1. What do the conventions of this genre - the Quick Reference Guide- seem to be?
The list of conventions for a Quick Reference Guide seem to include a catchy title, images, hyperlinks, sub-titles, short and detailed text. Also, the writing tends to follow a question and answer style.
2. How are those conventions defined by the author's formatting and design choices?
In the article about the Sochi Opening Ceremony the subtitles were made of questions and the following text provided the answer, giving the QRG a distinctive "Q and A" format.
Whereas, all five examples of QRG contained lots of subtitles to break up the text, and images to help the reader understand what was being referenced and to illicit an emotional response.
3. What does the purpose of these QRGs seem to be?
Just like the name suggests QRGs seem to offer a lot of information on a single topic. The information is presented in a manor to make it easy to understand so the content can be comprehended quickly.
4. Who is the intended audience for these different QRGs?
I can see a similarity in audiences for the QRG on E-cigarettes and the financial crisis in Greece. Both of these articles seem to target a more serious audience that are looking for the facts regarding the respective subject.
However, the GamerGate, Sochi Opening Ceremony, and Bernie QRG appear to target a younger audience. The above articles have more casual tones and diction, and the format appears less structured and more casual.
5. How do the QRGs use imagery or visuals? Why do you think they use them in this way?
I think the two biggest purposes for visual aids are to help in understand an idea and to get a reaction. The Sochi Olymics QRG, for example, uses the images to help contextualize the information. It reminds the reader of what they are explaining.
However, in the Crisis in Greece article, the images are used more to draw out an emotional response from the reader. Even the charts and graphs are used to create awe in the audience of the gravity of the situation.
Reflection
Reading Tobin's post about the QRG genre made me realize how similar this genre is to what we're writing in--the blog. Kelly's post also helped me draw these conclusions when she mentioned how bullet points and timelines were common in the QRG, and I remembered in the blog as well.
Alyssa's post helped me take this connection one step farther. From her post I understood a lot about how the audience can influence the style in which the QRG is written in. And after reading about her thoughts on the audience I kind of think the QRG is like a subset of a blog post written without personal opinion for those looking for more information.
I agree with your conventions of a QRG, and I also included bullet points as one of them. I think the main purpose for the conventions is to make the text interesting and engaging for the reader, I also thought it was interesting that you noted that the QRGs were made for different audiences. I tried to answer the question in terms of ALL QRGs and had trouble with that so I like the way you went about it.
ReplyDeleteI like that you kept you information brief, but hit every point. It was also a good idea to use the examples that we were given as evidence of how each element is used.
ReplyDeleteI like how your blog was set up sort of like a QRG! You got straight to the point and answered the questions clearly and concisely. I'm glad we have so many classes too, maybe you can write me a QRG for calculus!
ReplyDeleteYou covered the basic conventions of a QRG very well and your blog post was very easy to follow. You did a good job of refrencing to the 5 examples that were provided to us as examples in your own blog post about QRGs.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you think the conventions of a QRG are. Your point on why images are used to in a QRG was really good as well. Your post is super organized and looks a little like a QRG too!
ReplyDelete