Purpose of the Genre
The purpose of this genre is to explain to people in better depth or more detail; in a concise, easy to read manner, about news they may have heard elsewhere. The genre of the Quick Reference Guide was created so that the audience would be able to reference the information quickly and efficiently, making it a more effective news source than a newspaper or a news broadcast.
Context of the Genre
This genre is very much an online specific genre. The most common places it can be found is online newspaper sites and other online news sources. It is akin to being the new pamphlet, just electronic and all on one page.
Audience for the Genre
The typical audience could potentially be anyone on the internet, but probably more specifically people of a more median age range who are interested in discourses about the news in simple easy "quick references", the people not reading newspapers still and those that would have seen something through other media they wanted to learn more about.
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| Grabowska, Karolina. "Man using stylus for touching the digital tablet screen" 01/10/2015 via Pexels. CC0 License, |
Key Features of the Genre
A key feature of this genre is the use of section titles and shorter paragraphs than a traditional essay; it's traditionally online form and target audience makes the language simpler so as to not estrange anyone wishing to learn about a subject or news story. Also longer quotes can be used more frequently than in traditional essay format; the quotes are separated from the main paragraph in a specific section more centered than the rest of the guide.
Defining the Genre
The best way to define the Quick Reference Guide is an easy to read and understand information source that is successful in educating its audience on the ins-and-outs of a situation or happening in a short amount of time.
Reflections
Payton Leahy on Video Essays: Payton's post on the genre of video essays made me consider how important visuals are to arguments. Even besides the more modern use of videos as the main form of describing a topic, as through a video essay, throughout the genre of the quick reference guide there is much use of pictures to help show the audience what is being explained.There are sometimes even entire quick reference guides for a video, our taking in of information depends more and more upon what we can see.
Erin McCabe on Podcasts: Erin's post on the genre of podcasts has me considering how most of the genres we are presented with using lend themselves to a more convenient form then a traditional essay. Podcasts can be listened to out and about, quick reference guides are shorter and easier than an essay to read. In wanting to change how information has been spread we've turned to convenience and things that feel like they won't take up our time to use to learn.
I really like how you explained the format of the quick reference guide. That to me was extremely helpful in defining the purpose for using this genre. I also like how you really highlight that the people who are reading these articles are probably not going to be the same people who want to read an entire article in the newspaper. I found the same thing to be true when I was discussing the intended audience for my genre of the video essay. Overall, I would say that this post has be extremely helpful in helping me to better understand the quick reference guide.
ReplyDeleteAlexis, your statement about how the quick reference guide being a more effective method than a newspaper is the best explaination. It is online and can be read from multiple devices instead of a single paper. After reading this post I am having a hard time finding anything wrong or missing details. Good job!
ReplyDeleteHi Alexis,
ReplyDeleteI also wrote about QRG's for this portion of my blog post and I really liked how you touched on how the QRG won't "estrange anyone" or deter them from the subject matter, no matter how complex it might be. To be honest, after reading your description of the QRG I realized that I had failed to acknowledge some components, namely in the "Key Features" portion. All in all you provided a very insightful and thorough description of QRG's!