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4. For question #2, what did you do differently from the original post? Please outline, explain and justify what you changed & why. Essentially, what did you learn from this new topic and what did you change and why. (8 Marks)

To take a look back at my original post, I am able to quickly notice what my older writing structure looked like and how I did not have a full understanding of how to properly apply the F Pattern and the use of plain language to successfully create a piece of writing that was optimal for readers on the web. Even though I do find that my original writing was able to very strongly communicate what my brand was, I have since learned about why the language that I used was overly descriptive and made the introductory content too long and inefficient for online reading. From my understanding, this work was not applying principles of the F Pattern of plain language because of this and therefore my target audience of readers are less likely to be able to scan through this work quickly to gather an understanding of what the information about my business is and how it can align with their purpose for seeking out the information in the first place. Within my revised version of my introduction of Ava’s Lil Bakeshoppe, I knew that I wanted to keep my writing effective and able to clearly communicate what my business is while prioritizing making my message more concise, scannable and easier to understand for readers. Therefore, all of the changes I made here were in regard to all of what I have mentioned here that I learned about both plain english writing and the F Pattern. 

The first big change that I prioritised making within this writing was simplifying my wording/vocabulary usage. Within my original piece of introductory content I used a lot of very detailed and overly descriptive language such as “each and every dessert combines our passion for nostalgia with true sophistication”. Even though I feel like this does a great job of encapsulating what my business is all about, they made my writing unnecessarily long, descriptive and difficult to scan through quickly which makes it lack the application of F Pattern or plain language writing principles. In my revised version, with my better understanding of the F Pattern and plain language I was able to use much more direct and specific wording that could be quickly read or scanned so that my target audience of readers could easily understand what my brand was immediately after reading only once. For example here, instead of having multiple different sentences that described my brand in an overly descriptive and lengthy manner, I chose to clearly state what my business has to offer our customers in a structured way that used the F Pattern to contain short sentences featuring bullet points, alongside words that are easy to understand but still convey what I am trying to introduce about my bakery. This change is effective as I applied my knowledge in regard to having learned that plain English writing should place emphasis onto clarity and being concise over using overly descriptive (and rather decorative) phrasing for my introduction.

The other big change I determined I should make after expanding my knowledge, learning and overall understanding of what the F Pattern is and why it is important was the way in which I organized and structured my content. In my original version of my introduction, I did understand that the F Pattern was used to divide content into different sections however my paragraphs and sentences within these sections were still way too long and difficult for readers to scan for information. What this did negatively was it made my written content feel dense and academic as opposed to optimising for the experience and understanding of my readers. In my newly revised introduction I made the switch to using much shorter sentences/bodies of text and bullet point style lists, alongside clearer headings that were concise but encapsulated what the content was going to be about. For example, in my original work I had the header “Desserts YOU Love! But Elevated” which did not describe what the content was going to be about as it lacked plain language writing principles such as not using jargon or overly descriptive language. My revised version of “What We Have To Offer You”, is much more concise and does not feature any unnecessary words that do not convey what the content will be about to readers who are scanning through my writing. Therefore, this considers what I learned in regard to how audiences often times will not read through every word i put from top to bottom, but rather they have the tendency to scan for the key details and information that the writing has and therefore,  I need to make sure that my writing is structured in a manner that is supporting this so that my writing is actually effective and not a waste of time or resources. I also made sure that I changed the order in which I chose to place my information to ensure that I was prioritising front loading the most important information. This applied F Pattern principles to ensure the information that I wanted to get across from my content was actually going to be read by my target audience as opposed to just being skipped over as they might only be reading the first portions of my work. Another change that I made was adding imagery to my post this time. After having learned in class all about the importance of imagery and what purpose it can serve in content, I knew it would be beneficial to add relevant images to my work. This point was very clearly emphasised by the statistics that were shown in class regarding how “Articles with images get 94% more views than those without”. I was able to take this and apply it by adding in two relevant images, the first being one which features a pink themed cake in a pink themed bakery which aligns with my bakery business’s branding and brand identity alongside the products which my written content discussed would be sold. In addition to this I added an image of someone easily ordering online from my bakery right on their laptop which showcases just how simple it is for my readers to follow my call to action and convert to customers.
The final change that I made was strengthening my CTA, as in my feedback I was informed that my call to action was not strong enough and now that I have learned more about effective content, I can definitely agree. The original post was mostly just focused heavily on my brand values, ingredient choices and how I view my business which did help to communicate my brand identity but at the expense of the reader’s experience in regard to readability. When it came to writing my revised introductory content, I was able to take what I learned about plain language and the F Pattern principles and keep my brand’s message strong while making sure that I made my content more audience forward and action powered. I did this by emphasising what I understand my audience would want to know such as what my business has to offer, why it matters and what steps they should take next. I also made sure that the ending call to action  of telling readers to reach out by clicking to visit my website to request an order was clear and guiding them in the right direction to fulfill the overall goals of my business even having a website with a blog attached to it in the first place. Overall, this made my content more effective as I was able to everything that i have managed to learn in regard to making my writing more focused on the readers user behaviour and content priorities in order to optimize my content’s ability to be understood quickly and easily by all readers including those who generally scan through writing before actually reading it in full. Therefore in order to apply all of what I have learned regarding the F Pattern and plain language writing the, I reduced overly descriptive wording in my writing, I shortened my bodies of text to short sentences and bullet points, I  made my headings clearer to better convey what the content was going to be about, I moved my most important content to the top of my page to increase the likelihood of it being read and ending off with a much stronger call to action that guides my readers in the direction of converting into loyal bakery customers of mine.

