English 420Y - Business Writing Online

This week was another good one for my group. We continued to use email as our main form of communication and communicated pretty well. Pat started out the week by emailing the group to get an update on our individual progress. Since he was in charge of the design of the brochure and putting it all together, he also asked for suggestions on the design. Meepa, Beth, and I all turned our revised articles in to Pat, along with any design suggestions we had. We made our final revisions using the suggestions of the CFRC and our peers.

This week my group continued to work very well together. Over the weekend, we discussed our plans for finishing our second draft. Because of Pat's work schedule, we agreed to have our draft finished on Monday, rather than Tuesday. Beth was out of town for the week, so she didn't have much input on the second draft. Meepa and I revised our individual sections of text and emailed them along with any other suggestions we had. In my section of text, I changed the format of the information to a list. I think this helped to increase the readability of text.

Appeal to emotions: (+) I believe the brochure my group created appeals to the emotions of the readers. We included pictures of the Christmas Day dinners held in the past to show how happy the kids were.

Be Professional: (+) For the particular purpose we had, I think we did a good job of making our brochure seem professional. The pictures may not be the best quality, but we didn’t choose them.

Be Personal: (+) For the most part, the text of our brochure talks about ways in which the reader can help. Because of that, I would say we kept our text pretty personal.

We started out week 6 by assigning individual parts of the brochure. Meepa, Beth, and I wrote the articles for the brochure. After we finished our individual articles, we emailed them to Pat, who was in charge of putting them together and working on the design. I think we did a pretty good job of sticking to the original plans and keeping the communication going. We have continued to use email as our main source of communication. After finishing the first draft, we have all come up with some good ideas for the next draft.

According to chapter 37, “sentences with rhythm and variety can mesmerize your readers into paying more attention and assigning greater value to your writing.” With that in mind, I think the biggest change my group needs to make to the writing portions of our brochure is to add variety to the sentences. After looking more closely at the writing, it seems that all of us used about the same length for each one of our sentences. If we varied the length of the sentences more, I think we would hold the reader’s attention longer.

My group, group 1, spent most of this week emailing and getting the communication worked out. Beth started out the thread of emails on Tuesday. The rest of us replied with information on how we could all be reached. Based on the communication this week, I think email will be our main form of communication. As we got closer to the end of the week, we decided to make a list of who was going to do what. Each person gave imput on what they would like to be in charge of. I think it ran pretty smoothly and will work out well. The first item on the list was the Gantt Chart.

The brochure I chose to analyze was made by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. It was used to promote green scaping as way to have a greener and healthier lawn. The brochure can be found at http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/Publications/catalog/greenscaping.pdf. The brochure uses several of the design elements found in Chapter 25 of the textbook. One of the design elements, contrast, can be found in the first two pages of the brochure. Both pages have pictures taking up the entire background.

Attached is my final project!

Any comments or suggestions are welcome!

After watching the video provided, I did a little searching for another response by someone who experienced the JetBlue crisis. I found a video filmed by a guy traveling with three other guys from New York to Sacramento, California. The web address for the video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOo-tG9q2h0&mode=related&search. The four guys kept a video record of everything they endured during their trip. They would give updates every so often saying how long they had been waiting and what it was like.