IR Reflection

First Major Assignment Reflection

Overall I think that this assignment went very well. One thing that I can say for sure is that it was very difficult to begin writing the rough draft. This assignment was nothing like any of the papers I have ever written before. I did not know how to format it or even specific details such as what tense to write it in. The major turning point in this paper for me was the conference. I found the conference to be very helpful. Before it I was not sure if I had even done the paper correctly. It was helpful to get a copy of the paper back with your notes and then sit down with you so that you could explain them. I think the time was perfect (not too long and  not too short). I actually did not have an issue with the two person conference either. It was surprisingly useful to hear you talk about two different papers. It had two very different perspectives and gave tips on things that I could add into my paper that I would not have come up with on my own.

The biggest challenge of this paper was by far the formatting for me. I was struggling to determine how I was going to lay the paper out so that it would make sense. I was not sure as to how I was going to introduce and explain the 6 different sources. Another challenge that came with this assignment was distinguishing between academic and  non-academic sources. In my field especially where writing is not the most important skill it was difficult to find a lot of good academic sources. It would have been much easier to write this paper if my field of study was something like psychology. I think In the field of marketing the most important skills are creativity and oral communication. Incorporating the writing aspect of this paper was difficult for me. 

Informational Report Draft 1

Alex Quarella

Informational Report

Professor Paudel

February 3, 2015

The World of Sports Marketing

            In the business world there are many different job opportunities. One can work in finance, accounting, entrepreneurship, marketing, etc. Within each of these disciplines are more specific fields of study. An example of these fields could be Sports Marketing. This is an interesting field that has been on the rise in recent years. It is a very competitive line of business, which requires a certain skill set for success. These skills include: communication, attention to detail, creativity, organization, enthusiasm, and writing. There are a number of different professions that exist within sports marketing but this same basic skill set is required for them all.

            There are a number of different jobs that exist within sports marketing alone. You could be an accountant coordinator, event coordinator, marketing representative, or work in public relations. While researching the vital skills for these different jobs there seemed to be one common occurrence. This was that, one seeking a job in the sports marketing field should be able to write effectively. Brian Clapp highlights the importance of this skill in his article on workinsports.com; he says, “Without writing skills you aren’t a marketer or a communicator” (Clapp, 3). Arguably the biggest aspect of a job in marketing is the ability to effectively advertise and communicate with others. You have to be able to sell your promotions or on a basic level be able to pitch the idea to an employer. This idea that you will not be successful in a business environment without the ability to effectively communicate makes sense when you think about the atmosphere of a marketing workplace. The idea of marketing is convincing somebody else to buy your product for whatever reason necessary. If you cannot effectively communicate this message to your consumers then how could you possibly be a successful marketer? The answer is simple, you can’t. Writing skills are the baseline for other sets of skills such as active reading and verbal communication. It is no surprise that the first thing that employers look for in a marketing field is writing skills, this may come up as early as a job application.

            Brian Murphy, the President of Athletes First Sports agency was interviewed on January 28^, 2015. He was asked about his own views on writing skills in his profession. Mr. Murphy insisted that writing skills are paramount to any other when it comes to his work. His company happens to have it’s own marketing department. This department takes care of player promotions and relations. Most of the endorsement deals for his clients originate in the marketing department at the firm in southern California. One thing you will learn if you want to get into the sports business world is that internships and connections are everything. It is all about who you know. Athletes First takes five to six interns each summer from over five thousand applicants. One of the biggest things that his company takes into account is the cover letter on those applications. Brian said that you can tell right away who is a legitimate candidate by the quality of their cover letter. This is essentially an applicant’s ability to write a strong letter. Dr. Stephanie Heald-Fisher touches on this as well in her article on Globe University. Her article is about writing in the business world and she had this to say, “The inability to write clearly and effectively communicate through the written word significantly impacts your ability to land a new job or promotion” (Heald-Fisher, 1). Again it is evident that you must be able to clearly communicate your thoughts on paper if you want to get ahead or even be considered relevant in business. It is a skill that needs to be practiced so that you can develop yourself into the best writer that you can possibly be.  