RESOURCES:

1.  Briscoe, The Power of Visual Content (W26).pdf, Slide 3
2.  Briscoe, F Pattern Refresher (W26).pdf, Slide 3

b. What was the most challenging aspect of applying the F-Pattern and Plain English writing principles? How did you overcome it? (5 Marks) 

When it came to applying both the F Pattern and the principles of plain English writing to my work, I found that the most challenging aspect of this was figuring out how I could balance simplicity and being rather concise with making sure my writing was still able to clearly communicate the information I was providing about my bakery in a way that was effective and not lacking clarity. I knew specifically that I wanted my written introductory content to align with my Ava’s Lil Bakeshoppe objectives and branding alongside sound as appealing to my audience of potential converting consumers, all while making sure I was keeping my work as clear, brief, concise and easy to scan as possible for my audience of readers. From my understanding, sometimes my writing in regard to my business (especially within my original introduction to my business) can be way too descriptive and not employ the principles that are involved within plain english writing. This is mostly an issue because people like me who are passionate about their business want to make it sound special through describing as many facets of the business as possible however it is important to consider how when it comes to written content that is intended for readers, using a large amount of overly descriptive language or technical terms and jargon can make a message much less direct, easy and quick to read through which will make the writing much harder for readers to digest/process which makes it redundant and ineffective. 

An additional aspect of my challenge in relation to the F Pattern, was not writing in larger paragraphs like I am used to for more academic pieces of written content. Instead of writing like this, I needed to balance keeping my writing effective for my business and fulfilling the actual purpose of my writing (as mentioned already) while making sure I was able to get my point across using sort of a “less is more” concept to produce effective yet easily understood content that considers the amount of time readers will be willing and able to spend reading alongside how “scannable” the content is. I really needed to consider how my readers would move across and down my webpage to gather the information which my content is aiming to provide. I understood that the F Pattern was effective because of the fact that it recognises that the most important content should be front loaded to ensure it is read and that “Users spend 80% of their time viewing the left half of the page”. Therefore I knew I needed to challenge what I was used to doing in terms of academic writing and long paragraphs by shortening my points to only feature key information without any extra or unnecessary words/descriptors so that readers could get through my writing quicker but still gather what my information is and what purpose it fulfils for them. Overall, the most challenging aspect of applying both the F Pattern and plain English writing to my work was steering away from my usual academic writing habits to ensure I only featured the most important information within short pieces of text and bullet points that are created using a structure that was easily scannable. 

