
2. By making it seem like drinking Coke signifies happiness, Coca-Cola heavily relies on the use of the pathos element of rhetoric.
3. Thank you for your time and now I will let you decide if drinking Coca-Cola really makes you happier. (Hand out bottles of Coca-Cola) 

Speech Proposal

The company I've chosen to analyse is Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is a company that started in 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia and makes cola-flavored soda. During World War Two, they got a contract from the U.S. government to supply soda to the troops. They found that it would be cheaper to create bottling factories all over the world and just ship the syrup to make it with to the factories. This is what caused the company to grow to an international conglomerate.

I chose to analyse Coca-Cola because they have a great history of creating very iconic, effective advertisements. All of their ads seem to focus on the pathos element of rhetoric. Their ads are always up-beat, and make it seem like drinking coke will make people happy. One of the advertisements that I plan to analyse is an online banner style ad. The ad has a red background and says "Good things come in fours" in white lettering. To the left of this are four bottles of different types of Coca-Cola available. In the bottom right is their new logo that states "Choose happiness" next to it. This is a very obvious use of the pathos element.

An outside source I will be using is an online article by Marketing Week specifically about this new advertisement. I will be utilizing this advertisement, and one of the iconic polar bear commercials shown at the Super Bowl, as visual aids in my speech to help show the Pathos element of their advertisements.

Major Speech #1 Assignment

I chose to analyse a print advertisement by Coca-Cola. The advertisement says in a clear white font over a red backdrop "Good things come in fours." To the left of this are four bottles of Coca-Cola, one original Coca-Cola, one Coca-Cola Life, their new lower calorie soda, one Coca-Cola Zero, and one Diet Coke. These bottles are shown with a little condensation on them to seem refreshing and cold. The bottles' contents are shown sloshing to to the left of right to make it seem like they were just set down hard. There is also Coca-Cola's new "choose happiness" logo in the bottom right of the advertisement. This advertisement is a departure from Coca-Cola's advertisements of last year showing individualization. Now they only have four options to choose from, but they still believe there is a type of Coca-Cola for every consumer in the market.

Conference Feedback

I felt that the conferences were very useful. I didn't even realize that my mandatory draft had comments on it until i had my conference. In the conference I got extra feedback on my paper that i couldn't have gotten though the comments posted on my paper. I found that I need to make a list of points about the rhetorical situations in both academic and non-academic writings in corporate finance. I wouldn't have known this if I didn't attend the conference. Although the conferences were useful, I believe they could have been even more useful if they were thirty minutes long in stead of just fifteen. We ran a little long on my conference and I think a little more feedback could have helped my paper even more. Also, in the peer review, instead of twenty questions, make it just five main points of interest that need to be checked. I felt I was reanalyzing the same areas multiple times. In conclusion, keep both the conferences and comments on the paper, but make the conferences a little longer, and shorten the peer review questions to only about five questions.

Informational Report Mandatory Draft

Introduction

Writing in the field of corporate finance is a lot more common than many people choose to acknowledge. It is the basis of all communication in the field. While there is a lot of face-to-face verbal communication in this field, concrete, writing is necessary to fully and accurately communicate information that can be easily referenced and utilized whenever necessary in the world of business. There are many formats of writing within the field, both academic and non-academic. These formats of writing encompass almost all forms of communication in the field of corporate finance.

Non-Academic Writing

 The writings in this field, at least in the non-academic sense, are always very concise, accurate and to the point. There is no room for error or unnecessary information in the field of corporate finance. Everything that should be revealed to the audience will be included, and any information unnecessary to the task at hand will be left out. This is the core principal to all writing in business, however, there are many different formats and types of writing that are used, such as memos, proposals, periodical reports, budgets, etc.

Memorandums, or memos as they are commonly referred to as, are short written messages commonly used in the business world sent from one employee to other employees. They are extremely versatile and general. They can cover any subject or topic and they are the basis of all formal and semiformal communications in corporate finance. While memos are generally rather broad in subject matter they can be very specific as well.

Proposals are used in corporate finance to present a new thought or idea to members of the department. They are rather specific, formal and very official looking. A new idea can be submitted to other employees as a memo, if it is less formal and meant as a casual reminder. But if a message needs to be taken seriously and is meant to be an official idea for action to be taken upon, it must be submitted as a proposal.

Periodical reports are formal statements submitted usually every quarter, month, or week. They are meant as a status report, showing the performance of the company since the past period. They are extremely formal in their structure and diction and usually have certain criteria covered in all periodical reports, such as earnings, losses, future goals, etc. They are only submitted after every specific period and are meant to report on the status of the company.

Budgets are pretty straight forward. A budget dictates where any and all funds used are going. They are usually submitted every quarter but may be monthly. Budgets usually contain explanations of where the funds therein are allocated and why they are being allocated to that project.

When writing any of these commonly used formats of communication in corporate finance, it is important to stick with the main concepts of the writing in the field. The writing in corporate finance is always clear, concise, always deals with hard, proven facts, and is never inaccurate. In a recent interview with Blake, a graduate student studying corporate finance at the University of Iowa, these concepts were very apparent. Blake said, “The writing is very concise, it only sticks to facts and necessary details. There’s no room for opinions in corporate finance. It’s imperative that the idea is presented quickly and clearly.” Clearly these concepts are central to the writing in corporate finance.

