ENGL 420: Business Writing

Finally, this semester has come to an end and this is the last reading response that I will have to write. This week's reading, appropriately, is about oral presentations. After taking a speech class, alot of the information given is a repeat. Connect with your audience in a way that corresponds to your presentation, give a preview, give the information, and then recap what you've said are all common parts of an oral presentation. The nice thing about this powerpoint was that it gave specific points that we should inclulde in the presentation. This was helpful in deciding how to organize it.

This week we've had two group meetings so far. The first one was on Tuesday. We went to Von's and took pictures and gathered more information to use in our brochure. We met again Wednesday night to work on the rough draft of our brochure and our questions for the peer review on Friday. We got most of the brochure done, but are unsure of what kind of tone the document should present. We decided to do one side of our brochure with a professionally and the other more informally and laid back. Tomorrow we are going to meet with our client and see which one he prefers.

This week's reading was about oral presentations. The first point is about audience analysis. You should get to know your audience and what they expect so that they will be comfortable listening to you. I've never thought about it, but it now seems very obvious. If someone gives a formal presentation when you are expecting an informal laid back one, then this may lead you to think that they are stuffy or trying to be better than you.

This week's reading is about copyright, plagiarism, and fair use of others' writing. This is something that should be second nature by now. We all know what plagiarism is and that it is wrong and comes with serious consequences. Even with this in mind, it can still be very tempting at times to copy the work of others and call it our own; however, in my opinion, most times it happens on accident. Forgeting to cite something or doing it improperly are common ways plagiarism occurs. The article talks about how documents, formulas, and other unique things such as slogans and logos are protected.

This week has been an interesting one so far. After not receiving a response from our first choice client (Friends of Bob), we have decided to try our second: Von's Shops. Chris has already spoken to the owner and, he seems interested in working with us. At our second group meeting Tuesday, April 1 (which Adam was again unable to attend) we tried to speak with the owner of Von's to pitch our idea of a phamplet that could be distributed during Boiler Gold Rush. Unfortunately, the owner had just left for the day when we arrived.

I'm using the section on proposals for this week's reading response. The information given repeats ideas and concepts that should be pretty obvious by now. The biggest concept of the proposal is to keep in mind your audience. Not only do you have to convince them to approve your idea, but you also have to convince them to approve you as the one to do it. Your audience decides how you present the idea and the amount of detail that needs to be included about you/your group. The reading also offered a guide as to how to write the proposal.

The reading for this week focuses on how we should be writting our proposals. I think that since we actually have to work with a real client, it is going to be hard to convince them that there are errors in their advertising and to persuade them to allow us to work with them in order to fix/improve these errors. The overall way in which the document has to be written seemed to pretty much be common sense. By this I mean to say that we have had to write in this way before.

Central Indiana Purrr-fect Cat Fancier: This is a non-profit organization that promotes feline welfare and encourages spaying and neutering. They hold monthly meetings and several social events, sponsor educational programs, and put on an annual championship cat show. They also take cats to nursing homes to visit patients. I love cats and since I have been in lafayette/west lafayette have not heard/seen any advertisement for this organization. Back home, we have what's called the neuter scooter which offers reduced prices for the spaying/neutering of cats. This is ususally always a big hit.

With the white paper project barely coming to a close, we are supposed to have already began thinking about the third and final project. After reading the project description, I don't think that I am going to like this one very well. The fact that it is way more involved and going to take more work and thought is not the problem. I don't like the fact that we actually have to work with a company... then again, maybe it won't be as bad as what I think. Right now, the hard part is going to be finding a potential client. It is going to take research and creativity.

I am so glad that we are finally done with the white paper. This has been somewhat of a stressful project due to the strict deadlines. While we originally set out goals and decided who would do what, it turned out that almost all of us did a little of everything. Sometimes this was frustrating. My favorite part of the project was creating the design. I created the design for the second peer review. Working with publisher was a challenge, but once I got the hang of it, things began to go alot smoother. I also edited a major portion of the document, adding and removing things.