Primary Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 200–250 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.

For this Discussion Board, please complete the following:

You may have heard the popular saying, “you only get one chance to make a good first impression.” In both academic and professional writing, there are many aspects that can help us make a good first impression (or not) with our audience—correct grammar and spelling, tone, and formatting, just to name a few.

In your post, describe a situation in which you think it would be important to make a good first impression with writing.

• As you describe the situation, discuss whom the intended audience is.
• Discuss some steps you could take to make a good first impression with your writing in the situation you describe.

Tips for Completing Your Post

Consider situations involving work, school, or social settings. If you can think of an actual situation that you have seen, either as the writer or the audience, feel free to share that as your example.

Need an example?

Here’s an example of what your primary post should look like:

As a Veteran, I try to stay informed and serve my community.  I have served on local boards, volunteered my time with various charities, and participated as a county and state delegate at political conventions.  As a result, I get a lot of “robo-calls” and my name ends up on a lot of candidate mailing lists.  I once received a mailer from a candidate running for county commissioner where I live.  I had no issues with the candidate, his background, or his talking points, but there were glaring grammar mistakes in his campaign literature, which made it very difficult to take him seriously.  I felt like someone who went through the effort to pay for and mail out a piece of literature with all those mistakes must lack the attention to detail needed to effectively serve as a county commissioner.  It is possible that it was just a mistake and that someone on his campaign staff had simply failed to proofread, but why would he hire someone who was such a poor writer to handle his campaign’s communication?  As much as I wanted to be objective, the damage was done.  I just couldn’t get past the grammar mistakes considering the qualifications he had and the office for which he was running.