Reading Response Week 3
I really enjoyed the Luntz article. He brings up some very interesting and true points. When he talks about keeping it simple, for example. He states that only 27% of the American population has graduated college. That is very low, especially with all of the help that we can get from our government and the thousands of available scholarships. Nonetheless, he refers to keeping things simple and not using words that require someone to grab a dictionary to undertand them. You would think this should be common knowledge, but as we all know that is far from the truth. If you look at companies that are easily known, especially the ones he lists, it is obvious why they are so easy to remember and locate.
While I agree with his theory, I am torn with what I should believe and apply. Should we Americans be satisfied with this embarassing low number of educated people? OR should we consider this a strategy and an easier way to advertise. I dont know. I dont want to get too far off topic, but I believe there should be more of an effort in a child's younger years to understand the importance of receiving a good education. If this were the case, Luntz could be talking about ways to improve speech in an upward fashoin, instead of "keeping it simple."
In regards to the JetBlue situation, I thought they handled it in a mostly professional mannor. The biggest mistake they committed was to not observe the weather closely enough. Maybe they did, however, but did not take the necessary precautions. Either way, those people should not have gotten on that plane when it should have been obvious that the weather was not navigable. Returning to the passage by Luntz, the CEO abided by his theory. He made his statement simple and to the point. He told the public exactly what he was going to do to help bring his company back. There was no long drawn out speech. He designed the Customer Bill of Rights and made a promise. This was quite a major step considering what had recently happened. While JetBlue did make a mistake, I believe they responded in the most professional way possible to make sure something like that wouldnt happen again and that their customers do indeed come first.
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I would agree that the people at JetBlue handled the situation in mostly a professional manner. The thing that I see that was the major problem was not delaying flights or canceling flights until it was too late. You would figure they would know a major storm in coming their way and that they should plan for delays and cancellations. That was the only real problem I had with JetBlue. Being in a business where weather is one of the things that affects how you operate, knowing how the weather will be at a certain time would be a priority to know. Maybe they were trying to send out the greatest amount of flights before the storm but someone should make a call when it comes too close to when the snow would fall. Other than that, I feel JetBlue did a professional job in handling a large crisis.
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I too recall the passage saying that such a small amount of Americans actually graduate from college, and I agree that there is no excuse for this small number considering all the opportunities that are given to us to pay for it like loans and scholarships. The fact of the matter is, and unfortunate as it may seem, most Americans are probably just too lazy. Sure plenty of people think they know exactly what’s going on and they formulate their opinions on what the media feeds to them, but this is not the proper way to learn any information. So, like you said, it is important to keep things simple. I remember in the Luntz passage, he brought up a quote given by John Kerry and a couple of other big name politicians, but the quote contained use of very descriptive language they would probably just dumbfound most people reading it. Luntz also brings up the point of advertising. People try to use ploys like short two or three word slogans or the use of alliteration to better capture the attention of any reader. So with all these strategies, we must use the same approach in our writing. We need to keep it simple so that even a less educated reader can know exactly what we are talking about because, based on the numbers, in the real world odds are you are going to be reaching someone who is anyways.
Luntz article
I also thought the Luntz article was interesting and had some valid points. I too concentrated on using simple language in writing. I used to think that an educated person would use all sorts of sophisticated words to get there point across. I have since learned that to be an effective communicator it does not matter how sophisticated the language is it only matters how many people understand and can interpret what you are saying. You can be the smartest person in the world but if no one can understand you it doesn’t matter. I thought it was very interesting the point that he brought about John Kerry and Al Gore and how they may have had great messages but know one understood it and could not support it.