WP2 Final Draft

Luke Vejvoda

Department of Writing, University of California Santa Barbara

Writing 2: Academic Writing

Professor Fahler

May 22, 2022

Analytical Essay

Ever since I can remember I’ve always been a big fan of sports. It didn’t matter

what sport it was, I would always turn it on the tv and watch for hours. However, as I got

older I started to understand more about each sport and noticed the different aspects

that make teams successful. I always thought good teams were the ones with the best

players, but I slowly realized that this isn’t entirely true. Due to playing baseball my

entire life I experienced this first hand. I would be on teams that had players with

amazing talent, but we really didn’t know each other that well. Because of this, we

would constantly lose games and it always left me confused, because I knew we were

better than the other teams. Continuing on, I got the idea to write about this topic in my

communications class. We were talking about effective ways to communicate with

people in a work environment. We went over different methods on how to prove to your

colleagues that you are a hard worker and team player. While learning this, it made me

realize that this is also true for sports teams. This is because in both situations you are

working with others in order to achieve a common goal. This made me look back upon

my own experiences and it is true, at least for me, that the teams I had the most

success with were more comfortable communicating with one another. Furthermore, I

wanted to learn about the specific actions that make a well oiled team so I could

implement these techniques into my life.

In class this quarter, we learned how to write in a cohesive way that makes sense

all the way through. It’s important to “think of coherence as seeing what all the
sentences in a piece of writing add up to, the way all the pieces in a puzzle add up to

the picture on the box (Williams, 2014).” I didn’t think this research article did a very

good job at doing this and at times it was confusing to get a picture of what was going

on. However, blog posts are meant to be simple and quick, so I thought it would be the

perfect genre to translate it to. In the article there were many tables and graphs that

gave out information from the studies done on teams. The images and analysis were

confusing, so I thought the best thing to do would be to explain them in a simpler way. In

order to successfully do this I only took the information that people would want to know

and excluded everything that didn’t fit in with what I was trying to get across. When

explaining how to communicate effectively with a team, people aren’t going to be

interested in looking at the graphs or tables, but rather the specifics of how to

accomplish this. So, after reading the article I made sure to write down the positive and

negative actions that make a team better or worse. I then took this information and

explained it through common examples. I made sure that each post was short and

straight to the point being made. This is because, “part of taking on a topic is learning

enough about it to be specific. Specific is effective; vague is not (Giles, 2010).” Blog

posts are supposed to be quick reads. If they are filled with details that are unknown to

the reader then it is very likely that they will move to something else. Specific but simple

was the cohesive style I was trying to go for here.

One topic that we learned about all quarter was genres. We learned a lot about

them such as how to successfully write about specific ones. I learned that “genre refers

to a type of text that has genre conventions, or audience expectations (Gagich, 2020).”
What this means is that these different genres require different styles of writing for each

one. For example, you can’t write a horror movie the same way as a comedy, and in this

case you can’t write a blog post like a research article. People who read blog posts

expect a certain style of writing when looking for something to read. This is why I left out

the specific values of the graphs and rather just explained what they meant. If I would

have left it in then people would easily become bored due to the lack of context in this

subject area.

I feel like this topic was something that a lot of people could relate to. I’m sure

many coaches and players would be open to understanding how they can be a better

team player, but like I said before if they’re reading blog posts they want to know the

answer right away. This is why I formatted my writing project in a way that addresses

the problem first, and then after gives specific examples of how to deal with these

situations. However, sometimes this isn’t enough because, you really need to think “how

arguments are constructed, and what style is most appropriate and effective (Melzer,

2020).” So, due to this I tried to concisely explain why these techniques are crucial in

developing the communication of a team. The last section of each blog post explains

the “so what” of each argument. This is a huge factor in getting people to agree with you

because one of the main purposes of a blog is to get people to see through your lens.

The only way you can do this is by explaining the importance of your argument in an

attempt to persuade them to agree with you.

Blog Post 1

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first blog post! Over the course of this Spring
baseball season I am going to be providing helpful tips for coaches and players about
the successful ways to make your team cohesive. I’ve been a coach for 14 years now
who’s had hundreds of different players come play for my team. The greatest advice I
can give as a coach is to enforce positive communication techniques with everyone
involved. What you do off the field and how you talk to those around you has an effect
on the success of your team. A team that isn’t comfortable with one another lacks the
chemistry that is needed in order to win games. Having faith in your teammates is
crucial in giving them the motivation they need in order to succeed. Every couple of
days I will be providing helpful tips on how to communicate with your team. Every post
there’ll be a new technique that is related to this topic. Thank you to all the coaches or
players reading along. I hope what I have to say is useful to you and your team’s
relationship this season.

