Sample News Pitch:
Target Reporter: Kendria Lafleur, KATC 3
Subject Line: Local Business Opening to Bring Jobs and Community to Lafayette
Hi Kendria,
I wanted to personally invite you to the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new local business, Homegrown Outdoors, on September 21st, 2024. Your viewers at KATC would enjoy an inside look, and I know how you love to spotlight local businesses in Lafayette. At Homegrown Outdoors, we aim to provide more than a dozen jobs and boost community engagement. We aim to provide high-quality landscaping material and outdoor furnishings, all sourced from local vendors.
Homegrown Outdoors also has a curated “chill space” designated for students and locals to work in a beautiful environment. I know you have been an advocate for more “third places” in Lafayette, and this cause is also important to us. Could we count on you to be a part of this community milestone? Best, Virginia Moncla
Communications Director
Email: vmoncla@gmail.com
Cell: (337) 322-6511
Company Website: homegrownoutdoorsla.com
Sample News Release:
Target Announces New Fall Promotion After a Record-Breaking Fiscal Quarter
For Immediate Release:
Target aims to give back with a new promotional buy one, get two on all grocery items this fall. The promotion is set to kick off their “Month of Savings” this October. The promotion will run in all U.S. stores, barring Alaska and Hawaii. Customers are also given a 10% off coupon through the Target Circle app. This year marked a milestone for Target stores nationwide with record-breaking sales. To celebrate both its consumers and employees’ hard work, Target looks to make these hard financial times easier. This promotion will run until the 1st of November 2024 but be sure to check the Target Circle app for even more deals to come.
Target will also give out limited-edition promotional blankets with all online orders over $200 as long as supplies last. 10% of all electronic purchases will also go to local Target-affiliated charities to enrich the community. Target President Brian C. Cornell claimed, “We love our Target family, and now it is time to give back to the community what they have given to us.” At Target, we want you to expect more and pay less.
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Sample Presentation:
Sample Critique:
Critical Evaluation of ChatGPT
ChatGPT is a handy tool for people in many different professions. As we have experimented with ChatGPT this semester, I have noticed some major pros and some significant cons to the platform and AI use in general. Overall, I found that ChatGPT’s capabilities are insightful but still robotic and inhuman at times. Out of the generated headlines, “about” sections and resumes, I felt ChatGPT did the best with the resume section. Even though it could create headlines and “about” sections, it still came off as a disingenuous imitation of human writing and was somewhat clunky to read. I think it was able to capture the resume because of all the previous information at its disposal, as well as not having to be in a more casual human conversational tone of voice like the “about” section and the headline. ChatGPT helped generate ideas for my LinkedIn profile, but I would not use most of the direct quotes it generated in my real profile because of the robotic writing style.
AI usage and applications like ChatGPT are only becoming more common in the digital landscape. ChatGPT is super helpful in a variety of ways. It is instrumental in establishing a baseline theme or structure for more extensive papers. It is useful in rewording things you have written in a specific tone and creating minimally detailed project plans. ChatGPT also provides valuable feedback detailing edits to be made when targeting an intended audience. It is extremely useful in creating vague outlines that can be elaborated on. ChatGPT provides tons of assistance and can be used to improve every type of writing, but it is not without faults.
When using ChatGPT, I found that it was not helpful or accurate without first feeding it personal information to create the prompts, and it took some maneuvering and re-asking to generate a usable prompt. I have found that ChatGPT, along with other AI writing platforms, is not a replacement for human writing. The problem many writers and students are facing is not because of AI, but because of the misuse of AI. It should not be used to replace human writing but rather as an assisting tool. There is a massive difference between using ChatGPT to write an entire paper, trying to pass it off as your own, and using it to enhance or outline an established piece of human writing. I think this misuse of AI is especially alarming in younger students because they do not ever learn the basics of writing and do not yet understand the ramifications of using AI.
