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To-Do Lists an Important Part of Being a Better Employee What makes a good employee? Take a look at how the star employee in your office operates. Chances are that they don’t run around in a constant fog of stress and pressure. Good employees are usually calm and conscientious; they seem to always get the job done with a minimum of hair pulling and frantic rushing around. Is it just genes that these people have that allow them to work like this, or are some people just better at managing stress than others? The answer is probably not. If you take a closer look at the star employee in your office, you will are likely to see that they are so stress free and productive because they are good at managing their time. And chances are they manage that time with the help of a to-do list. The to-do list is an often-overlooked part of working life. While they are the kind of thing people expect housewives to carry around with them in their purse while they run errands, many people think they can do without them in the work place. This is a big mistake. Being productive at work is all about being able to carry out your tasks in a timely manner, and being productive at work is also about managing your stress. If you are too stressed out, your work will suffer for it. You will fall behind because you won’t be able to concentrate, and you will make mistakes you might not have made if you were able to take your time with your work. So, how can a to-do list help? To-do lists can do many things for you in your busy working life. For starters, to-do lists remove the problem of having that all important phone call or meetings slip your mind. When you have a to-do list, everything that needs to be accomplished is set out there for you, so there is no more explaining to your boss why you stood up your company’s most important client. With a to-do list, you can also see the bigger picture of everything that needs to be done, so you can plan your time wisely. Working on tasks one after another as they come up is not a smart way to accomplish things at the office. Some jobs are on a tight deadline, while other jobs can stand to wait a little while. When you set everything out for yourself in a to-do list, you will be able to prioritize your tasks in order of importance, so you get the crucial work out of the way first thing, and only move on to less important jobs when you have the time to devote to them. All of this organization will make your working life less stressful. Imagine a typical day without a to-do list. You come in to the office in the morning, you work through all of the email sitting in your inbox, you make a few phone calls, chat with some co-workers in the break room, answer a few more emails, and then bam! All of the sudden, you remember that the presentation your boss needs for the big meeting is due at 2 p.m., and you haven’t even started it. Now you resort to hair pulling and frantic working. Then, you give your boss the presentation over an hour late, and it is filled with mistakes and sloppy work. Now imagine the same day with a to-do list. You get the presentation out of the way first thing, and you have time to check it. Then you can move on to less important tasks without the dark cloud of stress hanging over you. To-do list writing is time well spent if you want to succeed at work.

Being Effective in Your Persuasive Writing (persuasive writing) The goal of persuasive writing is to have the ability to influence or change a persons mind with your words. You encounter these in your normal everyday life. Whether it is a politician trying to convince you to vote for them, a commercial for a company that wants you to buy there product, or from your children trying to explain the reason why they should be allowed to go to that concert, persuasion is all around. You may even use the power of persuasion on yourself, like deciding why or why not you should eat that last piece of pizza or if you really need to buy another white shirt even though it is a really good deal. Everyday you have to decide on whether one choice is better than another and why. To succeed in your persuasive writing venture you need to follow a few simple rules. You must have focus. Decide on what position you are trying to persuade. Are you for or against the topic your writing about? Choose a side and stick with it. Arguing both sides of the fence will be detrimental to your persuasion. There are three techniques that you will need to use to have convincing persuasive writing. Now you need to provide facts and evidence to support your writing. Statistics and examples are used to provide the reason people should choose you position and believe your writings. You can also include facts and evidence that demonstrate why the opposition is wrong. This should be eased into. Remember you are trying to persuade and convince them on why you position is better not offend or alienate them. This is called the logos technique of persuasion writing. Another persuasive writing technique is ethos. This is where you have to prove yourself to be a creditable person. To be able to make your readers believe that they should have confidence in what you are telling them. The best way to prove your credibility is to provide true and undisputable facts, be articulate, and explain why you are capable of proving this information to them. Pathos is the third technique you will use in your writing. This will appeal to the emotions of the readers. This can be the most important technique but also the most critical. It must be used with caution or you can just as easily turn the readers against you as you could bring them with you. Appealing to your readers emotions can be tricky. This must be done subtly To work this effectively you must have the ability to make the reader feel your emotions, the joy, the pain, the hurt whatever the case maybe. You need to pin point your target audience and write to appeal to them. What sounds interesting and persuasive to a teenager most likely will not work with a middle age woman. Whether you are targeting men or women will make a difference in you writings. Identify with your target audience. An example of this would be “only the cool kids will be wearing product XYZ” or “we know as a respectable home owner you will want to…..” By identifying with the intended audience it pulls them into what you are writing and how or why it pertains to them. Persuasive writings can be a challenge. You have to objective and opened minded to other positions of the topic at hand even though sometimes you don’t want too. Remembering you goal is just to persuade them why yours is better. This does not necessarily mean that the opposition is bad or wrong, just that yours is a superior choice.

The Convenience of Online Writing Degree Programs (online writing degree programs) Online writing degree programs are not readily available, but they are growing in popularity. There are many traditional and online schools that offer online degree programs to busy writers. The online degree programs offer courses that teach students the basics of writing, including paragraph structure, theme writing, descriptive writing, tech writing, and grammar. Usually in writing degree programs, writers are given many assignments within one week, which range from analyzing the work of others to composing their own short stories and essays. The courses offered in an online writing degree program are much like the ones offered in traditional programs, and students will begin their program by taking beginner’s courses and eventually work their way up to the more advanced. The beginner’s course teaches the basics of writing, but after taking them, students will be able to take more specific courses, such as creative writing and tech writing. The online programs give students more freedom, but the workload is almost the same and students will have more and more writing assignments as they move further into the degree program. The online writing degree programs offer bachelor degrees as well as masters’ and there are many schools that offer these online programs. Chatham College is one school that offers online writing degree programs. Chatham online is the online division of Chatham College, which offers online masters’ degree programs for writers. The writing degree program offered by Chatham online offer 7-week courses and it has no residency requirement. The programs give students the freedom to study anytime or anywhere an Internet connection is available. Chatham online offers many degree options for its students, including the Master of Professional Writing degree, which gives students training to become technical writers, content developers for the web, advertising copywriters, and public relations specialist. It also offers the Graduate Certificate-Non-fiction Writing. This program gives students the opportunity to use their nonfiction writing skills and focus one subject, which include nature, environmental, or landscape writing. Students are given many writing assignments and attend many online writing workshops where their work is presented and critiqued. Once the program is finished writers will have a portfolio of their work that is of publishable quality. Another unique program is the Graduate Certificate-Writing for Children and Adolescents. The Certificate in Writing for Children and Adolescents provides students the chance to write fiction and nonfiction for children and adolescents. There are also many other colleges that offer online writing degree programs including Burlington College. Burlington College offers a Bachelor of Arts in Writing and Literature through an online program. However, this school does require a four-day residency in Burlington, Vermont at the beginning of each semester. Goddard College is also a school that offers a master’s program online. The college offers a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree through their online program. In this program, students are able to study poetry, fiction writing, creative nonfiction writing, and memoir, play writing, and screen writing. A short residency is also required for the program at Goddard College. The University of Denver is another school that offers online writing degree programs. It offers the Certificate of Advanced Study in Creative Writing. The program includes a range of courses on content and writing processes for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and other areas of writing. There are many other colleges and universities that offer online writing degree programs including Goucher College, Lesley University, University of Central Florida, and Washington State University. Like all degrees, online writing degrees are not simple to obtain, but they can provide convenience and knowledge, which helps them advance as a writer, or develop writing skills to that will help them in the future.