When we submitted our proposals for our internships, I had a very clear plan of what I thought I would be doing for my internship. I had a list of items that I thought were the most important for my employers. However, just because it is the professional world does not mean that life is not allowed to interfere and I am learning to be flexible. The caseload at work has dictated what has become the most important tasks and the website I thought I would be working on has been put on the back burner. In fact, I don't think there are plans to take it off of that back burner. Instead, the Office Procedures Manual is still important, but the editing and construction of the legal documents to be submitted at court have become the priority.

I am still very lucky because it is still technically tech writing. I am writing, editing, proofreading, and more. I remember the speakers in all of our TC classes talking about taking jobs for TC personnel only to find that they were not wanted for TC tasks. However, I am the type of person who likes to have a list of what I will be doing and simply be able to do what is set in front of me. This is giving me a great lesson in flexibility and learning how to just go with the flow. There are some days when I will be working my hardest on a project only to have something come up and be told to put it aside for a week or so. Then I have to completely shift gears on focus on something extremely different for a different client in a different aspect of the law.

Preparing legal documents, however, are a new genre. Each document must have that case's legal caption in bold at the top, certain things must be double-spaced, much of the grammar defies the rules of the English language, and that is just the start of it. Also, many courts, sometimes even courtrooms, have their own styles that they prefer. For example, most of the time we produce documents on a more expensive paper and copies on regular white paper to keep the originals separate. That is how we submit them to the court. However, some courts will not accept the more expensive paper and will only take the regular white paper. Don't even get me started on the appellate court! 

Finally I have a product! Something to show for my hard work.

The website is still in the rough stages, but my main task/goal is probably 75% completed now.

For the transition from Wayne State University to NMT, I was in charge of building sort of reconstruction page that states that the journal is on the move from WSU to NMT. I included previous issues and links to the rest of the site. The first/home page for now is just temporary until the journal becomes active, which might possibly be in mid-end of the fall semester.

I also came up with some rough ideas about the focus of the journal and what direction it might go in for the future. I researched other journals and TC programs at other schools. I thought that maybe it would be a good learning experience for Dr. Newmark as well as TC students if the journal was incorporated into a class, like through the article writing class, or the web design class as a "client project." Dr. Newmark loved those ideas and we are going to talk to Dr. Ford about the future of the journal in the TC program.

Right now the page is still a bit rough, and the rest of the site has some tense issues because that version of the journal is no longer present. The changes are minor at this stage, just a bit more time consuming on my day working alone.

If you would like to look at the my work so far follow this link: www.nmt.edu/~xchanges and for now until the formating changes are fixed it looks best in Internet Explorer, but it works just fine in Firefox.

Note: The very first/home page is the page I created, after you click on an issue link on the left nav bar, that part of the site was already created.

Patrick Smith

I am working with the Humanities department with Dr. Newmark. Before she came to NMT she was with Wayne State University. There she worked on an American Studies online journal. This journal was called Xchanges and was run by undergraduate and graduate students.

Currently, myself and Dr. Newmark are bringing down the journal to NMT for the Humanities/TC department. The first couple tasks we both had to complete were administrative. We had to open an account much like our student accounts with the TCC, then we had to transfer files from the current website to our own directory with our new account. We had a bit of outside help moving these files with her husband guiding us through tackling the files as a group instead of one by one, which I would probably still be working on. I learned that I have much more to learn!

My first assignments are a few research type papers about other TC programs and the publications that are produced from those programs. I also have to write a few memos about my experience with the TC program at NMT, and some of the skills I have learned and what type of skills I still need to learn.

After the above papers are completed I am sure I will get into the nuts and bolts of working with the website, using skills I learned in TC 251 Web Practicum, as well as using skills learned through trial and error experience with Dreamweaver, and the TCC. I still have a great deal to learn, and hopefully we can get the website completed and ready for viewing by the end of the summer.

Patrick Smith

Hello, everyone! Before I tell you about what is going on at work, let me tell you about where I am working. I am working at a law firm here in Socorro as a legal assistant. I have been at my job for over a year now, and they graciously are letting me work on new things like the Office Procedures Manual so that I can continue there for my internship.

Recently, I have been working on the Office Procedures Manual as we have recently hired a new administrative assistant. Because of my time at the firm, I have been given slight seniority. However, it is an interesting situation as the new administrative assistant previously worked at a position where she was above students. So even though I have been working on my manual, I will come into work to find the assistant who was hired changing my manual and leaving instructions for how I should be doing my job differently. She is obviously trying not to step on toes, but just assumed that she would be back in the role of being above the student. Because there is no overlap in our times to straighten out who is supposed to be doing what, I have had to rely strictly on my technical communications skills to leave things like memos to diffuse the situation so that it does not become a problem.

Even though I have been given seniority (a higher title and higher pay), I had to be careful not to use a lot of that seniority because I did not want to make her feel defensive. However, at the same time, I had to establish some seniority because there are times when I am have to correct her and give her instructions that must be taken seriously. After many tries to convey this through a memo, I found that it simply still was not working. So I arranged a time when I could meet with my boss to discuss what I should do.

When I met with my boss, I made sure that I was very kind and humble and did not say anything derogatory about the new assistant. Instead, I complimented the things that she was doing well and made it seem like this was my problem that I was having trouble conveying this. In the end, my boss ended up speaking to the other assistant since I am in class when she works and could not do a face-to-face. I also came out looking like I was very mature and skilled because I was able to diffuse the situation down to a simple conversation between them to help with a small misunderstanding.