English 420Y - Business Writing Online

After reading chapter 24, I could learn how important it was to relate pictures to the text properly. I liked the project checklist on page 561. It gave me clearer idea for integrating images into the text. I think the pictures used in our brochure have been applied efficiently and properly. They served specific functions and bolstered the argument, asking people to take part in the Christmas day event. For example, below “The CFRC Christmas Day Dinner” part, we inserted the picture of smiling Santa Claus with CFRC logo.

All of the principles listed in the Thomson Handbook are necessary in creating a professional brochure. Using variety is good so your readers don't get bored looking at the same pictures or reading the exact same type of paragraphs over and over again. Conciseness is a good way to keep your brochure short and keep the readers interested. If all of your sentences are long and never seem to end your reader will get bored quickly. Thinking of who your audience will be and how you are trying to make them feel while reading your brochure is a very important thing to do.

I found this weeks reading to be very helpful. I will definitely reference back to these two chapters when revising our brochure for the second draft. I agree that the use of pictures help convey the message of the brochure, or any document, when used appropriately. However, I feel that many people do not take this into consideration when creating their documents. The misuse of photos is often counterproductive and confusing to the read, ultimately detracting from the effectiveness of the document. I think the uses of photographs in our brochure were used effectively.

After reading this weeks material in the handbook, I think overall our group did a good job creating the brochures and using the principles in chapter 37. Through out both of our brochures our group made is a point to change up the lengths of the sentences, and use bullet points to create our content. My job for the service learning project was to create content for the caring for your pet brochure. I made sure to mix up the way I used vocab to make the brochure more interesting for the readings.

Chapter 37 was the most helpful guide I’ve read in this class. I have notice that my problems almost always rely in attractive writing. First of all the entire variety principle seems completely new for me, and learning it has been a very positive fact for this project. In this first draft I wasn’t able to apply this information since I read the chapter today but for the second draft I will apply principles such as variety with types of sentences, word order and place of important information.

After reading Chapter 24 and 37 in The Thomson Handbook, I think our group followed the principles but I think we could add more to improve our brochure. In Chapter 24 on page 559 of The Thomson Handbook, it states that the functions of photographs are to convey information and content and help your reader see what you mean. The photo in our brochure of the decorated gym with lots of tables shows the audience the large number of people that attend the Christmas Day Dinner and also shows the success of last year’s dinner with 3,000 meals.

Chapter 24 of the Thomson Handbook stresses visual design and layout. These factors are of great importance to the success of this brochure. First of all, pictures were used to improve the appeal of the brochure to the reader. The pictures used draw out an emotional response to the readers and urge them to adopt a pet, volunteer their time, or donate supplies. For example, next to the section about adopting a pet, a picture was inserted showing a happy couple with a newly adopted pet. They are smiling and showing all the joys of being a pet owner.

After reading chapter 37, I think our group did a good job of varying our sentence structure within the brochures we made. On page 759 of the Thomson Handbook states "lively writing contains a mix of sentence structures: simple, compound, complex and compound-complex." We used all of these sentences in the caring for the pet brochure. An example of when we used the simple and compound sentences would be "The pet now has to get comfortable in a whole new world,

The Clinton County Humane Society sent along a few pictures of the facility that Weber's class is welcome to use in their brochures - though you can also include pictures from the Clinton County Humane Society website and free image sites. The photos are attached below and on the Weber Service Learning Project Page. I apologize for the delay on getting these.

As I read through chapters 24 and 37 there were a lot of different principles to keep in mind and apply when designing a brochure. Before I started to design the brochure for my group I sat down and thought about variety, conciseness, audience, and design of my draft of the brochure. When writing out the information for the brochure it was very hard to have sentence variety because a lot of the information was the same and had to say the same information. Our group tried to make the information in our brochure made up of simple and compound sentences.