English 420: Business Writing

This week we planned on meeting twice, Monday, and Wednesday. On Saturday I had to tell everybody that I couldn't make it on Monday because I just got a job and had a shift at the time of our meeting, but to compensate I offered to correct the errors in the draft so the final paper would be ready for revision on Wednesday. The group said that was OK.

Working on the presentation of the white paper assignment was actually a lot more difficult that I though it would be. Instead of doing a normal powerpoint, we were challenged to use a new program called Prezi. The effects of this program were actually very cool, but it was difficult to get it right.

Also, after seeing so many groups use the same type of media, I started to get bored with the once unique and cool effects. I guess this is just like anything. I think once this program works out some kinks it will be pretty cool.

In our final week of the white paper project, my group worked primarily on revising our paper and organizing our presentation. Sandeep developed an idea to put “green” boxes at the end of each of our proposals to highlight sustainable advantages. This approach really helped create uniformity in our white paper. We also made minor changes to the formatting based on the reviews of our peers in class. Jessica, Sandeep, and I also had friends read the paper to check for any errors. Based on the suggestion from Mr. Baker, our group chose to use Prezi for our presentation.

To: Mr. Jack R. Baker
From: Jessica R. Baker
Date: 30 October 2009
Subject: Week 3 Progress Report

Mr. Baker,

This week our group finished up our white paper. We met on Wednesday, and from there delegated different parts of the white Paper. Jana worked on writing the executive summary, Kenny worked on reformatting InDesign, and Brittany and I worked on creating the Prezi presentation for class on Thursday. Overall everything went very smooth and we got everything finished rather quickly.

This week, I felt that our team put in all their best to successfully complete the final draft. We had to make a few changes for our final draft. Two areas where we decided to concentrate were the inclusion of costs for each of the proposed solutions and the ‘green boxes’ after each of them to highlight the green initiative behind each of our proposed solutions. These boxes were placed so that they were consistent with the goals of the ‘Boiler Green Initiative’ that President France Córdova has implemented as part of her strategic plan for Purdue University.

This week was very productive and efficient for my group. Throughout the week we made great strides in improving the content of our white-paper, as well as the design. The peer review offered by our classmates was helpful throughout this portion of the project.

This past week our group met two times. Our meeting’s were long but we got a lot accomplished. On Monday we went to the Hick’s basement computer lab to work on our White Paper. We wanted our White Paper to be perfect so that Mr. Baker could critique it and then get it back to us for the final on Thursday. On Monday in the computer lab, Sara, Tyler, Isabelle and myself used all of the class's comments on our White Paper to make the final draft. The class’s comments on our White Paper were positive with constructive criticisms.

This week our group met for the final time in the Hicks computer lab to look over suggestions from the peer review and make the necessary changes to our white paper and presentation. Although Prezi was new to us, we ended up having a lot of fun figuring it out and preparing our presentation. We looked over what suggestions we would consider implementing and made the appropriate changes in our white paper. After it was all put together, we each looked it over to make final touches before printing it out. We seemed to work best on this last day and everything came together well.

Our week started out with some minor confusion. We had planned a meeting on Monday evening to put together our presentation for Thursday, however that did not fully come to fruition. Jacobo had forgotten that he had to work, and Sara had a personal emergency that required her attention, so it was just Ashley and me at the meeting. We were productive, though, as we prepared a handout for the presentation.