Are you thinking about using AI for business writing but are not sure how to deploy it? A good starting point might be to read "Successful Business Authors Share Tips for Using AI in Writing" by Josh Bernoff for Ragan PR Daily. In a three-minute read, you will get accurate insights into using ChatGPT as a writing aid to break writer's block, generate ideas, organize content, and check grammar. Bernoff provides the caveats as well.
We all need to get on board with this technology, guardedly, because it increases composition speed exponentially with solid structure and sound syntax.
Since writers seek variety in their style, they change not only their word choice but their sentence length and structure. One way of looking at sentence structure is sentence branching. A sentence branch is secondary to the base clause, which is the part of the sentence that contains the subject and predicate. Branches can appear on the left, middle, or right side of the base clause. Here are simple examples of all three branches yielding identical 8-word-sentence counts:
Base Clause: Maria works for Apple.
Left Branch: To support her family, Maria works for Apple.
Middle Branch: Maria, who supports her family, works for Apple.
Right Branch: Maria works for Apple to support her family.
If you're thinking that the right-branching sentence is the easiest to follow and the mid-branching sentence the hardest, then good thinking. In work-related writing, you would not want to suspend the subject (in this case, Maria) for too long, as in this 36-word left branch:
To support her family, some of whom live in Greece and some in Argentina, two countries she enjoys visiting in alternating years since arriving in the United States in 2002 to work as an IT analyst, Maria works for Apple.
As bad as that sentence is, see those 36 words as an even more confusing middle branch:
Maria, who supports her family, some of whom live in Greece and some in Argentina, two countries she enjoys visiting in alternating years since arriving in the United States in 2002 to work as an IT analyst, works for Apple.
Now notice how much better the sentence reads as a right branch:
Maria works for Apple to support her family, some of whom live in Greece and some in Argentina, two countries she enjoys visiting in alternating years since arriving in the United States in 2002 to work as an IT analyst.
Are you feeling it? If you think that sentences like these are a figment of my imagination, read The New York Times, which in its November 30 issue reported in "Henry Kissinger Is Dead at 100; Shaped the Nation's Cold War History" this first middle-branch sentence:
Henry A. Kissinger, the scholar-turned-diplomat who engineered the United States’ opening to China, negotiated its exit from Vietnam, and used cunning, ambition and intellect to remake American power relationships with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, sometimes trampling on democratic values to do so, died on Wednesday at his home in Kent, Conn.
That 57-word sentence shows a base clause of 12 words and a highlighted middle branch of 45 words. When we put our subject (in this case, Henry A. Kissinger) and our verb (died) in different sides of the Atlantic Ocean, our readers will get lost along the way.
You may reasonably wonder, then, why would The New York Times write a sentence like that? Because it's entertaining and surprising. After reading the words engineered, negotiated, and used, the writer sets us up to think the sentence will end predictably. These are things that Secretaries of State do. Then out of nowhere around the bend comes sometimes trampling on democratic values to do so. Wow! You weren't expecting that, were you?
I am not encouraging you to write endless middle-branching sentences unless you're writing fiction. But do think about sentences you already commonly write, like these:
Mix up the branches. Don't let them run too long. Have fun.
Subject: Embracing Growth and Learning from Every Presentation
Hey Aziza,
I hope this message finds you well! First and foremost, I want to commend you for taking on the challenge of presenting to our management team. It's not an easy feat, and you demonstrated courage by stepping up to the plate.
I understand that you might be feeling a bit disappointed with how the presentation went, but I want you to know that everyone has been there at some point in their career. The most important thing is not how we start, but how we grow and learn from each experience. Here are a few thoughts to keep in mind:
It's a Learning Process: Every presentation is an opportunity to refine our skills. The more we practice and learn from our mistakes, the better we become. Treat this experience as a valuable lesson in your professional development journey.
Feedback is fuel for improvement: Constructive feedback is a powerful tool for improvement. Reach out to those who attended the presentation or ask your colleagues for their thoughts. Embrace their feedback as a means to refine your future presentations. Remember, it's not about criticism; it's about growth.