ChatGPT is an effective tool for writing resumes and profiles, especially because most companies use AI to screen through applications nowadays. ChatGPT is ideal for short things such as profiles and captions, mainly because it provides multiple options instantaneously. I think ChatGPT should be used cautiously for longer writings such as essays and personal statements. It is one thing to use a tool like ChatGPT to better your short writing, but it is very different to write long-form using nothing but ChatGPT and then not citing it, which is plagiarism. In my opinion, ChatGPT should always be cited for direct quotations and information longer than a paragraph. That being said, you should not have to put a notification on social media such as LinkedIn if ChatGPT was used in any capacity to write a bio or on Instagram to write a caption. ChatGPT is not advanced enough to create something out of nothing, and it takes considerable human editing and prompting to sound relatively decent and have applicable information. I use Grammarly, a cloud-based writing assistant, on all my computer work. It provides spell checks and edits, but it is up to my discretion as the writer what to change and use, and it is nothing more than a tool to enhance my writing. This does not make my writing any less mine, and I feel the same about using ChatGPT as a tool. However, it is crucial to use ChatGPT as a writing tool, not a crutch.
Word Count: 692
Sample Blog Post:
Prompt: “If you had the opportunity to speak with the President of your country, what would you want to discuss?”
Beyond Politics: Creating Change to Save the World
If I were to speak with the President of the United States, I would want to address the glaring climate crisis everyone on Earth is currently facing.” Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress alone (WHO 1). As a main contributor to every main kind of pollution, the U.S. has a responsibility to its citizens and the world to try and reverse some of the effects of climate change. “We often think about human-induced climate change as something that will happen in the future, but it is happening now. Ecosystems and people in the United States and around the world are affected by the ongoing process of climate change today” (NOAA 1).
Strengthening our emission standards:
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health
First and foremost, the U.S. must take bold steps to drastically reduce its carbon emissions. NASA has highlighted the importance of shifting to renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydropower. By investing heavily in clean energy technologies, the U.S. can reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and cut emissions contributing to global warming (NASA).
Investing in renewable energy:
https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate/climate-change-impacts
The U.S. has been trying to limit emissions for decades, but we are past the point of no return for climate change. We need a massive investment in renewable energy infrastructure, including solar, wind, and battery storage technologies (U.N.). Expanding incentives for residential and commercial clean energy projects would accelerate the transition from fossil fuels (NOAA). It is also essential that the government implement retraining programs and job guarantees, as a total shift to green energy is not an instantaneous switch, and many jobs and careers in fossil fuels hang in the balance (WHO).
Past the point of no return:
https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/faq/is-it-too-late-to-prevent-climate-change/
According to NASA, humans have already set in motion the actions that are causing climate change-related issues (U.N.). Extreme weather, melting ice caps, and warming oceans are all visible today. We are already past the point of no return, and “if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years. Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries” (NASA 1).
We know what global warming is, and we know how to stop it. It is up to the world’s leaders to not only to address it, but also to make significant changes to prevent further damage. Global warming and climate change will affect every single aspect of life. Here in Louisiana, we already feel the effects of climate change with an increased number of storms, greater severity in hurricanes, high temperatures, and changes in animal migration. Resources will dwindle, temperatures will be in the extremes, droughts and floods will become commonplace, and long-gone disease and pestilence will spread from melting ice (NOAA). I would ask the President to act urgently and state that the scientific proof is there, and that the economic and social benefits far outweigh the costs. It is not a matter of ideals but a real threat looming that threatens to destroy the human race.
The future of our planet, as well as the survival of future generations, depends on government action. As the general population, we can recycle, conserve, and reuse all we want, but it will have little to no effect on the mass amounts of pollution being created by corporations. It is up to the world leaders to change policy and the billionaire polluters to prioritize human life over profit. The only way we can make a change is to contact our government officials and use our voting power to support those who are committed to helping repair the Earth. We cannot afford to wait any longer. It is time for the United States to take a stand and attempt to salvage the mess we as humans have made of planet Earth.
Various Photographers. (2021). A collage of events related to climate and weather: loss of glacial ice, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and drought. photograph, various locations.
Works Cited:
Climate change impacts. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (NOAA). https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate/climate-change-impacts
NASA. (n.d.). The Effects of Climate Change. NASA. https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/effects/
United Nations. (n.d.). Causes and Effects of Climate Change. United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change#:~:text=Climate%20change%20is%20changing%20water,increasing%20the%20vulnerability%20of%20ecosystems.
Various Photographers. (2021). A collage of events related to climate and weather: loss of glacial ice, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and drought. photograph, various locations.
World Health Organization. (n.d.). Climate Change. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health
Virginia Kate Moncla's Portfolio 