The National Communication Association

The National Communication Association (NCA) (http://www.natcom.org/) is a nationwide organization that provides resources for students, researchers, teachers, artists and practitioners on communication areas and interests. It regularly publishes a scholarly journal, organizes conferences and conventions, and provides career services such as job directories. It targets five areas: the home, the campus, the workplace, the immediate society and the greater world. In all these, excellence as well as advancement is the motivating guide of activities, which range from Internet forums to actual conventions. It sees communication in the general context of human interaction, thus allowing for a multi-perspective and greatly socially involved projects and services. While based in the U.S., it is open to many different countries around the world.

The American Communication Association

The American Communication Association (ACA) (www.americancomm.org) is a non-profit organization that aims for the advancement of communication through the academe and law. There are four areas of focus. First is the promotion of scholarship in the field of communication; second is the promotion of excellence in the teaching and study of communication; third is proper representation in the creation and content of communication laws and policies; and fourth is the creation of a system that would effectively evaluate and certify communication services. They also publish a scholarly journal, which is the American Communication Journal, which contains articles on the latest development in the communication industry, whether it’s on theory, technology or other pertinent issues. Joining ACA will mean being part of a community that will greatly help students, academicians, and practitioners of the field. With membership free and Internet-based, the organization ensures that participation is not only easy but accessible to all.

The Association of Professional Communication Consultants

The Association of Professional Communication Consultants (APCC) (www.consultingsuccess.org) provides several services for communication consultants that are either new to the profession or are looking for ways to improve their skills and expand their market. As outlined in their website, they provide a venue for skills improvement, opportunities to market one’s skills, quick access to communication consultants, and interaction among members. Members receive updates on the latest development or issue on the profession, get access to company and jobs opening directories, and can link their own websites in APCC’s website, to name a few particular activities. Ultimately, too, they seek to help the profession advance – indeed, when there are more opportunities for people, they too become better contributors to the field. I find this equally interesting especially the numerous and updated links they provide. It makes looking for jobs and career opportunities easier, faster and cheaper.

Communications Roundtable

Communications Roundtable (www.roundtable.org) seeks to help people in the field search for jobs and improve their careers. They provide links to employers’ websites, job listings as well as business opportunities information. What’s interesting about this organization is how they create a community by helping their members as well asking for their help. For instance, they are invited to post information on new available jobs and career opportunities. What one gets is not only an organization that doles out assistance but that involves members with each other, creating a more solid community of communications professionals. Another interesting aspect of this organization is how they sincerely assist communications professionals by focusing on particular groups, such as older job seekers. This will greatly benefit me as I will soon need to build my own career, thus needing to know from others in the field and accessing all resources I can get.

The International Association of Business Communicators

The International Association of Business Communicators (www.iabc.com) is an organization of professionals from various communication functions areas tied together through the functions of business communication. They have members working in public relations to those in video and photography production, and from those in teaching to those in marketing. Among the benefits that members will experience are receiving insights, advice and assistance; tapping into job opening and career options; accessing a vast library of resources that can help improve one’s knowledge or skills; and being part of community that simply support one another in this tough and ever-evolving field of business communications. What makes this organization especially significant is how nowadays, professionals cannot really progress in their careers without continuously improving themselves, keeping themselves updated with the latest trends and issues, and working with other professionals in other but similar fields.

Career Fields (Communication Studies Major)

A degree in communications is based on the study of language and rhetoric (skill or art of using language effectively) and on ways of utilizing these two for the benefit of the society. It focuses on communication skills based on both oral and written forms. It is also involved in the study of people’s behavioral communications in a variety of formats and situations. Because it majorly focuses on the improvements of communication skills of the students, they are more likely to be easily hired in almost every company that they apply to after their graduation. Communication skills are essential in many industries today, such as: business, government, education, media, manufacturing politics, etc. This huge availability for various career opportunities makes it easy for a communication graduate to find a place or function in our society today. Five (5) of the most popular career fields for a communication studies major are specified below.

