SLR in Communication Studies and Public Relations
To start off, I recently declared my major to Communication Studies with a concentration in Public Relations. The purpose of Public Relations is to communicate with different organizations in addition to the public. So far, I have not taken any classes required for this major so I am not entirely sure about all of the structure, language, and reference involved with this major. In my opinion, I would think that structure, language, and reference are all involved in Communication Studies. I believe this because with the job I want in the NFL, I think that I will have to have all of my press releases, for example, structured and organized neatly, have appropriate language to be heard during conferences, and have credible references to find all of the information needed for me to talk about. The structure for Communication Studies and Public Relations would consist of me writing a story that draws the target audience in so they would be engaged during press releases. Also, the language used in Communication Studies and Public Relations would be the same where I can target my intended audience to experience what I want them to experience whether this is in press releases, social media, blog posts, and business events. For references, I can see myself either using MLA or APA citations for the sources that I find and use. All of this information will most definitely help me succeed in this career path because I will have to be able to use the correct structure, language, and reference in order to write and present specific press releases, social media posts, and business organization meetings which will change depending on who my audience is. More specifically, I will have to learn the APA style of formatting and citing my credible sources because I have never had to use APA style and MLA 8 style is the only style I am familiar with.
First of all, congratulations on declaring your major. I, personally, am still trying to figure out what I want to do. Your career involvement with the NFL sounds awesome. I am sure that you will have to use structure, language, and reference every time you do something in your field. I feel like the concept of structure, language, and reference applies to everything in the world. If you think about it, the job or career would not be as successful without one or more of the elements of SLR.
You said you would need structure for your press releases, but I think even for that one thing, you would need all three elements of SLR. You said you needed the structure so it is organized, but the language has to be in a way that would draw people in, and the reference would have to be there so you know the information is credible. Maybe that is what you were saying in your blog post and I misread it, so that would be my bad. When it comes to the reference part with citations, I would probably just use MLA if that is what you are most familiar with. Obviously, if you have to use APA then you have to use it, but from what I remember when I had to use it for one of my classes, I don’t think it is that different from MLA.
Once again, I am glad that you know what you are going to do in life and I hope all goes well for you in your future of communication studies and public relations. I am not familiar with what goes on in the field, but it seems like you really know what the field is all about and you know how you can incorporate all three elements of SLR into it.
Congratulations on declaring your major , many students take up until their junior year to figure out what career path they want to take. Declaring your major is a major accomplishment, whether you decide to change that major later on , you should feel accomplished!
A concentration in public relations is a great path to take. Everything in our world revolves around public images , from food , politics, and even brands. The best option for you to figure out what classes you need to obtain this degree is to use , degree works. This can give you a list of courses required and the skills each course is supposed to help you obtain, to carry along with you into your career path.
The NFL path is an awesome goal, the image the league has now , definitely needs to be promoted differently. I do think many of your sources would be by word of mouth, or by things you see and hear physically. I think the audience would be mainly people who have a negative outlook on the league , and the goal would be to change that outlook. I agree with the planning ahead to your press releases , that level of preparation shows how you somewhat understand the structure of your major. Planning plays a major role in the structure of communication, whether this is preparing for what you are going to say to someone or how you approach a rebuttable to someone’s comment on your organization.
When I think about the information you will be citing , I do think about how these sources will be negatively looked upon , by someone and their followers. I wonder what sources would give you the nose neutral group, and the least amount of hate or backlash. I commend you on your goals and aspirations, and your ability to understand the importance of preparedness, this early in your career.
Declaring your major is definitely a big deal. I do wonder when you discuss planning to work on press releases if you have considered a minor or double major in journalism. Along with that, social media and blog posts can be best understood after taking digital marketing classes as learning how to perfect a digital media post can be quite the task in itself. I only say this as I am a business major who is double concentrating in marketing and management. I have taken a digital marketing class myself and have learned that there are a lot of things that go into perfecting your technique when creating and releasing any sort of content to the public. As for learning APA, I do recommend taking an Intro to Psychology class as at the end of the class you are required to research a topic and write an APA style paper. Before taking this class, I had no idea how to write in APA. However after talking to my professor, I was able to perfect my APA formatting as it is a very structured and specific way of writing.
Working with the NFL sounds very interesting and like an amazing opportunity. I would say that if you are striving for public relations in athletics that you take a look at working with Longwood’s Athletic Department while you are here. If you have any questions, I just so happen to work in the athletic department here and know we are always looking for creative students willing to dedicate their time and learn new things. With my time working in the department, I have already made quite an impact and learned so many things just simply working throughout our basketball season. I would definitely recommend taking a look at this as it could be a great way to jump start your career in athletics and dealing with the public.
First off, congratulations on declaring your major, that is a big decision but a very important one. Communication within an organization keeps it running smoothly and efficiently as well as gets the word out to attract more people to the sport/event. I agree that structure, language, and reference would be important for Communication Studies. Organization would also be very important like you said, to have your press releases organized and structured both in the papers as well as the order of the papers. Language has to stay professional especially in an organization as big as the NFL. Having credibility for public news, updates or any information given to the public must be accurate and true, false information can bring a lot of negative attention toward the entire organization, while also possibly costing someone their job. I think it is very smart for you to include the target audience’s language and similar experiences that could relate to them in order for their attention to be drawn toward what you are trying to say. Social media is a fast growing field of information, both good and bad, as well as true and false. It could be an extremely useful tool if used correctly and could benefit your efforts of conveying information for the NFL. Citations, again are very important, to give credit to another’s work that you have used to create your finished assignment. Plagiarism is another way to quickly get fired, or into legal trouble depending on the case. Regardless, the penalties are severe so using citations correctly seems like they are essential in this field. Learning a new citation format would be beneficial just in case the need arises, but sticking with one you are comfortable with is very smart because you already know your way around that specific style.