Celebrate Your Effort: Presenting to management is no small task. You took the initiative, and that alone is commendable. Celebrate the fact that you had the courage to step into the spotlight and share your ideas. The more you expose yourself to such situations, the more comfortable and confident you'll become.
Focus on Progress, Not Perfection: Perfection is an unrealistic standard. Instead of aiming for flawless presentations, focus on making progress with each one. Small improvements over time lead to significant growth.
We're a Team: Remember that you're not alone in this journey. We're a team, and we're here to support each other. If there's anything specific you'd like assistance with or if you just need someone to bounce ideas off, don't hesitate to reach out. We've got your back!
Lastly, take a deep breath and remind yourself that setbacks are a natural part of any learning process. Your commitment to improvement is what will set you apart. Keep your head high, learn from this experience, and I have no doubt that your next presentation will showcase the progress you've made.
You've got this!
Best,[Your Name]
Lee,
I performed a safety inspection of the north building today. When I entered Stairwell B on the first floor at 18:52, I smelled gas. As I climbed the stairs, the smell grew increasingly stronger until I reached the third floor. There I found an unattended, filled 20-liter can of gasoline. The can was uncapped. The unused cap was lying beside the opened can. I asked Production Manager Kim Porter why the gas can lay open in the stairwell. Porter said she was unaware of why the can was opened and in the stairwell. I reminded her that she is responsible for the safe storage of flammable substances on the production floor, including the stairwell. I immediately capped the can, removed it from the building, and placed it in the north storage shed, remedying the fire hazard.
Jan
That 136-word paragraph is logical—chronological. Everything from beginning to end happens sequentially. Nevertheless, an informed reader would say that the most important words in the paragraph are the last four, remedying the fire hazard. Let's rewrite that paragraph, starting not chronologically but hierarchically, with the most important point.
Draft 2
Lee,
At 18:52 today, I remedied a fire hazard in the north building. I found an unattended, uncapped, filled 20-liter gasoline can on the third floor of Stairwell B. The can emitted fumes noticeable on the first floor. The unused cap was lying beside the opened can. Production Manager Kim Porter did not know why the gas can lay open in the stairwell. I reminded Porter that she is responsible for the safe storage of flammable substances on the production floor, including the stairwell. I immediately capped the can, removed it from the building, and placed it in the north storage shed.
Jan
By starting the message with the most important point, Jan achieves at least three reader benefits:
I have covered the value of reading for developing writers (like me) several times in this blog. Businesspeople should see their reading as of two types: inside and outside their field.
Reading Inside Your Field
Focused reading inside our field helps to make us subject-matter experts. This reading includes industry journals, membership magazines, regulatory requirements, company reports, reviews, and proposals to learn more about the history, trends, and goals of our industry, as well as to capture the latest news about our competitors and collaborators.
Reading Outside Your Field
Focused reading outside our field enhances our writing style. This reading includes virtually all publications not covered by reading inside your field. Of the thousands of reading types, examples include a lawyer in the investment banking field reading African history, a civil engineer in the transportation industry reading classic novels, and a military officer reading biographies. It doesn't matter much what we read outside our field, as long as the writing is of high quality. Reading beyond the concerns of our business expands the choices of expression available to us. We pick up new words and varied sentence structure unlike those typical of our field. It also raises our awareness of the world beyond our cubicle.
Good writers not only write a lot; they also read a lot—inside and outside their field.
Writing is such a critical skill for employees in any profession, according to numerous corporate, government, and university websites, notably the Tulane University School for Professional Advancement. I am encouraged to argue this point because so many experienced frontline, managerial, and executive staff have made this point to me.
We are living in a time that demands good writing skills. Most employees meet coworkers, clients, and vendors through email. In effect, writing has become our primary communication mode to inform, instruct, guide, encourage, or propose to people we have never met in person. Writing is our means of proving we have started or completed an assignment; tracked a project's progress, actions, and decisions; and suggested ways of improving the effectiveness or efficiency of a process, product, or organization. Our work-related documents testify to our clarity, thoughtfulness, responsiveness, and compliance, among other factors. What we write may lead to how our managers value, advance, support, and promote us.
