Evaluation of induction assignment

When I first started the induction assignment, the first source of research I used was the hand-out. It was a great starter, and it guided me through the assignment, outlining information on file-sharing sites and its history. It also had a lot of facts and figures which helped me to write a structured article for my magazine. To do some independent research, I used Google search engine to search for other artists that agreed/disagreed with file sharing. I reached to websites such as The Guardian that I considered as reliable where I found out more about what artists thought about file-sharing. Doing this helped me build up on my writing and make it relevant to the file sharing issue. We also prepared a debate within our class where we were divided in to two groups that were for and against file sharing. During the preparation, we individually researched reasons for why we would be for or against. I reached to blog sites where people gave their own opinions, and other sites such as CNN. Doing the debate with the research we made helped even more as I took new points from the opposite group and used the points we gathered in my group to write my article. During the research task, my biggest strength was finding the right information from reliable sites. I didn’t have a lot of weaknesses, but finding reliable websites about the file sharing issue was a bit difficult.

My target audience is young adults. This is why I wrote my article in a formal way, and addressed them in a formal manner. I used 1^st person narrative throughout the article to relate to the audience and meet their specific expectations, making it seem more relatable and interesting. I used 1^st person narrative when I was giving my own opinion. An example of this is when I said “I think file sharing is a positive thing, and does not intend to harm anyone”. I also used some rhetorical questions such as: “But is file sharing really a negative form of technology people use to listen to music, or is it just a way of enjoying what we call free music that started off centuries ago?”. The title of my article is a rhetorical question itself: “File sharing: is it really a negative thing?”. I used rhetorical questions because they are useful to attract the audience and give an interesting tone to the article. The strengths of my writing skills were using different techniques appropriately in the right places and using just more than one writing technique. My weakness was the use of my punctuation marks in which I corrected after re-reading.

I then used the InDesign programme to put my writing in a magazine format. I used a title that was big in size and bold to a reasonable extent where it would be eye catching. I also kept the title in a simple font style to address my target audience of young adults. The font style I used to write the article throughout was also simple and readable; again so I could I address my target audience in the correct way. I put the writing in columns so it can fit into a magazine format and so it can be structured. I then used pictures of the artists that I mentioned in the article and wrote captions beneath them saying who they are. I did this because I think it would help the audience to identify the artists.  I kept my background colour white to complete the simple look of the magazine pages. I also used pull quotes between the columns of writing to catch the attention of the audience. In addition to that, I put down page numbers along with the magazine logo NME in order for the audience to identify that the article belongs to that specific magazine.

My strengths for this task were choosing the right font style for my target audience and easily correcting any errors I made whilst using the programme. My weaknesses, however, included extra spacing. I found it difficult to fit in everything on one page, which is why I chose to do it over two pages. Then I had difficulties on trying to fill in both pages which are why I was left with a lot of space. I also forgot to include things like drop caps and headers.

Using Blogger, I posted the first draft of my magazine article. Following that I posted my finished version to show the progress. I posted the two versions very easily and commented on other articles without any problems which were my strengths. When I first signed up for Blogger I had a few problems signing in which was my weakness. I then showed my article to a group of people from the audience (friends). They agreed that I had a lot of spacing, and they said that I should have put more colour and design on the pages. Having this feedback from the audience helped me as I will know what to watch out for next time I start a similar work.

4 targets for improvement:

·         Checking the reliability of the information I take from the internet

·         Continue to re-read work for any mistakes

·         Getting help from the internet when using InDesign for spacing

·         Getting help from the internet when using Blogger