RESOURCES:

1.  Briscoe, F Pattern Refresher (W26).pdf, Slide 4

a. Describe one specific technique you used to improve readability in your revised version and explain why it is effective. (4 Marks) 

One of the techniques that I specifically used throughout my revised version of my introduction to improve its readability was breaking up my content into much smaller sections that use shorter sentences and even some bullet points accompanied by clear headings. In my writing, I would say I have become accustomed to writing in a very academic and detailed way that not everyone can easily understand or read through super quickly, so even though my first introduction included a few principles of the F-Pattern such as breaking up my content into sections with headings, they still contained a lot of words and unnecessary details that made the sections too long and did not prioritise readability or first loading my key information. In my newly revised introduction however, having these smaller bodies of text, heading and bullet points is what is making it much easier for users to be able to scan through it and seek out the information they desire much faster with less effort. Essentially, what I did here was I made sure to break up what could have been within a larger body of text into multiple different small but logical seeming portions that are each focused on one topic such as what we offer, what differentiates my business and how people can order from us. Ultimately, this helped to significantly reduce any clutter throughout the introduction and make my written content feel much more manageable for everyone within my target audience to quickly/easily be able to read. I also made sure that my first pieces of writing were the most important as they contained the information that was about my business and what we do/have to offer, while the ending was mainly in regard to how people can easily take action through a strong call to action that is able to guide my readers in the direction they should go to next in order to do so. Overall, the technique of separating my content off into smaller headings, bodies of text and bullet point centered lists is helping to make my content much more readable so that people can easily scan through the writing to understand it, gather information  they will need and align it with their purpose for seeking out the information I have provided them with here.

RESOURCES:

1. Briscoe, F Pattern Refresher (W26).pdf, Slide 6
   

For question #2, explain how your new post successfully addresses the three main objectives of Plain English writing as discussed in class. Provide a detailed breakdown of each objective. (9 Marks) 

Within class we had discussed several of the objectives which plain english writing aims to address, the first one of these three is helping the reader to understand the writing easily. From this, within my writing I obviously knew that this was an objective which I needed to fulfil through my introduction of Ava’s Lil Bakeshoppe. Looking back at my revised post, I have successfully been able to accomplish this by using very direct, familiar and easy to understand wording and vocabulary alongside using shorter sentences that are simple for people to follow along with and read in a short amount of time. For example, in my very first paragraph about what my business has to offer our customers, I was successfully avoiding to usage of wording/phrases that were overly descriptive and used complicated phrases while still keeping my content relevant to my target audience of readers and valuable to them through what information is can provide in plain, easy to digest language. This was done when I had clearly stated that Ava’s Lil Bakeshoppe creates customizable cakes, gourmet cookies, cinnamon rolls and bars with a few easy to understand verbs that do not over complicate the subject of baked goods while also briefly informing them of how these treats are good for parties or celebrations. What my usage of this plain language here did was successfully fulfill the objective of making my written content easy to understand quickly upon reading only once, while mitigating the opportunity for there to be any confusion among readers. Overall, the reason why I know this is important is because if this text did not use plain  language to ensure it can be easily understood by my readers, the writing would not even be effective and would therefore be a waste of my business’s time and resources.

The second objective here for plain language writing to fulfill was helping my readers to easily have the ability to gather whatever information they will be needing/wanting to know from having read my content. My revised version of my written business introduction for Ava’s Lil Bakeshoppe easily addresses and ultimately supports this objective, as I have used the F Pattern to effectively break up my written content into different sections that use various headings. Essentially, these headings are written in a way that readers can understand quickly and find what type of content they are in search of. For examples from my writing, I used headlines including “What We Have To Offer You”, “Why Choose Ava’s Lil Bakeshoppe” and “Ready To Order From Us”, all of which use simplified wording in order to give readers a quick idea of the the shortened body of information to follow will be. Therefore guiding the reader through my page of content which ultimately is using the F Pattern to locate where the information they desire/need to gather will be. So, here I have used plain language objective of helping readers to easily “Find what they need” in a timely manner, by choosing to break my content down into much smaller sections that I know are relevant to my audience’s searches for information and will overall allow them to scan through my page efficiently to gather what they need/want to know. I also fulfilled this objective through using some bullet points within my first body of text in order to highlight my most prominent treat products and customizable cake services in a way that makes them easy for my readers to scan through to gather the main details of what my business has to offer without having to spend large amounts of time to read many different sentences entirely to retrieve the information they need. I know that on the web for my website’s blog this is particularly important as so many of my readers are going to come onto my website page and scan before they decide if they wanna fully react and therefore this will help to to easily father all of the information they need by simply looking through my bullet points and short sentences quickly. In conclusion, this objective of helping users find the information they are aiming to gather easily is fulfilled here using plain language to structure my content in a way that involves the F Pattern so it can be read quickly but still fully understood.

