12/2/25
Written by: Sydney Stonehouse
Development of AP Style:
Previous to this class, I had limited experience with writing in AP style. Throughout the semester, my skills have improved. This has been most noticeable in the pretest we took at the beginning of the semester, as well as the final portfolio project. Going back and being able to look at my writing skills and work at the beginning of the semester was very surprising. Being able to see my previous work, it was hard to believe how big a shift it has been. I didn’t notice the improvements I have had until looking back at writing throughout the semester. Overall, there are still things I struggle with, but my skills have improved quite a bit. I liked the Newsroom 101 quizzes because they helped drill in skills in an easier format than long-form writing. It made all of the rules feel smaller and easier to learn through the small quiz format. Overall, I believe my writing and AP style have been more drilled in my head and has improved my writing skills overall.
11/9/25
Written by: Sydney Stonehouse (Strategic Communications major at UMN)
Feelings About Review:
Discussing resumes was a really interesting task for me, as everyone in the class is at a different spot with experience. It was more challenging to give feedback on resumes as it felt more personal to the person I was reviewing. Other than formatting, it was hard for me to give genuine feedback without feeling like it was mean. The same went for my partners. There were few things that we did not critique on and much of the feedback was more about wording and formatting vs. content. Overall, I am still happy with all the feedback I gave and received.
Helpful Insights:
My partners had a lot of good feedback. One thing that was really helpful was just looking at other people's resumes who are at a similar point in their careers. With resumes having so many options for what they can look like, it was interesting to see how people formatted things differently and what each person chose to focus on. One of the best pieces of feedback that I got was to increase my skills. Although I put everything I thought I knew, my group had insights about skills that seemed unimportant to I had. There are many things that I know well that I never thought to highlight on my resume. I still have more work to do on my resume as I want to cut it down to one page. Overall, I really enjoyed this assignment as it felt the most applicable to our current lives and will benefit us well over the next year.
11/9/25
Written by: Sydney Stonehouse (Strategic Communications major at UMN)
Helpful Aspects of AI:
Using AI on my resume was a very interesting task that ended up being quite useful. Although I was unsure at first, creating a gem for Gemini and training the AI gave me great feedback on my resume without destroying my voice. Resumes often feel very overwhelming, and I didn't know where to start with updates. Gemini helped me break it down section by section and coached me through updates I should make.
Adding Job Descriptions:
Although Gemini had a good idea of the job field and applicable skills, uploading job listings was a very useful tool. I broke down each aspect of my resume and reworded bullet points to cater to different skills the job could be looking for. One thing I think could have been better in the entire experience is how much AI knows about my experience. Gemini was only going off of what my resume said, and helped me reword things to sound better. In the future, I think it would be interesting to train AI to look at other sources for skills I have gained in past experience. This would provide me with accurate skills acquired through jobs and help me highlight things I may not have thought of previously.
11/4/25
Written by: Sydney Stonehouse (Strategic Communications major at UMN)
Final Product:
After finishing all four social media posts, I was very happy with the results on both ends. My partner did a great job with the image I had in mind. She added details and brought an interesting perspective to the assignment that I had not previously thought of. Overall, I felt that my vision was well understood and executed by my partner. Similarly to the strategy portion, I will go into the next assignment, making sure to provide as much detail as possible. Although my vision was executed well, I believe my partner's creative brief was much more detailed than mine, which made my execution of posts quite easy. This is one of the most important things I learned from this assignment that I will take with me in the future.
11/4/25
Written by: Sydney Stonehouse (Strategic Communications major at UMN)
Working with a Partner:
This was a really interesting assignment as it showed me the importance of creative vision and communication. This was interesting, looking at someone else's strategy in comparison to my own. First, looking at someone else's creative brief and how that is structured gave me good ideas for the future and how to best communicate my ideas. I was very pleased with my partner's final storyboard for my social media posts. Although not exactly how I envisioned it, it was done with the same message in mind and got the exact point across that I was trying to make. It was helpful to start this project with a conversation rather than just sharing the creative brief. It helped me as both the creator of the posts as well as the person creating the creative brief. Hearing about the vision from the creator helped me give more well-rounded posts with the initial messaging. I also believe the conversation with my partner helped her create posts very accurate to what I originally had in mind. This has made me think more about my creative briefs and how to make those more effective if we're not able to speak about the direction of design. In the future, my creative briefs will be more detailed with the overall vision.
10/19/2025
Written by: Sydney Stonehouse (Strategic Communications major at UMN)
Persuasion Through Words:
This assignment and the peer review were really interesting. It was fun critiquing something other than just writing and being able to see someone's presentation skills. One thing that this assignment made me realize is the importance of the spoken word. It is much easier to be persuaded when someone is speaking to me rather than just me reading something. It was more difficult for me to give feedback on presentation skills than on written work. I think a lot of this is due to it feeling more personal when coming directly as spoken word versus written. Overall, I think this provided an interesting perspective on peer feedback and let us get out of our comfort zones a little bit.
Getting Critiqued:
It was also interesting getting critiques on my speaking instead of my writing. I like writing projects more than presenting often because it can be more thought out and detailed, whereas presenting is more graded on how I do in the moment. When presenting, I tend to talk too fast, which is one of the biggest things I need to work on in terms of public speaking. Although practicing with peers isn't as effective for me, since a lot of my fast-paced speaking and presentation skills are due to being in a large group instead of just presenting to peers. Overall, this assignment was good to be able to see what others have done and know what I need to work on when presenting my pitch.