Writing is also the most common form of communication in corporate finance. Blake explains it perfectly, “Even when information is communicated in face-to-face discussions between employees, everyone asks for it to be sent in an email anyway. Talking is great, but at the end of the day, no one is going to be presenting ideas to others using information that was communicated verbally. Everyone wants written communications that they can reference and cite when necessary.” Nobody in the field corporate finance would go into a presentation without being sure that they have the correct information, and tangible evidence to support their claims.

Academic Writing

Academic writings are very different from the aforementioned non-academic writings. Academic writings in the field of corporate finance are very similar to academic writings in other disciplines within the business sector. These writings are professional and very informational, containing graphs, figures, formulas and advanced principles, not usually comprehensive to those outside the field. These articles are very complex and fast-paced in their stance.

Academic writings are formatted much different from non-academic writings in the field. The structure is very professional, often employing a two column format. The two column format will usually contain a narrative of information on the right side and citation, background information or a continuation of the narrative on the left. There is no title page on academic writings in corporate finance, but there is a centered title at the top of the first page. Below the title in a smaller font aligned to the left is the author, or authors, that wrote the piece and their credentials and affiliations. Following that is the abstract. An abstract is a short summary of the information featured in the piece and should contain all points discussed in the writing. Some authors may not utilize an abstract and may skip directly to the introduction, jumping straight into the piece instead of providing an overview for the reader. Abstracts are very useful to readers because instead of having to read a great deal of the piece to encounter much of the information contained in the writing, they can just read a short summary of the piece in the abstract. All academic corporate finance writings will be concluded with a list of the references used in the piece, still in two column format.

Conclusion

Writing in the field of corporate finance is very professional in content matter, stance, and diction. In the non-academic sense, ranging from most casual to most formal formats of writing, there are memos, proposals, periodical reports, and budgets. In the academic sense the writing is very strict in format and contains many complex formulas, graphs, and figures, all trying to argue a point, or points, stated in the abstract. Writing in both academic and non-academic senses must be clear, concise, accurate, and very formal.

Sources

Whittaker, C. (2002). The UK Financial Sector's Place in the Critical National Infrastructure. Information Security Technical Report, 7, 65-74. Retrieved September 15, 2015.

Hu, W., Lai, M., & Huang, H. (2009). Rating the relative efficiency of financial holding companies in an emerging economy: A multiple DEA approach. Expert Systems with Applications, 5592-5599. Retrieved September 15, 2015.

Alles, M., & Piechocki, M. (2012). Will XBRL improve corporate governance? International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, 91-108. Retrieved September 15, 2015.

Source Summary

The academic sources I will be using in this paper are:

1. "The UK Financial Sector's Place in the Critical National Infrastructure," by Colin Whittaker
2. "Rating the Relative Efficiency of Financial Holding Companies in an Emerging Economy: A Multiple DEA Approach," by Wen-Chuan Hu, Mei-Chi Lai, and Hao-Chen Huang
3. "Will XBRL improve corporate governance? A framework for enhancing governance decisions making using interactive data," by Michael Alles and Maciej Piechocki

These sources were very informational in their structure, tone, genre, audience, stance, and emotion. There are a lot of charts, graphs, equations, and other materials not usually seen or discussed in everyday life. these writings are very straight forward and to the point, but also other very accurate and useful information.

Interview Summary

I did my interview with a guy named Blake, a graduate student at the University of Iowa studying corporate finance. He gave me great information that I believe will be imperative to the success of my paper. Blake said that what is most important in the field of corporate finance is to get idea across quickly and clearly, without changing the information you are communicating. He said that the most common genre would be non-fiction, because of all the memos, proposals, periodical reports, monthly budgets, plans and summaries often used in corporate finance. According to Blake, the culture of corporate finance is fast paced, constantly moving and constantly changing, and its a lot more formal than other departments in business, such as marketing. The main skill that makes someone an effective writer in corporate finance is communication. Being able to effectively express an idea quickly and clearly to someone, without context or background, and knowing how to explain numbers and other statistics is very important in the field. The audiences most written to in corporate finance are senior members, shareholders, and peers, both in the department, and those outside the department. Much of the communication in corporate finance is written. Face-to-face talking is important, but to communicate different numbers and information effectively it must be written. Blake gave me a lot of information to work on and I will definitely be incorporating much his interview into my essay.

Quotation Exercise Sample

1. B: This passage had a good introduction, solid quote and a nice explanation, but the introduction to the quote doesn't really flow well
2. A: This sample has good analysis, but the quotes are too short and there's too many.
3. C: This has a solid introduction, but the quotes don't flow well and there's no analysis.
4. D: This is the worst passage in my opinion. It has a good introduction, but the quotations and analysis are short. 

APA Citation

Ellis, B. E. (1991). American pycho: A novel. New York: Vintage Books.

Rosenblatt, L. M. (1968). Literature as exploration.

Major Assignment 1

This assignment is a review of the rhetorical aspects of the business world. I will be interviewing a graduate student at the university and using at least six other sources. At least three of those sources will be academic, and at least three of them will be non-academic. I will focus my writing on the diction and type of writing typically used in the business world, specifically finance. I must make sure to keep my stance and writing interesting and lively, because my audience is high school kids interested in the business world, and everyone knows that high school kids have a relatively short attention span.

Welcome to the blog for this course. I will be posting to this account.