For at least these reasons, we can improve or reinforce our on-the-job writing by regularly engaging in three activities:
1. Read high-quality, management-approved documents. This practice includes critically reading operating instructions, meeting reviews, incident reports, root-cause analyses, staff appraisals, project reports, internal proposals, white papers, policy announcements, client consultations, and many more messages across your organization. Make those management-approved messages your quality target for improving your writing skills.
2. Practice professional writing daily. If your writing responsibilities consist only of replying to inquiries, then write some inquiries yourself. If all you write are descriptions of processes and events, then write about how those descriptive documents bring value to your organization. If you compose solely analytical documents for supervisory review, then graduate to proposal writing for managerial review. Find reasons to write.
3. Seek feedback from coworkers whose writing skills you respect. When you ask coworkers for their opinions and suggestions, you honor them as a highly regarded source. Get feedback from at least two sources because you might find conflicting opinions, which is not a bad thing. You will learn a lot about the subjective nature of writing assessment. Look for patterns in your writing. Are your reviewers usually finding the same issues, such as completeness, organization, conciseness, sentence structure, word choice, and punctuation? If yes, focus more on those issues in your future writing assignments.
The next post will discuss why reading outside one's field is as critical for writing improvement as reading inside it.
Welcome to WORDS ON THE LINE's 1,110th post in nearly 19 years! There is still a lot to say about writing.
Why is repetition often powerful in political speeches and dramatic writing but usually useless in business and technical writing?
I wrote about the value of repetition in a 2020 post as if I were a fan of repetitive phrasing. In that post, I explain the value of repetition with two examples from politics (Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and Winston Churchill's "We Shall Fight in the Beaches" speech), and two from fiction (the openings of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities and Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground).
In this post, I refer to John F. Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" ("I am a Berliner") speech of June 26, 1963 at the Berlin Wall. What remains of the Wall that separated West and East Berlin stands as an outdoor art gallery in a unified country. In the space of only 80 words, Kennedy said, "Let them come to Berlin" four times, or 25% of that part of the speech. Hearing the enthusiastic response of 120,000 people in Rudolph Wilde Platz that day offers sufficient proof that Kennedy's use of repetition was powerful.
Churchill, Kennedy, and King use repetition to inspire their audience. Dickens uses the same technique to establish the settings of London and Paris, and Dostoevsky uses repetition to introduce us to the emotional state of the unnamed main character. All five examples achieve the intended results.
The benefits of repetition are far less for a business writer composing an internal proposal or instructional message. Good technical writers also avoid repetition when describing an incident or detailing laboratory results. On the other hand, repetition may help an employee write a farewell speech to colleagues. Here is an example of repetition serving two purposes: to demand the writer always remember four coworkers and to remind his audience to always remember them:
I'll always remember Arthur for expressing confidence in my analytical and communication skills when he hired me. I'll always remember Paul for teaching me so much about my craft. I'll always remember Suzanne for seeing my leadership potential when she promoted me to supervisor. I'll always remember Tom for exuding patience with my professional development.
Using your software's read-aloud feature to listen for repetition or reading aloud yourself will help you detect useless repetitive phrasing. Here's an example from one of my students, who discovered useless repetition in the opening sentence of his proposal only when he read it aloud:
"Since we are experiencing more production errors after losing three key staff members from our unit, we request the hiring of an additional three new analysts to reduce production errors."
Upon hearing the repetition of the beginning and ending, the writer reduced the 30-word sentence to 14:
"Hiring three analysts to replace those who left our unit will reduce production errors."
Read aloud to discover wordiness you might not in a silent reading.
Every so often, students tell me they learned early in their business career to use 5W&H (who, what, where, when, why, and how) to attain completeness in a report, email, or slide presentation. I do not object to 5W&H as a guide for capturing and organizing content, especially for journalists and corporate incident reporters, whose readers expect the whole story. Nevertheless, I would admonish business and technical writers to refrain from using this technique as their sole job aid. 5W&H is just not enough in some cases, or it may be too much in others. Think about two exceptions to such a rule.