The third objective of the F Pattern that my writing for my introduction of Ava’s Lil Bakeshoppe successfully was able to address was helping my readers to use all of my information that I have provided to actually fulfil their purpose for seeking it out in the first place. In my case, the readers of my content likely have the purpose of trying to find a bakery that offers the kinds/types of treats that they are in search of and how they can move forward easily to place an order. This is where my revised post having used plain language within my writing comes into play, as my introduction is now helping to support this objective by including all of the relevant information while leaving out any overly complicated language or unnecessary details that would increase the amount of time my writing would take readers to actually read. This was done here by including plenty of information such as what product I offer (1st body of text), what occasions our products are good for (1st body of text), what our unique selling point is (bottom of 1st body of text and 2nd body of text) and a call to action that easily guides users into visiting our ordering treats online page within the Ava’s Lil Bakeshoppe website itself (3rd body of text). This all uses easy to understand language that therefore fulfills the reader’s purpose for information and tells them why Ava’s Lil Bakeshoppe has all their bakery related needs and can easily take their order requests. Especially with the past body of text which has the header of “Ready To Order From Us?” as this writing is connecting the information I have provided directly to the reader’s purpose of reading my introduction which once again is ultimately going to involve how to place an order once they have read the first sections and know have gathered and understood what Ava’s Lil Bakeshoppe has to offer and why it stands apart from other bakeries. Overall, my use of plain language writing within my introduction is able to meet the objective of allowing users to use the content to easily fulfill their purpose of seeking it out. 

RESOURCES:

1.  Briscoe, W8 – A – Plain Language Writing (W26).pdf, Slide 18
2.  Briscoe, W8 – A – Plain Language Writing (W26).pdf, Slide 18
3.  Briscoe, W8 – A – Plain Language Writing (W26).pdf, Slide 18
   
   

c. What is plain language writing for the web and in detail and in your own words, why is it important? (4 Marks) 

For when we are aiming to write for the web, the use of plain language is going to hold extra significance as readers are especially going to want the written content which they consume online to be as easy and quick as possible to understand. As we have discussed in class, the readers of content are often going to read through pieces of online text or webpages through scanning the page for headings, key phrases or they could also just choose to place the vast majority of their focusing power onto the pieces of writing closer to the beginning more so than the end. This is why writing for the web needs to employ all of the aspects of plain language in order to be as focused on the reader experience as possible. Some of the aspects of plain language which would apply here in particular are being clear, as concise as possible and the ability to allow readers to understand what the actual underlying purpose of the content is and how it can align best with them.

Furthermore, when it comes to applying all of the principles of plain language which I have established exist, we can also understand how the F pattern can help us make better usage of plain language with the creation of written content that is intended to be utilized on the web. The reason for this is the fact that plain language for the web generally is going to be very inclusive of shorter paragraphs of text, headings that are both meaningful and captivating and good organization of the content so that readers who choose to not stick around to read content for very long can get the point. The F pattern can help us here as like mentioned in our class powerpoint, “the F Pattern helps designers place the most important content where users naturally look first” Therefore the use of the F pattern is helping to make the user of plain language easier as it improves our overall understanding and knowledge of how users generally read through written content which allows us to use the structure of the F pattern to create content that is worded in an easy to understand manner that front loads the usage of keywords to make sure we maximise the amount of time that readers actually will spend on reading our content. All of this also takes into consideration and ultimately helps to fulfils the goal of having “clear, concise and correct” content. This also goes back to how like we discussed in class, people generally do not have long attention spans and therefore we must make sure our writing is catering to this to an extent as we need to consider that many people will not actually have the attention span needed to make it through a long body of text. In conclusion, not only can plain language be used in writing for the web through the F pattern, but it is actually incredibly important to do so as this allows use to make content that fulfills our goals for reader experience while understanding that people do not have long attention spans and read content that appears at the beginning first. 

