Site Analysis

Publication Analysis

Overview:

The purpose of the publication analysis is to identify features that characterize features of them for the purposes of designing your own.

You will begin by analyzing sample publications guides for the rhetorical, domain, and content problems they solved—we will discuss this in class.

You’ll identify how language is used, how the publication is organized, how readers move from one writer or item to the next and the relationship between different forms of media.

You answer the question: How do different designs reflect different purposes, audience, and uses the guides are put two?

You’ll select two writers and answer the question: What relationship does the writer have with the audience? What purpose does the piece serve for the audience? What “character” does the writer create and how?

You will make generalizations about common features and variations so that you can develop criteria for successful publication.

Having reached a point where you can assert the characteristics of good publications, you will present your findings to the class along with a memo that presents your findings, organized to highlight your conclusions and answer the question below.

What features characterize good sites that we ought to use to guide our decisions about making sites of our own?

The memo you write responds to the issue below:

My employer wants to develop arts publications, and needs information about successful, similar products to guide his decisions about what to publish and why. You can rephrase this as a question:

"What are features of successful publications that this publisher can use as a basis for deciding what topics can make successful publications and how to create suitable texts for those topics?"

Structure of the Memo:

This refers to the text of the memo itself, not the design features, such as the heading, spacing, and so on. The memo should be readable, but carefully argued. It needn't be comprehensive, but focus instead on several key features or criteria you expect I will want to know I need to take into account when I make my decisions about publishing.
Opening:
State you assertion about features of effective publications. You can use the pronoun "we" to refer to your activities and conclusions as a group. This opening paragraph should key me in to what will follow.
Body:
The body can be organized into paragraphs with bold faced headings or bullets. Make sure that you have clearly stated what feature or criterion you will discuss. Make sure there is a clear connection between the assertion you make about the feature or criterion's importance and the examples you use to illustrate your point.
Conclusion:
If you have made a clear, persuasive description of the features you believe are essential, you conclusion can take a further step. Write the conclusion to answer any of the following questions:
How should the above knowledge influence future decisions?
Does the above knowledge suggest any questions or possible pitfalls you believe should be kept in mind?
With the above in mind, how should we approach choosing appropriate topics and creating effective field guides? Feel free to float possible field guide topics and how they might be treated with your identified features or criteria in mind?
Publishing:
On your group page, create a link to a page named "Group—- Document Analysis Memo."

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