1. 5W&H may be too much. You may not always need one or more 5 W/H elements. For example, clients may not want to reveal why they need a product or service from a supplier for at least two reasons. For one, they will use the product or service in top secret operations, such as purchasing spy cameras to surveil a suspected terrorist. For another, the why may be so obvious, such as ordering coffee for the office coffee machine. Also, staff members writing to management about a possible resolution to an ongoing problem because everyone already knows the implementation would be immediate upon approval. I could make this post run 10,000 more words if I reported every imaginable reason we might want to exclude any of the 5W&H elements. Think about it.
2. 5W&H may not be enough. Imagine writing a proposal to the executive team recommending an e-ink tablet for field investigators. You may need a sixth W, which, by including a comparative analysis of several e-ink tablets and a suggestion of which is the best for the investigators. The same goes for other 5W&H elements. In explaining a pressing problem, you may want to mention not only when (now) but since when (the past 20 business days).
Business and technical writers need to reflect on their ever-changing audience, which varies document by document. Use 5W&H only as a means for getting started.
After a day of work, of staring at a computer monitor, of responding to a hundred emails, of reviewing slide decks that teammates presented at virtual meetings, of enduring two 90-minute journeys to and from the office, what's better than watching an episodic period piece on your favorite streaming service?
How about reading and writing?
To become a better writer, read eclectically and seriously. Read like a writer, comparing varied opinions of thought leaders. Reading a diverse selection of news stories, political or philosophical commentaries, fiction, and even poetry will educate, entertain, and challenge you in several ways, including:
To become a better writer, write a lot too. Writing should not stop when you enter your home. Find time to write emails to friends and family, greeting cards to people close to you, letters to the editor, notes in your journal, or a chapter for your autobiography. Writing is a process of discovery: your interpretation of a story, your critique of a theatrical performance or work of art, or your reaction to a historical event. You quickly see an improvement in your own style.
The "homework" you do will reward you greatly. Not interested in a reading-writing challenge? Then watch TV and take comfort in the lack of development of your communication skills.
A critical lesson from a good business writing course should be this: Know when not to put something in writing. Writing can appear evasive to readers, who may believe that the author of a written message is intentionally avoiding face-to-face contact. The option of giving feedback verbally is often unavailable in businesses that require supervisors to write performance reviews. There goes the writer's dilemma: to write or not to write.
A practical look at the better mode for delivering feedback appears in the essay "When to Give Verbal Feedback—and When to Do It in Writing" by Sarah Gershman and Casey Mank for Harvard Business Review. The authors show the strengths of both verbal and written feedback, as well as a third communication mode: the voice memo. Gershman and Mank position their piece toward the ultimate goals of feedback: building trusting relationships and cultivating the employee's skills. For a 10-minute read, the article provides a valuable start for planning to give feedback.
Music Is My Mistress by Duke Ellington. (New York: Doubleday, 1973). 538 pages.
Whenever someone asks me how to start an autobiography, I ask in return, "Do you have a lot of people to thank for making you who you are and getting you to where you are?" I ask these questions because I've read too many self-obsessed autobiographies by people who think they alone are responsible for their achievements and blameless for their failures. How could any of us gotten anywhere without the help of an endless stream of angels?
Now that I have just finished reading Duke Ellington's aptly titled Music Is My Mistress for the second time, one other time long before I started this blog, I feel I should simply ask would-be memoirists, "Have you read Music Is My Mistress?" This book is without question a masterpiece of memoir, as he describes with always with respect and often with humor hundreds of musicians, producers, friends, and family members who influenced his life. He writes with a candor and grace that reflect his legendary oratorical skills. Just listen to any of his talks on YouTube. By pointing to those who helped him, Ellington reveals so much about himself.
I consider Ellington the greatest musical composer, arranger, and bandleader ever. Yes, he had help from collaborators, most notably Billy Strayhorn, but his towering genius is evident, from his jungle sound of the 1920s to his sacred concerts of the 1960s. Scanning the nearly 50 pages at the end of the book detailing his awards and discography (and many more of both surfaced after his death in 1974), leaves one awestruck. How did he manage so much while keeping a band in business for more than a half-century?
