English 420Y - Business Writing Online

This was a very productive week for my group. I started the week by writing the weekly group activity report, which is one of my responsibilities for the group. I then looked at the comments made by the CFRC and began to think about changes that needed to be made to the text. As a group we decided to have a meeting on Monday using instant messenger. This was a new experience for me, because I had little experience using AIM. I discussed with two of my other group members the overall look of the brochure as well as the text changes to be made.

I started the week by making changes to the brochure using the comments from Professor Tirrell and the CFRC. One of my responsibilities for the group was to help write the text, so this is what I focused on. Since I did not help with the first draft because of family problems, I thought it was important to be active in the revising for the second draft. I fixed the small errors in the document and then concentrated on the short paragraphs we have in the brochure. I posted the revised brochure on the wiki page for my group to review.

The brochure exercise was useful in determining if our group's document will get noticed. Much like writing a resume, a brochure must catch the readers' attention and inform the reader in a consise, professional manner.

Appeal to emotions (+)
Our brochure does a good job trying to, " strike an emotional chord" with our readers. Everyone realizes that it is important to have a place to be on Christmas, and to provide for children in a bad situation. The pictures we use illustrate how the community can help those in need.

Be Professional (+)

After reading chapters 24 and 37, I felt our group did a good job following the principles outlined in the Thompson Handbook. In chapter 24 the book describes that the visual content should give the reader evidence of something that is mentioned in the text. One example of this in our brochure is a picture showing a gentleman handing out food. The photo illustrates the text above it, which describes what kind of volunteers the CFRC needs. The pictures we used also helped to show who our intended audience was. The brochure's purpose is to get volunteers for the Christmas Dinner.

This week was very busy the our group. I was unable to contribute to the first draft of the brochure because of family problems. On Sunday I wrote the Activity Report for the group, which was one on my responsibilities from the Gnatt chart. I continued to communicate with my group through the wiki page that was provided. This has been an effective tool in eliminating confusion about were we can exchange ideas. Since I did not work on the first draft I have spent this week reviewing the brochure my group submitted and taking notes on things I thought could be changed.

This week has been a learning experience on how to work in groups online. It has been difficult to stay in touch with everyone on a consistent basis. This is mainly due to conflicting schedules and group members communicating from different time zones. I started the week by writing an email to introduce myself and throw out a few ideas on splitting up the work load. As the week has progressed we have gotten better at communicating through email and have made good use of the wiki page. The only problem I have seen is, we have not set up any exact times for group meetings.

The brochure I chose is for the Manchester City football hospitality. It is quite a bit longer than the brochures that our group will be producing, but it seemed to follow everything that was pointed out in Chapter 25. I thought the length of the brochure was significant to point about because the company did a good job in keeping my interest and attention, despite how long it was. This is the whole idea behind writing a brochure; holding the readers' attention by using good visuals and concise text.

I have attached is my press release, business letter and text analysis.

Here is my letter, any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks, Nick

I think a quote from page nine of Chapter 1 sums up the importance of writing in context, "When your writing is not attuned to context, you miss the opportunity to act on real people in real situations that matter." This qoute also seems to relate to the writings we have been doing this week. I found the section in the reading that discussed taking into account the readers context to be interesting. In writing the Jet Blue letter it will be important to consider the circumstances of the reader, so it will be effective.