RESOURCES:

1.  _{Briscoe, Lecture, February 11 2026}
2.  Briscoe, F Pattern Refresher (W26).pdf, Slide 3
3.  Briscoe, W8 – A – Plain Language Writing (W26).pdf, Slide 3
4.  _{Briscoe, Lecture, February 25 2026}

b. What makes plain English writing different? (4 Marks) 

Plain english writing is different than other writing such as academic writing (like I am doing to respond to theory based questions given to me in not just this class but this program) as it is putting the everyday reader with basic level english reading knowledge (with respect to the current literacy rate) first in how the content is actually being written. This all comes down to several different aspects of the writing such as the wording and the way it’s structured. When it comes to the wording of the written content, it is different as it takes on a different goal from other types of writing to actually not use as many big or “difficult to understand” words that readers would not easily grasp on the first quick read through. Instead, it makes the writing easy, quick and contains just enough words to get the information across. This brings me to how it is structured which as I just said, is different because it aims to be as brief and concise as possible to include just as much writing/words as needed to ensure that the reader does not have to spend copious amounts of time reading through the content. This varies from a type of writing such as more formal or academic writing which aims to use more specialized wording that covers as many details as possible to explain each facet of what is being spoken about. Plain language English is also different as it takes into account “who your audiences are and what they need” in terms of what they could be in search of within your writing and how much time they would even be willing to spend reading your content. Plain language also prioritises appealing to the most people possible within this target audience which does mean (unlike more academic writing) considering the current literacy rates within Canada (or wherever the writing is for) as like we briefly discussed in our class discussion has progressively gotten lower over the years, meaning plain english writing is more crucial than ever in how it uses simpler yet relevant language to accurately write content with respect to the target audience and their time. 

A good example of just how differently plain could have operated to help readers understand writing is when in class we were shown an image that had a phrase (I do not remember word for word) but it contained the word “waterlemon”. Due to our human nature and the fact that we often times will just quickly skim through passages of writing like this even when they are small and within a photo, many of the students in our class were under the initial impression that this word as watermelon due the the simile spelling and the way in which an english speaker would generally know to expect a space in between “water” and “lemon” which was not present there and brought many of us to immediately read the writing as “watermelon. This is very significant for why plain english writing is different as usually plain english writing will sort of put the reader first by trying to eliminate the potential of readers not understanding what happened in the first read because many people won’t take the time to read the writing over and therefore might not have even noticed in this instance that the word was in fact not “watermelon” had our professor not told us it was likely not saying what we initially believed it was. 

RESOURCES:

1.  _{Briscose, W8 – A – Plain Language Writing (W26).pdf, Slide 20}
2.  _{Briscoe, Lecture, February 25, 2026}
3. _{Brisoce, Lecture, February 25 2026}

When it comes to “plain English writing”, this concept is one I can easily explain as hence the name, it is just a way of ensuring that writing is “plain” enough that the majority of the target audience for the content will be able to easily read and understand it quick;y. Furthermore, plain english writing is generally going to be very “clear, concise and correct” as we have learned in class. The reason for this is the fact that when information or writing is very formal, long, lacks clarity and perhaps even contains incorrect information, audiences are going to be more confused and therefore not understand what the meaning or purpose of the content itself actually is. This also mitigates people having to potentially go back through and read writing or content over again as they misunderstood it the first time which is beneficial because some individuals might not be willing to do this as it inconveniences them/doesn’t consider their time or perhaps they just did not even recognize there was a mistake in the very first place. This is negative as unless someone explicitly mentioned that readers might have read the writing incorrectly or misunderstood it, readers will not recognize this in the first place, and so this lack of understanding due to ignoring the importance of plain English writing can not be happening. 