As fot the structure of the book, it is divided by eight "acts" and further separated by great moments of his career, "journals" recounting his numerous foreign tours, and a recurring Dramatis Felidae, in which he praises jazz giants and lesser-known people who extended even the slightest courtesies to him. Ellington's stories are amusing and often hilarious, and his vocabulary uniquely and exquisitely his own. Yes, that's the way to write a memoir.
In "How to Improve Your Business Writing" by Carolyn O'Hara for the Harvard Business Review, you will find a practical summary of the writing product (your completed emails, analyses, reports, and proposals) and the writing process (the method you use to transfer ideas from your brain to your computer screen or paper).
Even though the article appeared nine years ago, it covers enough ground to serve as a primer for developing business writers. O'Hara concludes with two relatable case studies to reinforce the principles she raises, such as planning messages thoroughly, writing clearly and concisely, practicing continually. For a five-minute read, that's a heap of worthwhile information.
In addition to reading my article on writing in the sciences for the Amrrican Chemical Society, "Crafting Articles: Guidance ot Authors for ACS Chemical Health and Safety," develooing writers would benefit from reading "The Skill of Writing" by Bryan S. Judge, available to readers on PubMed. While my article is primarily product-oriented, Judge's is primarily process-oriented.
I would recommend starting with Judge's article, as it focuses on the psychological aspects of writing from conception to completion. I cover that aspect as well, but my main focus is on improving the quality of the finished product. If you are not a science writer, you will still benefit from reading the universal approach of both authors.
My insistence over the years on this website about the powerful, indispensable link between reading and writing finds support in Lisa Fink's brief article "The Relationship Between Writing and Reading," for the National Council of Teachers of English website and in a more extensive essay, "The Reading-Writing Connection," by the International Literacy Association (formerly International Reading Association), appearing in the Electronic Registration Infomation Center (ERIC) website.
If you overlook the emphasis of these articles on elementary and secondary school students, you will see how much their ideas and suggestions apply to business and technical writers as well.
If you want to test your knowledge of commonly confused words, sentence structure problems, and punctuation, visit Effective Writing Practices Tutorial, courtesy of Northern Illinois University. You will have numerous opportunities to take automatically graded quizzes that challenge your command of a broad range of writing-related issues.
This post is the fourth in a row that features a university writing center. That fact alone might keep away people who consider themselves serious business or technical writers. They would be mistaken. In fact, they might be hard-pressed to ace all the quizzes. Try them and see if they help. These exercises for writers are no different from a professional athlete's warmup or a musician's playing scales. Practice!
WORDS ON THE LINE continues its drilling good writing practices into the minds of developing writers. This third article of the series, Editing Tips for Effective Writing from the University of Pennsylvania, is the longest yet.
This latest link provides some information you might have read in part one from Hamilton College and part two from Hunter College, so you may make the mistake of thinking it's redundant. But it's not. Plenty of new content is there in the Tips for Effective Prose and Avoid Dumb Mistakes sections. Among them are avoiding passive voice, using vivid nouns and verbs, avoiding awkward sentences, knowing your possessives, and knowing your plurals.
Yes, academic content shows up, some of which can be arcane, but just read the parts that will teach you writing ideas you might not have known and reinforce the good practices you already have.
Developing writers, WORDS ON THE LINE continues throwing good ideas your way. This new cheat sheet, Five Qualities of Good Writing, comes from Hunter College of the City University of New York. If you think this brief read apparently applies only to essay writing, think twice. The concepts of focus, development, unity, coherence, and correctness emerge in all my writing classes. They relate to messages as basic as emails and as advanced as proposals and white papers. I especially like the organization of these qualities, which is why I selected this three-minute read for you.
Good writing requires a lot of focused reading and writing. Oh, how many times I've uttered that truth on this blog over the past 18 years! One of the problems with many developing writers (others include a lack of patience, perseverance, and practice) is self-orientation. What should they read? How can they put what they read into practice? How do they know they are improving? These are great questions to ask, but I doubt many of these writers even ask them.
