Purpose Statement: This blog post is to share my thoughts about the business profiles on the Newberg Downtown Committee’s website with the rest of my Writing 310 class.
The Newberg Downtown Committee, according to their own website, is a “volunteer-based organization” that is “making downtown Newberg into a destination that enriches the lives of those who visit and live here.” As part of their efforts, they have a website that lists many of the businesses in the area, such as different dining, shopping and lodging options. For this blog post I’ll be looking at the business profiles that they put up, and analyzing what is good or bad about them.
The good things that the profiles have are honestly the most important parts. Each listing has the business’s name, address, and hours. Most of them display the business’s logo. If you click further into the business, you’ll be given relevant contact information (such as phone numbers and emails), as well as a link to their website if they have one. A few profiles redirect specifically to the website, such as the one for the Chehalem Aquatic Center. A handful also have summaries of what the business offers, most of which are under the “shopping” category, such as the plant shop Uflora or the souvenir shop Pulp & Circumstance.
However, aside from basic information, these profiles don’t have much going for them. They rarely tell you why you would want to visit these places, but merely offers the names and addresses and links to more information. While the info is often available through further research, it would be a lot more convenient to have a given reason up front. The profiles rarely talk up the businesses at all, such as saying that they were “voted the best restaurant in 2013” or something along those lines. And the fact that only some of the profiles have summaries is jarring as well. It doesn’t flow very well to see a detailed paragraph about one place and a dearth of explanation about another. So what these profiles really need is better summaries, likely better formatting to make them more pleasing to the eye as well. As we talked about in class, a profile should make you want to visit the business.
Writing Wizard 