English 420Y - Business Writing Online

The snow crisis faced on JFK airport was indeed a very ghastly experience travelers faced. This experience is seen in the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOo-tG9q2h0&mode=related&search=

Tailoring a business letter to a specific person or group of people is a very important thing to do. It all has to do with rhetoric context, depending on who your audience is and what mood or attitude they have you have to write according to them. JetBlue had this situation occur in February and now we are responding to it by writing a press release and business letter. You have to image your audience (readers/customers) and write according to how you believe what they will want to hear from you!

After reading through chapter one, there was some information on page 11 that I thought to be very useful to keep in mind. It was considered a "tip" and it states, "Create and meet your expectations of your primary and secondary audiences." This is extremely important to make sure you use when writing letters such as the ones we are assigned to draft. It is especially important in a situation like this one. Our audience went through quite a bit when dealing with the JetBlue situation. They are probably still unhappy and are probably considering to never do business with JetBlue again.

After reading about writing and rhetoric in the context from Thomson Handbook, I once again realized the importance of knowing well about my audiences and having the right tone of addressing my words to them effectively. Especially the JetBlue situation was a good example of showing these two key points that should be neatly organized in the writing. I think being in the reader’s perspective as much as I can trying to understand their situation and what they would want to hear from me would eventually create better letter than just explaining my position.

I found a video on youtube relating to the Jet Blue crises that happen in JFK airport in February. The video is made by a four kids who were stranded in the JFK airport for a long period of time. They were stranded in the plane that was on the runway for 8 hours. After that they were waiting in the terminal for hours trying to find a flight home. There was a lot of confusion in the airport. They finally went to a hotel for a few hours and came back and it was already the next day. They were still on the waiting list since there was only one flight a day to there hometown.

The video I found intersting is below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOo-tG9q2h0&mode=related&search=

In addition to watching the video posted by the instructor I watch another video on youtube that documented the struggle of 4 young men to get home. The link can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOo-tG9q2h0&mode=related&search=

This is the YouTube video I found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOo-tG9q2h0&mode=related&search=

After reading Chapter 1 in the Thomson Handbook on Writing and Rhetoric in Context, I understand that it is important to write in a manner that expresses your ideas and words in a way that will impact the reader. When writing a letter to a specific audience such as jetBlue Airways passengers, it is essential to make sure that the readers know that you understand their perspective and want to answer any concerns they may have in the letter. Chapter 1 also explained the importance of linking the knowledge, experience, and feelings to both the reader and the writer.

The readings about context and rhetoric showed me the importance of knowing your audience and anticipating each person’s reaction to your message. On page 10 of The Thomson Handbook, I thought it was very interesting that taking one word out of a film review that was negative and placing it in a different context, the film’s newspaper promos, would make it positive. This example showed how easily it is to change the context or for the audience to misinterpret something by the context.