If you’re not set on a certain career, you can always browse the exhaustive list of occupations that are given detailed treatment, from “Able seamen, see Water transportation occupations” to “Yoga instructors, see Fitness workers.”  Of course, you can also search for information on specific occupations, like “gold diggers” (Mining).

Having access to detailed information like this can be key to discovering job growth areas in this globalized economy of ours. Occupations involving health services and computers, for example, are projected to grow at rates in the double digits. Other industries, like our long-suffering textile and manufacturing sectors, are estimated to shrink even further.

So, what’s your ideal occupation? Is it listed in the OOH? How does its predicted rate of growth (or shrinkage) affect your opinion about it? Please share by leaving a comment below.

Scrawl also has their most impressive, yet still very wrong attempt at the word of the day.  What do you think?

I didn’t actually expect to get a repeating appointment; I helped this writer once, twice; after that, she made a comment that she had scheduled a few more times with me.  It was a new experience for me, hearing that someone wanted to work with me, specifically, and was evidently benefiting from my advice.  I was surprised, gratified, and excited for our next session.

Repeating appointments have their benefits, I’ve discovered.  There’s not always a lot of time for rapport in the isolated appointment, but working with the same writer more than once allows you to open up, and to let them open up.  I liked being able to ask this writer how her week was going, how she was liking her classes, and to be able to talk about my own writing experiences.  It helped to foster a level of comfort between both parties, and felt a little less formal than usual.

It’s also great to learn more about the writer’s work.  Perhaps the best part of working with the same writer repeatedly is gaining a sense of their writing style.  What I initially thought of as irregularities with this writer’s papers turned out to be repeated stylistic moves that she liked to use, or turns of phrase she thought of as useful.  This can swing both ways; if you know a writer has been doing something the same way in every paper, you can realize that it might be harder to let go of that quirk, or you can appreciate their idiosyncratic points.  Either way, familiarity helps when it comes to deciding what points to bring up and which ones to leave til next time.

Working with a repeating appointment allows you to familiarize yourself with the writer’s assignments too.  You might sometimes be working on different drafts of the same assignment, or two projects on the same topic at different sessions.  For instance, this writer wrote a thinkpiece and later an argumentative essay on the same topic, so I knew the points she had made in the earlier piece and could talk with her about how they were borne out in the later.

Not only are repeating appointments more interesting for both parties, they’re more productive.  At the first and maybe the second appointment, after the writer had read her paper aloud, she would answer my questions with “I don’t know” or “Does this sound right?”  After the first few meetings, my writer came in with questions of her own. Now, she comes in knowing which parts don’t sound quite right, what evidence she wants to check against my opinions, and what makes a stronger conclusion; we can skip talking about what doesn’t work and go right to how to improve it.  In a way, the writer has adapted to the Writing Center format, and has figured out how to make the best use of our time together.

The repeating appointment allows me to feel more involved in a particular writer’s progress, and improve my own tutoring skills with a known quantity, as it were.  The arrangement is highly instructive for me, and I certainly hope it’s been useful to the writer.

Resume writing can be a tricky subject for a tutorial because while there are many clear-cut standards that any writer should adhere to, other rules can be bent and/or broken depending on who or what the document is being written for.

By simply typing ‘resume guide’ into the google search bar, one can find a variety of different sources on the subject, many of which give conflicting advice.

For example, many guides push the hard and fast one-page rule for any resume, while others place more emphasis on readability and clarity. Louise Fletcher, founder of Blue Sky Resumes and a member of the Professional Resume Writers Association, stresses the amount of experience in a particular field as the only potential determinant of page length.

“Recruiter or hiring managers don’t care if your résumé is one or two pages long. But they do care whether it is easy to read and gives key information upfront…less than 5 years experience probably only requires one page and more than that may need two.”

While Fletcher’s advice focuses on the diversity of resume writers and their experiences, there are those who push the one-page rule more adamantly on behalf of resume readers. “Ideally, your resume should be one page, because recruiters and managers have short attention spans,” says Jennifer Brooks, Senior Associate Director of the MBA Career Management Center at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. “It’s your ad; it doesn’t have to be comprehensive. If you feel the need to write down everything you’ve done in your entire career, you’re not thinking about the buyer, who just needs to know what’s relevant.”

I found this consideration a bit difficult to explain to a writer who had extensive experiences and achievements that were all at least somewhat related to the accounting field. In this situation, it can be very tempting to list every single detail at the expense of the document’s readability. Because the writer was concerned about the length and density of the resume, I advised her to incorporate only the most recent and relevant experiences.

In a tutorial setting, one should respect the writer’s intentions and observations with regard to this aspect of the resume. If the writer brings in a resume that is two or more pages long, he or she is probably aware of this fact and its potential risks. Instead of strongly supporting one side of this issue, I find that it is more productive to ask the writer to explain ‘why?’

As with any technique or stylistic choice in a piece of writing, intentions are important. If the writer has a definitive reason for the length of his or her resume, then the tutor should respect this decision. But if the writer is concerned about this matter and unsure how to proceed, then it is probably a good idea to explain the strengths and weaknesses of both lengths.

On Friday, January 20, the Collaborative for Multilingual Writing and Research started the 352-page, New York Times bestselling novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins with our fantastic group of international, English Language Learning (ELL) students. The suspenseful and addictive story takes us into the world of Panem, a country made up of twelve districts that holds an annual televised event called the Hunger Games. Each year, one girl and one boy from each district are chosen to fight to the death in the violent games. Readers follow the main character, Katniss Everdeen, who is chosen to participate in the Hunger Games. Who will survive?

This quarter’s Book Club has twenty-one members who are students and faculty from all over DePaul.

The Book Club is excited for the movie adaptation of this novel to hit theatres on March 23^rd! Watch the trailer here.

This quarter’s Book Club will hold its last meeting on March 9^th and will begin again during Spring Quarter with a new novel.

Check out our website, Facebook, and Ning page for updates about next quarter’s book and other CMWR events.

So, UCWbLing readers, I have a couple of questions for you. What steps are you taking to prepare yourself for a competitive job market? How can you make yourself stand out amongst hundreds of other applicants?

If these questions put a knot in your stomach, don’t sweat it. The Faculty Development and Resource Team would like to help put you at ease. We are hosting a workshop entitled, “Beyond DePaul: Networking after Graduation,” in which we will discuss topics such as resume writing, cover letters, and online networking using LinkedIn. Additionally, we will discuss how you can best represent your own unique character in these mediums.

We welcome you to join us for “Beyond DePaul: Networking after Graduation” on March 2, 2012 in the Arts & Letters Hall, room 109 from 12:30-2:30pm. Hope to see you all there!

More information is available here.

Yes, yes, we know.  You cannot believe that we are already at the half-way point of the season!

Jolly Korea’s henchman, err, front man, Eugene Kalsted stops by to talk about the band’s evolution and transformation.  He shares their writing process, plays a song, and even shares a new demo, “Dick Cheese,” with us.

Following the interview, we take a brief look at Glenn Beck’s–not Jeff Beck’s–politically coquettish  novel, The Overton Window.  And because of time limit, we will be slamming that window some more next time!