With that thought in mind, WORDS ON THE LINE will offer easy-to-read resources over the next several posts from reliable sources, such as universities and government institutions, and corporations, describing positive writing habits and practices. The first of these is Habits of Effective Writers, a two-page cheat sheet from Hamilton College. The seven habits of effective writing and ten common errors are credible starting points to start reflecting on whether you are employing those habits and avoiding those errors. Be sure to click the link at the bottom of each page for a deeper dive into each issue.
An article I wrote for the science community, “Crafting Articles: Guidance to Authors for ACS Chemical Health & Safety,” is for a limited time freely available online.
The publisher awarded "Crafting Articles" Editor's Choice designation because of the value it offers writers hoping to publish their work in ACS Chemical Health & Safety. The article discusses the challenges of professional and techniques for managing those issues. It covers the writing process as well as best practices throughout the rewriting phase, when we revise, edit, and proofread. And it concludes with ways to continually sharpen one's writing skills.
The tips in this article are useful for any type of business or technical writer. If you know someone who can benefit from the reading, please pass it on to them as well.
Simplicity. Specificity. Suprise. Stirring language. Seductiveness. Smart thinking. Social Content. Storytelling. These eight S's are at the heart of "The Science of Strong Business Writing" by Bill Birchard in the Harvard Business Review.
The article covers familiar territory but reinforces each point with contemporary research. It effectively describes why business writers would reach their readers effectively by starting sentences with subjects and verbs, limiting longwinded mid-sentence clauses, and using active voice, among other rhetorical standards. It is positively worth the 10-minute read.
If you have ever wondered, as I have, about the impact of language proficiency on work efficiency, read Mariana Lenharo's article "The True Cost of Science's Language Barrier for Non-native English Speakers" in Nature.
Reading speed in general affects work productivity. The slower we read, the more time we need to do our jobs. Lenharo's reporting underscores how this fact amplifies for students and employees in science. The article quantifies the extra burden, citing many extra workdays needed for developing nonnative English speakers. I admire the additional effort these people put into their research, reading, and writing. This article epitomizes why they deserve our respect.
A special thanks to Dr. Mary Beth Mulcahy for bringing the article to my attention.
Performer Stuff, a website catering to actors, musicians, and dancers, has licensed six Philip Vassallo monologues:
Below are the links to Philip Vassallo plays with premiere and publication dates in parentheses:
The Author Makes No Difference (unproduced; published 2014)
Every Day's a Holiday (produced 2021; published 2015)
Everything Means Something Else (produced 2003; published 2004)
The Eye Begins to See (produced 2003; published 2014)
Family Secrets (produced 2005; published 2006)
Hurry Hurry: Twelve Dramatic and Comedic Sketches (produced 2016; published 2015)
The Phoenix (produced 2003; published 2007)
Questions (produced 2021; published 2020)
Questions Asked of Dying Dreams: Four Short Plays (produced 1992; published 2021)
So What If Life's a Cliché? (produced 2011; published 2011)
The Spelling Bee (produced 1993; published 1995)
This World and That One (produced 2021; published 2020)
What Are You Running For? (produced 1993; published 2010)
Since everyone seems to be talking about ChatGPT, I thought I would do an experiment of my own with OpenAI. If you are not sure about the meaning, value, or risks of ChatGPT, you read AI's Teachable Moment: How ChatGPT Is Transforming the Classroom for an educational perspective and Best Practices for Using AI When Writing Scientific Manuscripts for a science writer's viewpoint.
Here's the experiment. I logged into my OpenAI account and asked for "an article on the advantages and disadvantages of ChatGPT." What follows, in sans serif font, is not my writing. It is the text ChatGPT generated in seconds. I did not change a word. You judge.
Title: Exploring the Strengths and Weaknesses of Chatbot AI: A Look into ChatGPT
Introduction:
Chatbots have become increasingly prevalent in our digital interactions, offering automated conversational experiences across various platforms. Among these, ChatGPT, based on the GPT-3.5 model developed by OpenAI, has garnered significant attention for its ability to engage in meaningful conversations with users. In this article, we will delve into the strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT, highlighting its capabilities as well as areas where improvement is still needed.