Blog Post 2

Hey, how is everyone doing? For this blog post I am going to be talking about
enforcing positive conflicts within your team. This might be the most important thing you
can do as a coach or player to build a strong relationship. Positive conflicts can range
from a variety of different things such as high fiving your teammate after they did
something good, cheering on the players who are in the game, getting water for the
players who are tired, and much more. These positive conflicts are all about showing
your teammates that you care about them. By doing this it instills confidence in the
players and in most cases prompts good things to happen. A team who shows these
positive habits is most likely a lot more cohesive then a team who doesn’t. It’s crucial
that your team gets along and has a good time with each other because it makes the
experience more enjoyable and when you’re having fun you tend to perform better.
Imposing these positive relationships between the players and coaches during practice
or outside the field is important so that people can gain each other's trust. Because, if
you can’t trust your teammates then you will have a hard time winning games. In almost
every sport you need to be willing to believe that your teammate will be able to do the
right thing. Overall, everyone should always try to be a good team player and practice
these communication skills. By doing this you are adding a lot more to the team than
you could possibly imagine.
Blog Post 3

For my newest blog post I am going to talk about the correct ways to deal with
negative conflicts. As a coach this is the biggest issue that I have to deal with on a day
to day basis. Problems will always arise in your team, and there's nothing you can do to
stop it, but there is a right way to handle it. Body language in sports is a very easy way
to see how someone is feeling. Slumped shoulders and head down is what players do
when they make a mistake. This is an example of a negative conflict that should be
dealt with right away. It’s never okay to let your players show this type of emotion when
on the field because it lowers their confidence dramatically. If you let your players sulk
around and let their emotions get the best of them, it is going to be hard to succeed
when given another attempt. If you are a coach or player you should approach the
person and give them some words of encouragement. When you make a mistake in a
game your head goes spinning every which way and you can’t think about anything
except how you just messed up. Going up to someone and telling them that it’ll be
alright and to keep their head up is important in raising their confidence again. This is
because it makes it known that even though they messed up the team still has their
back and the trust that they will succeed next time. Overall, negative conflicts never
provide any benefit whatsoever and are the reason why many teams lose their games.

Blog Post 4

The most important thing I will talk about on this blog is having good coaches
who are able to communicate effectively with their players. The coach is the heart and
soul of the team. He makes all the decisions related to the game and plays a big role in
how it turns out. However, there is a huge difference between a good and a bad coach.
A good coach will do everything in their power to foster a positive environment for their
players. This would look like offering extra help when a player is struggling, boosting
their morale after a bad game, and overall showing respect to all the players. It’s critical
as a coach to be able to talk to all of your players. You are the leader of the team and in
order to do well your players need to feel like they can trust you to guide them to victory.
A team that doesn’t like their coach is almost certainly going to fall apart and when this
happens everything you could imagine goes wrong. Having this sense of mutual respect
between everyone is essential in effective team functioning. You can achieve this by
acting a certain way with your team. You should never be too nice or too mean when it
comes to coaching. Those who are too nice aren’t respected and those who are mean
aren’t liked. You need to show excitement to your players to encourage them to try their
best, but also a little bit of anger when they are goofing around or messing up. This
instills them to pay attention to what they’re doing so they can work on getting better.
Lastly, the teams that have good relationships with their coaches are teams that exhibit
more cohesive qualities.

Blog Post 5

As the season comes to a close I hope that those who are reading were able to take
some of these helpful tips and implement them into their team plan. Overall, nothing is
more important than effective team communication. A good team is one that is
comfortable with each other and they show this through positive interactions. Even the
little things such as a high five, or showing encouragement can be the difference
between winning games. This is because games aren’t just won on the field but they are
won through the relationships you have with your teammates. It is the coaches job to
enforce this type of communication because like I said earlier they are the heart and
soul of the team. Whatever they say goes, but if they aren’t coaching in a way that
brings the team together then something is wrong. Sports are supposed to be a time
where you really express yourself through something you love to do. Good
communication mixed with a positive playing environment are the perfect ingredients to
a successful team. The teams that win the most games are the ones that are built on
trust, and the only way to obtain this is through this type of communication. Without trust
in your teammates this can lead to selfish behavior that is detrimental to the outcome of
the game. Lastly, all this information isn’t subjected to just one sport. This goes for any
sport or team that plays in competition together.
Works Cited

Gagich, Melanie. “An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing.”

Gaucho Space, 2020,
https://gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/pluginfile.php/4992575/mod_resource/content/0/
1gagich-introduction-strategies-multimodal-composing-1.pdf.

Giles, Sandra L. “Reflective Writing and the Revision Process: What Were You
Thinking?” Gaucho Space, 2010,
https://gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/pluginfile.php/4101382/mod_resource/content/1/
giles--reflective-writing-and-the-revision-process.pdf.

Melzer, Dan. “Understanding Discourse Communities.” Gaucho Space, 2020,

https://gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/pluginfile.php/4101081/mod_resource/content/0/
melzer-understanding-discourse-communities.pdf.

Sullivan, Phillip, and Sandra Short. “Further Operationalization of Intra-Team

Communication in Sports: An Updated Version of the Scale of Effective Communication
in Team Sports (SECTS-2).” Wiley Online Library, 2011,
https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:9443/doi/full/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2
010.00722.x.

Williams. “Cohesion and Coherence.” Gaucho Space, 2014,

https://gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/pluginfile.php/4101214/mod_resource/content/0/
Style-%20Coherence%20%20Cohesion.pdf.