If you are an 18 year-old college freshman that struggles with writing and you were hoping to go into a field of Marketing or business you may begin to worry a little. However this is not something you should look at as a defeat, rather it should be an obstacle that you work to overcome. Like all skills practice makes perfect. There are lots of suggested ways to improve one’s writing abilities. You can go to workshops or simply take classes in college that target the improvement of writing. One article by Katherine Hansen suggests that you “take a few creative writing courses early in your college career” (Hansen, 1). Creative writing is beneficial in more than one way, especially if you are considering a job in the field of marketing. Aside from writing, creativity and enthusiasm are two extremely important skills in the Sports Marketing field. One could actually kill two birds with one stone by opting to enroll in a creative writing course. You would be improving your ability to write and your ability to creatively think. Put those two skills together and you have the perfect skill set for an introductory marketing job in any field.

Class Discussion 1/29

Our group spent a lot of time discussing the possible format of this paper. It seems to us that most of the work on this paper would be coming from other people (the interviews and outside sources). We talked about the best possible ways to organize this paper so that it would flow well and fit the credentials for the assignment. It seems that the way you back up information will be very important for this paper. Quotes and quote analysis are going to be essential to writing a strong informational report regardless of the field you are discussing. One possible way to organize the paper would be to introduce the interviews and then consider what you learned from them versus what you learned from the outside sources. It would be interesting to see what similarities and differences appear.

Interview and Source Analysis

Interview Review

I conducted my first interview last night with Brian Murphy. He is not only my Uncle but also the president of Athlete’s First. He is an NFL sport’s agent, which is exactly what I want to do when I get older. I felt he would be perfect for this interview because he is one of the best writers that I know. After speaking with him I learned just how often writing affects his career. First off he said writing was a huge part of getting through law school and this is the first step to getting a career in sports agency. He also write’s and analyzes writing all the time through his contract negotiations. This is not typical writing that is done in an everyday English class. Contracts are formal, legally binding agreements, something that I do not fully understand yet but hope to learn more about. Writing is something that Mr. Murphy uses in other ways as well. He has been published in many high-ranking business magazines including the Sport’s Business Journal. While writing may seem like a skill of minimal importance to a sport’s agent it is a skill that is vital in the long term if you want to be successful in this field.

Other Sources

The information that I found from my other sources were very similar to that of which I learned in my interview. All emphasized the importance of writing in a Sport Management field of work. I never realized how essential these skills would be nor did I realize how often I would use them. Whether it is writing formal reports, or introducing a promotion it is obvious that writing is used in a number of different ways in this field. I read something interesting while researching the Sport Marketing field. The article suggested that those interested in pursuing a career in sport marketing should consider taking a creative writing class in college. It said that a class of this sort would help when writing a proposal for a promotion or other document in your field. This would be useful because the field of Marketing especially in the area of sport requires a lot of creativity and innovation. I believe that my sources are going to be very useful in the drafting of this paper.

Assignment 1 Reflection

The rhetorical situation for this assignment is relatively obvious. The audience, as described in the assignment, is a group of high school students who are interested in your profession. The purpose in this situation is explaining to the young students the details of your profession and why it might be something that they are either interested in pursuing or something that they want to avoid studying. My stance on this assignment is going to be something to do with Marketing since that is what I am studying. I will most likely interview professors from the Sports Administration field as I want to study Marketing with a focus in Sports Marketing.

The Rhetorical Situation

Definition: The rhetorical situation is the context of a rhetorical event that consists of an issue, an audience, and a set of constraints.

5 Basic Components:

1. A Text (instance or piece of communication)
2. An Author (someone who uses communication)
3. An Audience (recipient of communication)
4. Purposes (reasons author and audience communicate)
5. A Setting (time, place, or environment that surrounds a moment of communication)

Rhetorical Analysis Reflection

One of my assignments last year in English 101 was to write a literacy narrative. This narrative was to explain an event in my life and describing how that event affects the way that I read and write. For this assignment I chose to talk about my experiences with a very close friend who passed away from leukemia at the age of 12. The rhetorical situation in this case had a very significant effect on my writing. I had to go into much more detail describing my story. This is something that I usually share with people via verbal conversation and not something that I had ever wrote about before. It was much more difficult to get all of the emotion across while writing this paper. My audience also effected the rhetorical situation. I am from North Kingstown Rhode Island. In my hometown almost everybody is aware of what happened to Payton Watson (the girl who passed away). However I was writing this paper for a college class in Kentucky. Here, nobody is aware of the story or the significant effect that it had on my life. I was forced to try to convey the deepest feelings of hurt and pain to an audience that was not touched by my situation. I found that the easiest way to do this was not to relate it to my specific encounter instead I related my paper to cancer in general. It is safe to say that almost everybody has been touched by cancer in some way during his or her lifetime. I used this to my advantage while writing and tried my best to play on those shared emotions