Strengths:
1. Natural Language Processing: ChatGPT excels at understanding and generating human-like text. Its advanced natural language processing abilities enable it to comprehend and respond to a wide range of queries, making conversations with users more intuitive and conversational.
2. Contextual Understanding: The model has the capability to retain and refer back to the context of the ongoing conversation. This contextual understanding enhances the quality of responses and allows for more coherent and relevant interactions.
3. Knowledge Base and Language Proficiency: ChatGPT benefits from being trained on a vast amount of data, allowing it to possess a wealth of information on a wide range of topics. It can provide general knowledge, explain concepts, and engage in discussions on various subjects, making it a valuable resource for users seeking information.
4. User-Friendly and Accessible: ChatGPT is designed to be user-friendly and accessible to a broad audience. Its simple interface and ability to integrate with various platforms make it readily available for individuals seeking conversational AI experiences.
Weaknesses:
1. Lack of Factual Accuracy: While ChatGPT can provide information on a wide array of topics, it may not always guarantee complete accuracy. The model's responses are generated based on patterns in the training data, and it may occasionally produce incorrect or misleading information. Users should exercise caution when relying on ChatGPT for factual accuracy and cross-reference information from trusted sources.
Conclusion:
ChatGPT, powered by the GPT-3.5 model, demonstrates remarkable strengths in natural language processing, contextual understanding, and general knowledge. It offers a user-friendly and accessible conversational AI experience. However, it is not without its weaknesses, such as occasional factual inaccuracies, sensitivity to input phrasing, and limitations in seeking clarifications. Additionally, ethical concerns and biases in AI models remain pertinent issues that need continuous attention. As AI technology evolves, addressing these weaknesses will contribute to enhancing the overall performance and user experience of chatbots like ChatGPT.
I close this series on resumes with this post on maintenance. Once you are in the resume-submission phase of the job application process, you need to maintain two aspects.
Maintain a system. Keep a folder of every email and letter you send, every document you submit to an online system, and every phone, online, and onsite meeting you have with prospective employers. You can create an Excel file with columns indicating the action, date, recipient, contact points, and one-sentence description.
Read as much material, watch as many videos, and attend as many meetings as you can to stay on top of your field. Learn about breaking developments in your targeted company's business.
Update your resume regularly with new accomplishments, courses taken, and professional certifications received.
Maintain your faith. Yes, maintain your faith in yourself and in others. Remember your job is getting a job, so believe in yourself, make things happen by getting out your name using online professional platforms. Enjoy the process by learning from rejections as well as acceptances. Determine reasons for employer decisions. But keep your eye on the prize of getting the job you want.
With a job interview over, you are wise to start planning for your next job interview. As I mentioned in a previous post in this series, your job right now is to get a job. The interview is one of several steps of connecting you to a prospective employer, and it is arguably the most critical step. But it is not the last step.
You have opportunities to write one or more of five post-interview messages. They are not mandatory, but they keep you focused on the job application process. They can all be emails, so they won't take too much of your time. And they need not exceed three or four sentences, so they require minimal effort.
1. Appreciation – Write this message within 24 hours of the interview as a thank-you note to the interviewers for taking the time they spent with you. Saying you are interested in the position can't hurt, but say it only if you are. Your word means a lot.
2. Inquiry – Write this message if the interviewers have not informed you of their decision within the promised time. While you do not want to sound pushy, you can ask if they have decided on the candidate, tell them you remain interested in the position, and again thank them for their time.
3. Interest – Write this message if you receive the bad news that you did not get the job and wish you had. You can still act gracefully for thanking them for letting you know and letting them know you still would like to be a part of their organization—again, only if you mean it.
4. Acceptance – Write this message in the happy event that you do get the job and want it. Tell them you are grateful and look forward to contributing to the organization. Of course, you do not have to overdo it, but expressing appreciation and anticipation tells the interviewers they made the right choice.
5. Declination – Write this message if you get the job and decide against taking it. You do not need to say specifically why you have turned down their offer, but be gracious. Thank them for the offer, tell them you enjoyed the interview experience as a valuable next step in your career, and wish them well.