10/12/2025
Written by: Sydney Stonehouse (Strategic Communications major at UMN)
Changes I Made:
My partners had some great feedback in terms of how to make my corporate communications more to the point and honest. One thing I struggled with on this assignment was making sure to be honest with employees and not over-embellish while also still sounding kind and thoughtful towards employees. This was an interesting assignment to take from a corporate perspective because I chose an event that many employees would not be happy about. It was a challenge to try to take bad news and add some level of positive spin on it while still ensuring honesty and clarity.
Value of Feedback:
A big part of feedback for this assignment was being able to see my group's work. This was one of the assignments that did not have many constraints or requirements in terms of the layout of our writing. Seeing other people's work really helped me gain some perspective and understand different ways I could have gone about this assignment. One thing our group talked about quite about is how we all really like certain aspects of each other's work.
What Was Most Helpful:
As stated previously, I believe that one of the most beneficial things that we can do is see peers' work and understand how different people write and format assignments. When making edits for this in the future, I want to incorporate different elements of my peer's work. Both of my groupmates used interesting ways to format both their pitch to the boss as well as their intranet articles. In the future, I will be considering some of the elements they used to format my own work.
Feedback Over Time:
Throughout this class, I believe that peer feedback has become increasingly more helpful. Specifically, I like working with the same people. As we get more comfortable with one another, we are better at giving each other honest feedback and diving deeper into how we can improve each other.
10/05/2025
Written by: Sydney Stonehouse (Strategic Communications major at UMN)
Visualizing Data:
This assignment, as well as the peer feedback, gave great insights into different ways to visualize data. When looking at the infographic, it was an interesting challenge knowing that we weren't allowed to use traditional graphs and tables and had to be more creative with the data visualization. Creative and atypical data visualization can leave the reader more interested, and they are more likely to retain that information. Infographics are a way to keep the reader interested while still providing them with data about the subject. Looking at some of my peers' infographics also helped with this, as it showed me other examples and ways that people chose to visualize data for this assignment.
Website Creation:
The tools we have learned with data visualization can help when we move our data and information over to an official online newsroom. Tools like both Google Sites and Canva can help show data and information in different ways and overall leave the reader invested in the information being presented to them. In sites like this that hold a lot of information, navigation is very important. The user needs to be able to easily access information, and the site must be simple to understand.
09/29/2025
Written by: Sydney Stonehouse (Strategic Communications major at UMN)
What I learned
One thing that I received feedback on was my lack of detail, specifically in my press release. Although I had the format done correctly, I lacked detail about the product that was launched. It was helpful to discuss my writing with peers, especially since I've never done a press release before. It was helpful to know how much detail and writing is needed to go into press releases and balancing logistical information, as well as advertising the product. This will be something I take into account in the future. Now that I have a better understanding of what a press release should look like as well as its length, it will be easier to write these well in the future.
How I Feel
Doing deep dives like this on my writing is something that I think is really valuable. I also like getting feedback on my writing and finding new ways to write, and how I can continue to improve. On the other side of it I also enjoy being able to see how other people do the same assignments. There are many different writing styles and flexibility on these assignments, so being able to read someone else's work usually helps me get a different perspective on my own writing.
09/14/2025
Written by: Sydney Stonehouse (Strategic Communications major at UMN)
Feedback I Received
This exercise helped with my writing process and understanding the message I was writing. Typically, when I write, my first draft is completely unedited and just trying to get all the information written down. Going into this and receiving feedback on a very rough version of my writing helped me formulate my message and is overall helping my writing and editing process. My peer reviewer came in with a fresh perspective and included what she enjoyed or what seemed really important to include, which was a big help when I began editing down. Overall, I believe peer reviewing is one of the most important parts of the writing process.
Feedback I Gave
Reading another person's writing helped me in my ideation, and also getting another perspective on the assignment. It helped me see how someone else writes and works through first drafts. It gave me a better idea of how to set up my own work, as the person I reviewed had a more intentional pacing and organization than I did. This ultimately helped me begin to edit and organize my thoughts effectively. Both aspects of this exercise were very beneficial for my own writing and revision process.
09/04/2025
Written by: Sydney Stonehouse (Strategic Communications major at UMN)
Working with AI
Working with AI as a coach for this class really opened my eyes to a new way to use this tool. It was really beneficial with my brainstorming process. In past AI usage, it’s always felt like something to just give me answers and doesn’t help me learn or ideate for myself. This is a great tool that I will be implementing in future projects and ideations. My group was really helpful in terms of new ways to use this AI and how they were constructing their AI coach. Since this assignment is broad in terms of interview content, I valued the time with my group to get feedback and hear what my peers are doing for this interview. Both genAI and my group-mates assisted my brainstorming process and helped me use genAI to build my own ideas. Some feedback my group provided was the importance of learning about the person as well as their profession. This helps me tweak my questions and create a broad understanding of the individual that I am interviewing. I believe that to get a well-rounded interview, it's important to understand their personal life and struggles as well as their professional life. I’m excited to learn about my industry professional and the different stages of her life that built her skills and led her to her current career.
Working with Peers
Overall, I really enjoy peer reviews and peer feedback. When working on assignments, especially those with a lot of creative control, I find others’ perspectives valuable. Beyond feedback, understanding and learning about how my peers are structuring their assignments helps my creativity and opens new ways of thinking about the assignment. This is a two-way street; after talking to my group-mates, I realized I was thinking about this assignment differently than they were. This helped all of us because I implemented some of their ideas, and they implemented mine. In past experiences, working alongside peers and classmates always produced a better outcome. It’s important to consider different voices and perspectives to create a well-rounded piece of work.