Letter

Joltter, Comment by Smith, Jordan: Be sure you’re following the formatting guidelines here: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/professional_technical_writing/basic_business_letters/index.html

Unisport YouTube Channel,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR2Grj1f0VE,

8th November 2019.

Dear Joltter,

Greetings. My name is Pranil Thapa, a subscriber to your YouTube channel and a huge fan of your YouTube videos on sports. I commend you for the great work you are doing, helping many of us perfect our skills in football matters. I am a huge beneficiary of your instructional videos and for that, I am deeply indebted to you. I am writing to share my thoughts and viewpoints on one of the many instructional videos on your YouTube channel. I will, in particular, provide insight into the instructional video titled, "How to curve the ball” which was published two years ago, to be specific, on November 28th, 2017. I will address four major aspects of this instructional video, namely; content, style, delivery, and organization. Comment by Smith, Jordan: I like how polite you’re being in these compliments, but they feel overly eloquent or “flowery” to me. Can you offer the same praise in planer language?

I will begin with the content. The video is a demonstration of how a soccer player can correctly curve a soccer ball. As of 2019, the video has over six million views, meaning that the content was worth the watch to those who came across the video. The video's content targets soccer players, meaning that you have a thorough understanding of your target audience. The comment section also reveals the interests of the viewers towards the video. In my opinion, the video content was a high-quality one. The production quality is appealing. From the video, you were able to deliver the dialogues naturally, as you did not appear stiff in front of the camera. The video’s thumbnail and the intro are quite vibrant and engaging, making the content quite relevant. This increases the chances of the video achieving a high play rate (Elliot et al., 2014). I love how short and concise the video content is, making it very easy to follow through with the instructions. To add to that, you put more focus on practically showing the viewers how the curving is done, as opposed to speaking more and acting less.

I just have one thing to add here. This video is aimed at assisting soccer players, as well as those who have an interest in soccer but are not yet active players. In the case of the latter, there is a high chance that they have never attempted curving a ball. An active soccer player has, of course, attempted this before, and so watching this video is to simply reinforce what they already know. For the sake of those who have an interest in soccer but have not started playing soccer, it would have been best if you, in the beginning, gave a list of what is needed before starting the curving ball practice. Before diving into how to curve balls, you should have first mentioned things such as having shin guards on and putting on lightweight cleats before starting the curving practice. Images of these items should have been incorporated in the video to increase the understanding of these first-timers about the items required. This would strongly create awareness for those seeking to try out ball curving for the first time (ten Hove & van der Meij, 2015). Comment by Smith, Jordan: Focus not on what they should have done, but what they can do in the future—this makes it seem less like they’ve failed and more like they have an opportunity for improvement. Comment by Smith, Jordan: Consider not using academic style citations. Since this is a letter, you can still reference these sources without this kind of academic sourcing style.

Regarding the organization, the video is well organized. Curving a ball involves adhering to some steps, and you managed to explain these steps logically. One can see that you focused your efforts on chronologically directing the viewers without too much dragging. The organization is also evident from how you first started with demonstrating the steps to curve a ball, before jumping into the mistakes people make when doing so. You have aligned the flow of this video with the emotional response you wanted to evoke in your viewers. The third is the style. I like how you incorporated some texts as you did the demonstrations. The texts are simple and sharp, and the font used is clear and bold. The texts on the screen have been kept to a minimum, which is a good thing. When exploring the common mistake, I feel that you should have used text animations to make the narration eye-catchy and enhance the remembrance of these mistakes. You can find simple text animations options at an online website called Kapwing. Last but not least is delivery. The background soundtrack is good, as it has provided emotion and tone to the video. The sound quality is top-notch since one does not strain to hear what is being said. One can see that the shots have been taken from different angles, increasing the engagement of the audience. Generally, video delivery was impressive. Keep up the good work. Thank you for your time. Comment by Smith, Jordan: Wording here feels a little passive-aggressive to me. Comment by Smith, Jordan: So no critique of the organization?

Kind regards,

Pranil Thapa

References

Elliot, D. L., Goldberg, L., & Goldberg, M. J. (2014). Digital video technology and production 101: lights, camera, action. Health promotion practice, 15(1), 86-90.

ten Hove, P., & van der Meij, H. (2015). Like it or not. What characterizes YouTube's more popular instructional videos?. Technical communication, 62(1), 48-62.