To expand on this, plain language is essentially writing that is trying to put the reader first so they can understand the writing easily, in order to easily gather the information they need to know and ultimately use it to fulfill whatever their purpose for actually even seeking out of finding this writing was. What this allows us to do as people who are creating valuable content is ensure that readers can scan through content or just read it quickly once and gather a sufficient understanding of the content so that they can potentially answer their questions or fulfill their need for information perhaps about a particular subject or topic which the content clearly showcases that it is relevant towards. The F Pattern comes into play here too as placing information in a structured way that sets the content up so that readers can easily scan through short bodies of text that use clear headers, shorter sentences and lists to keep content as accessible to the target audience as possible.. Should writing (especially in our industry of marketing and advertising) fail to use plain english writing within content, there is a huge risk being taken on that readers won’t even understand the content quickly and easily enough for it to provide value which basically makes the content’s existence redundant and therefore a waste of money, time and resources. If plain language in content is not at least considered to somewhat of an extent, the purpose of the content such as providing information or positioning a product in our industry have likely not been successfully completed. Overall, plain English writing is a way of writing content that provides the ability for the majority readers in the target audience to understand written pieces of content as quickly, clearly and with as much ease of understanding as is possible in order to fulfill the content’s actual purpose.

RESOURCES:

1. Briscoe, W8 – A – Plain Language Writing (W26).pdf, Slide 3

2. Briscoe, W8 – A – Plain Language Writing (W26).pdf Slide 17

4. Second-Year Course Headline (4 marks) Create one headline promoting second-year digital courses in this program, targeted to first-year students. You must provide: 

a) Provide the headline 

b) Explain your reasoning clearly using class content

“Master SEO, Web Design and Digital Marketing in Second Year: Start Building Powerful Career Skills”

For a headline aimed at first year students in regard to second year courses, I knew that I would have to start pivoting somewhat away from a focus on high school students effectively. In my headline’s creation, I wanted to first consider how I could communicate value through mentioning the tangible skills that students would gain upon completing their second year of this program as opposed to referencing any course codes. The skills I chose to highlight were more practical skills that are in higher demand among companies looking to hire such as SEO, Web Design and Digital Marketing (this covers both email marketing and content class under the same umbrella). The reason why this is so impactful in a headline like mine for this program’s second year courses is the fact that first year students have mainly been focused on learning theory based classes such as ADV211 where little practical work is done. I recognize that in order to keep first year students interested enough in our program to desire to continue on into second year with both their time and financial investments, I need to highlight what they are motivated by which is skill acquisition and being ready for a stable career they felt incentivized by prior to even starting the program. Therefore, by stating that students will get to master certain key skills, I am emphasising the value provided from the second year of this program through mentioning how second year courses for them will place emphasis on practical learning rather than just hearing about theory.

 In addition to this, my headline will also help to reduce any uncertainty that they are facing regarding second year courses. This uncertainty might be coming from being unsure of what second year involves or hearing negative social proof from others around them in regard to the work load they will face. The headline I created is truly aiming to help create a reduction in this uncertainty by informing students that they will gain technical skills and practical experience that they can keep with them for the rest of their careers after the second year finishes. Furthermore, the headline is helping to provide these potentially nervous or uncertain students with a great level of clarity about what the second year will consist of. I did this by avoiding over promises or over exaggerated wording of the headline so that I could communicate clearly without any friction who the second year courses are for, what they will acquire in terms of skills from these courses and why it matters through the mentioning of their careers. This is also significant for ensuring that the headline is properly aligned with the user intent of these first year students as they are often going to be concerned about preparing for their careers and building up skills for their resumes. Ultimately, having courses like Web Design 1 and 2, Search Engine Optimization, Email Marketing and Developing Internet Marketing Content highlighted in the headline itself helps to directly address these concerns to reduce uncertainty to the furthest extent possible while keeping the 4 U’s in mind when it comes to being unique, ultra specific and useful in this headline. Overall, my headline for second year courses is effective for reaching the target audience of first years as it communicates value, reduces uncertainty, provides clarity and is relevant to their needs/wants.

