Quick Reference Guides
- A quick reference guide is usually used to make an
easy-to-read representation of a topic, event, or story that is popular in
the public eye that others are hoping to learn about. Reference guides are
meant to get the simple facts out on the table so that they are easy to
understand and remember.
- This genre is usually formatted in some type of print
setting, either online or in physical copy. Many companies specialize in
this sort of format and genre and rely on essentially summarizing news
stories as a quick reference guide, which is why they are most commonly
found online.
- An example company, like Vox, Buzzfeed, or Huffpost
(online) cater more specifically to the millennial generation. Quick
reference guides are made for those who don't want to spend the time
reading through articles upon articles in newspapers because they are
anticipated to have busy lives and be pressed for time. The audience is
expected to be more tech savvy and would likely prefer to get their news
online.
- Often, the quick reference guides will advertise some
specific event in the title and then follow up explaining this event with
main headers in the article. There are usually bolded phrases to get the
main points across or pictures to illustrate the point. It is frequent
that there is also humor found in quick reference guides although this is
not a true sign or a distinguishing factor of this genre.
- The Quick Reference Guide: A short article covering a
popular news story that is composed of eye-catching factors to enable the
reader to gather necessary information as quickly as possible.
After reading the blog posts from Sarah (http://ifcowscouldtalk.blogspot.com/2016/01/investigating-genres.html?showComment=1453689399793#c200757139438618118) and Diego (http://diegoandenglish.blogspot.com/2016/01/investigating-genres-video-essays.html?showComment=1453692485428) I realized that it isn't enough to just get the information out in a blog post. You should make it easy to read and provide what I call "checkpoints" along the way so that the text doesn't blend together and make it boring for the reader. I intend to leave my initial format the way it is so that you may see what I originally posted. From now on I will definitely spend some time on the way my blog posts look and not just the content that goes into them. In this case specifically, I think it would have made it more helpful for the reader if I provided a space between each answer, and also have included the question that was asked just for reference. I intend to include a visual aspect to my next post as well.
As I didn't choose to investigate the Quick Reference Guide genre for my own blog post, I found yours very informative and concise. Like you said, I think that this type of genre is something very valuable to our young generation because of the focus and popularity with technology and being able to get a lot of (or simply the necessary) information in a short amount of time. It was also significant that you mentioned how the eye-catching visuals created by the genre are essential to drawing in the audience and getting them interested in the information. I liked how you included examples of online sites that use Quick Reference Guides; Buzzfeed is one example that I read often and will now be on the lookout for this type of genre. I would be interested in learning about the examples of Quick Reference Guides that include humor and how this affects the information conveyed to the audience.
ReplyDeleteNote on conventions of the blog post genre: Revisit Step 1.5 from "Deadline 1" to re-familiarize yourself with the conventions of blogging. You're missing one item on the bulleted list of conventions there.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you need to learn how to embed hyperlinks! I recommend Googling it. :)
ReplyDelete