Rebecca Lilienfeld

Submission Date: 22 February 2019

Communication for Project Managers: ENCE424
Professor Webster-Trotman
Introduction
Reflecting back on the past three weeks in this course, I have started to take a look at the
way I hold myself when talking to others and when I’m with a group of people. When I took
Oral Communications my sophomore year of college, it was the first time I learned about
techniques and concepts involved with public speaking. Now, a senior in Communication for
Project Managers, I’ve already noticed my abilities start to grow. I plan to work for a general
contracting and project management company upon graduation, so I’m taking advantage of each
lesson and concept taught in this class. It’s important that I try to acquire as much knowledge and
practice that I can in order to become a successful project manager within my company and
future career for many years to come.
Three Reading Concepts
Throughout the five separate readings in the past few weeks, there have been a variety of
concepts I’ve learned that have really stuck out to me. Reading a concept only does so much, so
I’ve been trying to apply them slowly to my everyday life. The first concept I read about was
intonation. In A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking, Chapter 17 focuses on a person’s voice during
delivery. There are multiple factors that fall under this category, such as adjusting your speaking
volume, varying your intonation, adjusting your speaking rate, using strategic pauses, and
articulating words. Often times when I’m speaking to a group or giving a speech in class, I’ve
been told that I end my sentences sounding like I’m asking a question. My pitch would increase
towards the end of a phrase I was saying, making my delivery confuse my audience. When I read
about intonation, which is the rising and falling of sound across phrases and sentences, I realized
this was where my public speaking fell short (Pocket Guide, 130-131). After learning about the
concept of intonation, I have started to apply it when I speak in front of my sorority at our
weekly chapter meetings. The second concept that stood out to me was the use of rhetoric, also
found in A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking. Ethos, logos, and pathos are the three classical
persuasive appeals described in the text. Ethos is used to stress your credibility, because an
audience’s perceptions of a speaker heavily influences how receptive they will be to a proposal.
Logos is mainly used to appeal to an audience’s rational thinking through logical reasoning.
Using evidence and reasoning in a speech when trying to persuade and audience is where logos
is highly useful. Lastly, pathos is used to appeal to an audience’s emotion. I believe this
persuasive appeal is the most power when I’m listening to someone speak rather than ethos or
logos. Pathos is the most creative use of persuasion because a speaker can evoke emotion
through anecdotes, imagery, etcetera (Pocket Guide, 169-171). When doing my Introductory
Speech, I’ll be applying the persuasive appeals to strengthen my credibility as a potential job
candidate. Finally, the third concept from the readings I was interested in was about opening
lines for conversations in The Essentials for Business Etiquette. I often have difficulty starting
conversations because I get nervous that the person I’ll try to converse with won’t continue the
conversation. Some suggestions from the reading were to give sincere compliments and void
closed-ended questions. The reading also stated the “golden rule” of making conversation is to
actively listen to what the other person is saying. I have an interview next week for a position
and this concept will be extremely useful when talking to a potential employer.
Classroom Concept
There are many readings and videos we’re required to complete outside of class.
However, the in-class activities we participate in have been the most helpful in the past two class
sessions. Last week in class, we broke up into groups to review a case and responded to it by
explaining our hypothetical approach to the given situation. Each group incorporated the
persuasive techniques of antithesis, anaphora, alliteration, and parallelism as discussed in Five
Stars: The Communication Secrets to Get From Good to Great (Five Stars, 12). Despite the
activity from last week being really useful, I believe the in-class activity from this week,
focusing on gestures and vocal modulation, was much more involved and helpful. In A Pocket
Guide to Public Speaking, it states that when delivering a speech of any kind, our nonverbal
communication is just as important as our verbal communication. Animating facial expressions,
maintaining eye contact, using natural gestures, and standing straight are four key ways to work
on body language during public speaking (Pocket Guide, 134-136). In class, each student was
given a phrase in which we had to come up with a statement coming before and after it. Along
with this, we had to practice and create gestures and vocal modulations for what we had scripted.
Once practiced, each student stood in front of the class to present their take on each case. Some
