ENGL 420: Business Writing

This week there really wasn't any readings assigned besides the papers and handouts that groups gave out during their presentations. Both days we just watched group presentations about the different products that they came up with. I thought that all of the groups did a pretty good job of presenting to the class and acting like the class was the client. I also thought the products were all really professional and appropriate too. It seemed like all the groups put a lot of time and effort into their projects and they all turned out great.

This week our group talked quite a bit during class about where we are at with this project and what we needed to get done. Since the rough draft is due this Friday, our focus turned to the design of our brochure and just putting it all together. Michael and Josh finished up the writing of the brochure last week so Kimberly and I met a few times this week to put together all of the text along with pictures. Kimberly and I met on Tuesday and Thursday to finish up putting all the pieces together of the brochure.

This week we read about proposals and what exactly they are, how they are used, and other aspects about them. I thought the information was very interesting and helpful when put into context with our new project. It helped me get an idea of how to actually put it toward a real life scenario. I think this project is going to be very helpful and a great learning experience for down the road. The reading just gave me a better idea on how to present and go about writing a proposal. Although it wasn't much reading, it was very helpful and will make the process much more easier.

This week in English 420 we were assigned to read the Service Learning Project description and the client criteria. When I first read through the Service Learning Project I felt that it was going to be very challenging. I believe this will be a good project because it will give us a real life experience in the business world. We will be working and communicating directly with a small business or non-profit organization. It is going to be very challenging in the sense of completing this project in the time of about six weeks or so.

This week we looked at powerpoints that showed us what to put in them and what not to put in them. A lot of the things that were showed or demonstrated were pretty common sense but there were some things that will be very helpful when we begin putting together our own powerpoint. We also looked at another white paper which helped in providing more ideas for layout and design. The more designs and layouts that we see makes it that much easier to come up with our own ideas as well as incorporate some ideas that were shown to us.

This week our white paper is finally starting to take shape. We all have been working on the writing and putting together of the project. Kimberly mainly focused on the executive summary and background of health care. Me and Josh worked on the writing of the solutions. And Michael worked mostly on making the rough draft flow together better and correcting errors. This week our goal was just to get all of the writing done with so that we could focus on just the design and our powerpoint presentation next week.

This week the readings were mainly just examples and comments on actual white papers. I thought this was very helpful because it gave me more of an idea of different ways you can design and go about writing a white paper. The comments along with the white papers were also very helpful in showing me some of the do's and dont's of the project. I especially thought the Fuel and Urine white papers were the most helpful and insightful. I thought the Fuel white paper displayed great design and it gave me some ideas to use too.

Our group right now is getting into the middle part of the project and getting more of an idea of the exact way we are going to write it. We have had one major meeting so far, and we would have had another one this week but there were a couple of major tests that put a damper on our meeting times. This didn't slow us down at all because we have been using the Google Docs utility, and we all enjoy the convenience and capabilities it provides. We have worked on the outline and put it together using Google Docs and that worked really well for us.

My team's progress for this project so far has been really good. Everything has been running very smoothly from meeting arrangements to the actual research. My role in the project to this point has been mainly research on possible solutions for the Health Care problem. The first source that i used in the research of finding a solution for health care for small businesses was the National Federation of Independent Business website. This website specifically talked about the health care problem for small businesses and gave me a lot of insight on what could be done to help the problem.

The co-rec at Purdue is nice and well organized but what it lacks is the size a campus of 40,000 kids should have. With all the money brought into Purdue by tuition and other fees, I believe it is very possible and should be a priority of Purdue to reward their students. Many students at Purdue do not go to the co-rec on the sole reason that it is always packed and crowded. This reason should not be a factor is our students' decisions not to go. I believe this problem could be solved and that Purdue should take more action in trying to do so.