English 420Y - Business Writing Online

This week has been dedicated to coming up with ideas and creating the general information brochure. I did a lot of research about the Humane Society on the internet as well as other similar organizations to get an idea of how to best create this brochure. I also spent time thinking about the best ways to communicate effectively with the target audience, which ranged anywhere from children to adults. I decided that the best way to do this was to keep the information as simple as possible, and also to present it in a way that is easy to sort through and pull out key points.

This week was a very productive week for my group and I. We really got a lot done and while we were working hard we really got to know each other and how we all work. We also learned how each one of us in the group work and how we work together in one unison group. The week started out good, Keeli wrote our first weekly activity report and before she emailed for our professor we all read it over and added in some of our own extra touches to it. On Sunday I also started designing our brochure for our group. This was a bit more challenging then I thought it would be.

This week our group had to do a lot of work in putting together our first draft for our brochure. I feel that we were pretty successful on our first draft but we also have room to improve it and make it more effective. The first thing that I did for the week was do a little more research for information that we could include on our brochure. I used some of the websites that were listed under the project to find out as much as I could about the Christmas party and CFRC.

This week our group split into two groups of two and each group handled one brochure. Steven and Daniel completed the General Information brochure and Alanya and I completed the Caring for Your Pet brochure. Since each of us had a specific part to complete, we didn't work together as a group of four a lot. However we offered the other group and helpful suggestions we had when we all got together. We set a Tuesday deadline for having our rough drafts done. We emailed each other the rough drafts to look over.

This week has been a very productive week for both myself and my group. To start the week off I posted a simple organizational layout for a tri fold brochure as an idea for my group to use. My group seemed to like the idea and that layout ended up being the organization we took when we designed the brochure. Next, I organized the research that I found on the internet. I went through and made sure that our group fulfilled all the requirements and that I found all the necessary information that we were supposed to put on the brochure.

As week 6 comes to a close, we have finished our first draft of both the general information brochure and caring for your pet brochure. As group leader, I sent out email reminders about everything that was due. I also made sure that everyone was clear what they had to finish. I helped answer questions. Beginning last weekend, I began communicating extensively with Pratyush since the two of us were in charge of the caring for your pet brochure. I emailed him with the topics and then allowed him to choose which subset he would like to write about.

This week my group worked on putting together and revising our brochure draft. My main priority was to gather and organize the information for the brochure along with Suchet. I went ahead and opened the documents and links for our project and found the information that was needed in the brochure, all in one Word document. I organized the information as I saw appropriate and talked to Rachel and Keeli about it as I sent it to them. They were taking the lead in coming up with the brochure design, which we decided would work best as a trifold.

As far as this weeks schedule went, it was pretty easy for our group. We turned in our brochure on time and I thought, as well as the other three in my group, that it looked great. Matt did a great job of getting the rough draft going and now everyone will be pitching in to take care of helping it get to its final project. The hardships played by not being able to have face to face contact are starting to make a mark. Not in a bad way, but it makes it tough to get things done in an efficient manner when everyone has a different schedule and also try to do their work for this class.

This week was actually very productive. In our beginning stages, we had some difficulties getting all of us together at once to discuss thing, but I think we have resolved that issue. Unfortunately, my work schedule conflicts with all of my other group members' schedules so we have addressed that accordingly. My other members usually meet in the evening before a project is due and work on the project. Then the next morning I take a look at things and add any revisions I think would benefit the group and email everyone my ideas.

Whew boy was this week ever fun. Our team was determined to organize itself a little better after the Gantt chart was finished, after all, we had a few days before the first draft of the brochures were due. Unfortunately we ran into a few small problems, none of which were anyone’s fault. Laura was working like crazy on assignment is Las Vegas, meanwhile, Samana was dealing with internet issues in India. Like I said, no fault by anyone, it is just what happens when you have a group of students working remotely of one another during the summertime.