phrases were easier than others to come up with gestures for, but each person was able to apply
gestures or vocal modulations of some sort. I was nervous to go up and present mine, but once I
was standing in front of the other students, it was a lot easier than I had anticipated. No matter a
person’s level of comfort with public speaking, each person really tried to step out of his or her
comfort zone when it was his or her turn. Through this week’s classroom activity, I was able to
further learn the importance of the concept of gesturing and vocal modulation during public
speaking.
Business Civility Concept
When in the workplace, classroom, or anywhere else, I’ve learned it’s important to
behave a certain way in order to portray my respect for others. In class, we learned that it’s really
important to greet and interact with others around you properly in order to have a meaningful and
correspondence. This week, my Civil Engineering Capstone group has to meet to discuss a
deliverable we have coming up before Spring Break. There are nine of us in the group, and of
these nine, I have only worked with two of them on previous projects in college. From my past
experience in group projects, I know it can be extremely difficult sometimes to work
productively with students of different personal and educational backgrounds. Because of this, I
have decided to utilize business civility while working with my group to help facilitate our
meeting this week. Author Lars Anderson describes business civility as “behaviors that help to
preserve the norms for mutual respect in the workplace; civility reflects concern for others”
(“Importance of Civility”). While in our group meeting, I plan to treat my peers with respect and
thoroughly listen to each of their suggestions. There are a lot of us, but it’s important we all
agree on decisions regarding our deliverable in order to maintain respect and peace within our
group throughout the remainder of the semester.
Increasing Networking Abilities
Ever since the beginning of this course, I have started to think about how I will use
knowledge and experience gained to increase my networking abilities both currently and in the
future. This week is the University of Maryland’s Spring Career Fair. Normally, I wouldn’t go
because I usually find an excuse to do something else to avoid dressing up in business
professional and walking across campus. However, I took this as an opportunity to practice my
networking and other concepts we learned in class. This morning I went to the career fair, where
I spoke to multiple companies about job opportunities for me upon my graduation this May. I
learned in one of my classes on Tuesday that it takes only seven seconds before a person makes a
first impression on someone else. This information came as a shock to me because that seems
like such a short amount of time relative to the whole conversation. When reading The Essentials
for Business Etiquette, I found the section on handshakes very useful. I like to think that I have a
very firm handshake, considering I have relatively small and dainty hands. I’ve been
complimented on my handshake on multiple occasions, but I have had some confusion on who
initiates the handshake first and when to do so. Luckily, there was a section titled “The Thumb
Joint Connects to the … Thumb Joint,” which suggested practicing with a trusted colleague. In
terms of who greets who first, the section stated “in today’s workplace, the higher-ranking
person or the host, regardless of gender, should extend his or her hand first” (Business Etiquette,
28-29). The readings from Networking for Every College Student and Graduate were also really
helpful in increasing my networking abilities. They highlighted the importance of networking in
order to find a job post-graduation. After making the connections, it’s important to follow up and
stay in touch afterwards (Networking for College Students, 18).
Conclusion
Overall, I have obtained a lot of knowledge and skills out of the first few class sessions
and I look forward to developing them over the rest of the semester. Concepts taught through the
readings and in-class sessions have been extremely useful, and I have been able to apply them to
improve my networking abilities and future career. I am looking forward to learning future
concepts in this course and strengthening my abilities as a public speaker.
 Reference Page

Faulkner, Michael L., and Andrea Nierenberg. Networking for College Students Graduates:
Nonstop Business Networking That Will Change Your Life. Pearson Learning Solutions,
2017.

Gallo, Carmine. Five Stars: The Communication Secrets to Get From Good to Great. PAN
Books, 2018.

O'Hair, Dan, et al. A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking. Bedford/St. Martins, 2016.

O'Neal, D. Laverne. “The Importance of Civility in the Workplace.” Small Business -

Chron.com, Chron.com, 21 Nov. 2017, smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-civility-
workplace-43590.html.

Pachter, Barbara. Essentials of Business Etiquette: How to Greet, Eat, and Tweet Your Way to
Success. 2013.