An Opportunity for Studying Law

For someone who wishes to become a lawyer, like me, it must be noted that four (4) years of “pre-law” undergraduate major study is required before one could pursue three (3) years of study in law school. Afterwards, a qualification in the bar examinations is required before one could be proclaimed as a professional lawyer. Aside from this, any potential lawyer should develop expertise in reading, writing, researching, analyzing and logical thinking. Although the study of law does not necessarily require any specific “pre-law” studies, students of communications, English and foreign languages, public speaking, philosophy, history, mathematics, etc. are just some of the prospective student applicants for law. Lawyers’ nature of work essentially requires speaking in front of a large public and convincing them into the argument with which he/she is trying to defend or contradict. This is where communications studies major have a good edge among the many other qualified undergraduate studies.

If one had already passed the licensure examination, a new door of variety of application of law will be opened to the bar examinee passer. A lawyer’s job depends on his field of specialization or position. All lawyers have licenses to represent or defend parties in judicial courts but there are also some who practice their profession outside the courtroom. Examples of such are trial lawyers who conduct outside interviews and investigations among clients and witnesses for the preparation of an argument in trial. Potential growths of a lawyer may be through areas of specialties of holding cases such as in banking and finance, international issues, civil or criminal laws, environmental laws, and many others.

This course of path interests me a lot. After my communication studies, I personally plan to pursue the study of law. Aside from the high potential salary earnings, I would like to become a lawyer because I enjoy much on having the ability to combine rhetoric with argument presentation for its defense and/or criticism. I can see myself applying effectively the knowledge and skills I have developed in my communication studies in the practice of law. However, I still do not have a clear vision of what specialization I would want to be engaged in after I pass the bar examinations.

Salaries of experienced lawyers vary generally according to the type, size, and location of their employers. Lawyers who own their own legal firms usually earn less than those who are partners in law firms. The employment for lawyers is expected to depict a thirteen (13) percent rise from 2008-2018. This growth on lawyers’ employment results to their range from the highest median salary of $84,036 (for corporate lawyers) to lowest median salary of $53,148 (for higher education lawyers) according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2009).

Cigarette Smoking is Worthless: A Persuasive Essay

Cigarette Smoking is Worthless: A Persuasive Essay
Misty Filippelli
Persuasion and Argumentation
Professor Lawler
April 5, 2010


Cigarette Smoking is Worthless: An Introduction

Tobacco was widely cultivated in the pre-colonial American continent and had people used it in various ways either by chewing, drinking as a tea, or inhaling as a powder. It was smoking the dried leaves of tobacco that became a practice of early priests as they used it to diagnose and heal the sick and fend off evil spirits. As years went by, smoking tobacco became more than just a ritualistic practice. The recreational use of tobacco became part of the elite culture and soon, it has become a prevalent habit throughout the globe and its production is now considered a multibillion-dollar industry (Gilman & Zhou, 2004). However, the habit has now been attributed to the growing numbers of diseases, birth defects, and deaths. In United States, smoking accounts for 434,000 deaths per year (EPA, 1993). 14,000 people worldwide meanwhile die every day because of smoking-related diseases (Tuscaloosa, 2010). Moreover, smokers aren’t the only ones in grave danger. It has been said that bystanders within the presence of a smoker are in danger of accumulating the health-related effect brought about by the emitted chemicals from a cigar. In fact, 33 percent of the nonsmoker population in the United States is exposed with environmental tobacco smoke coming from smokers (Movahed and Milne, 2006). Moreover, the effects caused by smoking cigarettes don’t stop from the dangers it brings to people. Smoking also affects the surrounding environment – the air, water, and the land.

Because of the abovementioned facts, smoking became a widely disputed concern with suggestions to delimit the advertising of tobacco products and to ban smoking in public places thereby creating a conflict with the money-making aspects of tobacco production and consumption. Yet, when prioritizing the welfare of the people above the profitable and economic aspects that tag along with the production and consumption of tobacco, cigarette smoking can be considered a worthless recreational practice as it brings more loss rather than gains to people and therefore should be removed from the society once and for all.