3. SCC Advertising Program Headline (6 marks) Create one headline for an article about the SCC Advertising Program, targeted to local graduating high school students. You must provide: 

a) The headline 

b) An explanation of the information missing from the instructions 

c) A detailed justification for your headline choice based on course concepts 

“Turning Your Creativity Into Your Career: Why Windsor Students Are Choosing The SCC Advertising Program with a 90% Employment Rate”

For this headline for the advertising program at St. Clair College, I knew that I would have to consider what key information I was not given in the question instructions. The first thing that I took into consideration was what specific program feature I would need to emphasise to make this headline the most impactful. I have determined that for our advertising program this would likely be the employment outcomes that our program has to offer. Obviously in the year of 2026, people (especially in Windsor) are concerned about whether or not their education will actually help to land them a job should they complete it. This can be further emphasised by the fact that in Windsor according to CBC the unemployment rate is currently sitting at 8.1% and is one of the highest in all of Canada. Therefore, many students who are coming from high school to college are concerned about actually having a stable career after they finish their program. It is also important to note that for a large number of students their parents are also going to be invested emotionally or potentially financially into whether or not their child ends up with a stable career after they finish their post-secondary education. Knowing this, I visited the actual website for the advertising program which clearly stated that this program had a 90% employment rate. I understand that numbers within headlines are something that are easily digestible and would help potential applicants to easily recall why the advertising program stood out to them after reading through this article. I also took into consideration that these students would be coming to Windsor for their education as this is where St. Clair College is located. Another important motivation for taking this program that I considered would be the skills that many of these students would have. While I know that I could likely outline many different hard and soft skills that they could have, I think that creativity is the skill that is best for such a broad target audience as many of the students who would even be considering advertising as a viable career option in the first place are possessing creativity to some degree. Therefore, the information which I had to consider before even trying to come up with a headline in regard to this type of an article was the actual motivations of students and what differentiates this program from others in terms of job outcomes.  

After having actually written the headline itself, I truly believe that it is compelling and strong enough to actually be effective. The first reasoning behind this is the fact that my headline is working to signal relevance to high school students who are looking into pursuing a post secondary education in Windsor. This was done by including the fact that this was for students in Windsor who possess creativity as this is showing students or their parents who see this headline before they even click on the article that it is relevant to them if they are looking to attend a school in Windsor that would allow them to turn a skill they already have into a viable career opportunity. Relevance really helps to increase the effectiveness of this headline and likelihood of people clicking on it as generally speaking people (especially those in highschool) will not choose to click on an article about post secondary education if they do not feel that it actually relates to them in any sort of way. A headline like mine being so relevant is also ensuring that I am matching the user intent of someone who could already be in  search of this information like as mentioned a potential student or their parents. This brings me to my next justification for why this headline works, which is the fact that it is clearly able to communicate that there is going to be valuable content in the article. I did this by stating that this program could help students to turn their creativity into a career and by informing them of the 90% employment rate that the program holds. By doing this I made sure to emphasise what I originally identified that most students care about with the rising unemployment rates which is turning their skills and things they are naturally passionate about into actual stable career paths. This also makes this headline in alignment with being useful and ultra specific which are two of the four U’s we discussed in class which can help make a headline like mine resonate better with audiences so that they actually choose to click on the article. By appealing to students specificity bias and relevance bias through all this, I am also making sure to provide clarity through stating exactly what people can expect from this article in regard to the advertising program at SCC, who it is for and why it matters and could benefit their careers in the future. Overall, knowing the motivations and what differentiates this program (which was not in the question instructions) was able to help me to develop this clear, specific, useful and ultimately effective headline for an article about the SCC advertising program.

RESOURCES:

1.CBC/Radio Canada. (2026, February 6). Windsor’s unemployment rate climbed in January, ties for 6th in Canada | CBC News. CBCnews. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/windsor-unemployment-rate-january-9.7077331#:~:text=Windsor’s%20unemployment%20rate%20to%208.1,the%20first%20month%20of%202026.&text=The%20numbers%20released%20on%20Friday%20are%20seasonally%20adjusted. 

2. Home – join the St. Clair Advertising Program. (n.d.-c). https://jointhestclairadvertisingprogram.com/