Evaluation
Research Skills
I used the Newsbeat article to gain a brief understanding of the topic
file sharing before I did my own research; this was an advantage for me as I
was able to know what I have to be looking for before, I do my own independent
research. While I was reading through the article I was able to highlight key
points, annotate information into my own interpretation and take notes of any
important information that I may want to use in my article.
Throughout my independent research I was able to find helpful websites
on the Internet - that provided sufficient material for my journalism task.
The websites that were useful to me were:
The websites above were helpful to me because they were able to provide
evidence to support my opinions and facts. The types of evidence that I found
were key comments that were said in interviews by celebrities/artists and their
personal opinion of file sharing.
Meanwhile, as I was collecting information I was capable of skim reading
to find selective points that were directly related to the task. The
information that I found most helpful was the facts and figures of how much people/companies
could be fined for file sharing as well as downloading illegal content.
During, the first task of this unit I found that the most challenging
part of the task was finding sources that supplied an insight of what the music
industry think of file sharing.
Journalism and Writing Skills
My publication was going to target teenagers and young adults that take
an interest in music especially in the genres of Hip-Hop and R&B. I was
taking on the role of being a journalist for the Hip Hop magazine VIBE.
During the time I was typing up my article I had used first person to
also show my opinion (as a journalist) of the topic – I did this because I
wanted to share my views as well as speak for those that may agree with my
opinion or wanted to know. I tried to use my words carefully so that readers
will be able to understand; therefore I used low lexis words due to my target
audience. Quotations were used in my article to show evidence of what were said
by the artists.
I had structured my article in a way that will be understandable to
read. The way I structured it was by:
1. Introduction
– I started the article by
using two rhetorical questions to start a persuasive argument so that is forces
the listener to think of the most obvious answer. I used a rhetorical question
to draw the reader’s attention allowing them to read on further of the article.
Apart from using a rhetorical question I also managed to use an interesting
fact ( “There is an estimate of 7 billion people in the world”) to add in
seriousness to the fact of how many people that may download illegal content.
2. Main/Middle
– I structured the middle part
of the article as the main emphasis of what is artists are saying about file
sharing as well as the record labels. I mentioned comments said about file
sharing from musical artists e.g. Tinchy Stryder, Lady Gaga. I also added in
cases where file sharing has been in issue and where some file sharing websites
and programs where fined for their actions.
3. End –
At the end of the article I
did a summary of what I think the music industry should do, what society thinks
about buying CDs DVDs and other ways that artists can make money other than
selling albums.
InDesign
I’ve had previous
publishing experience from using Windows Microsoft Publisher however; being new
to using InDesign it was a new challenge due to the fact that I’ve never used
the program before. Having the opportunity to explore and experiment on the
program I was able to learn how to:
1.
Simple
skills e.g. creating a text box
2.
Adding
colour to the background
3.
Inserting/resizing
images
4.
Align
Pages so that the page will have a crease in the middle as if it’s a magazine.
5.
Margins
6.
Creating Columns
After I had finished
producing my magazine page I was capable of analysing my weaknesses and strengths.
My main weakness using the InDesign was arranging the text box and using the
colour tool. My greatest strengths were inserting images, creating boxes and
aligning boxes.
Web Publishing
In order for me to
submit my work I had to setup a Google mail account in order to create a
blogger. I had to export my article from InDesign into a JPEG (an image file)
so that I will be able to upload it on blogger. I was successful uploading my
file onto my blogger and had to enlarge it so that it’s easy to view.
Audience feedback
Tracey (t.magonda@hotmail.co.uk)
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Positive
feedback
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Negative
Feedback
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þ The colour scheme is sophisticated
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ý The font size is quite small - it could’ve
been bigger.
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þ The arrangement is HOT.
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þ Images are clear and a reasonable size.
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Kordel (kordeljohnson@gmail.com)
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Positive
Feedback
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Negative
Feedback
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þ Liked the layout.
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ý The font size is quite small - it could’ve
been bigger
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þ
Healthy amount of pictures (not
too many & don’t take up the page.)
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þ Nice colour co-ordination.
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þ
Paragraphs spaced out well.
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þ Italic on ‘softly’ emphasizes on
the word
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