For this induction task, I took
part in a debate about the pros and cons of file-sharing, and I then wrote a
piece of feature journalism about file-sharing for The National Student, a
publication aimed at university students.
Research Skills
I began my research by reading an
article from the BBC website that was given to us by our teacher. I first
looked through the article with a pencil, underlining certain sentences and
writing in the margins. However, it wasn’t really until the middle of the
article before I began looking for pros and cons of file-sharing. Therefore,
the second time I went through the article I used a highlighter and made more
notes in the margin. I also circled the names of artists who had been mentioned,
and wrote in the margin whether they were for or against file-sharing. I then
copied out the quotes of these artists on a separate piece of paper. I feel
that when I used a highlighter, my annotations were more relevant than they had
been when I was underlining, and I only highlighted the parts of the article
that made sense. There are parts of the article that are underlined but not
highlighted, because I think that my highlighted sections were more useful than
the underlined sections.
After reading the article, I then
began Internet research. I started on the BBC website, searching for
file-sharing and illegal downloading on the internal search engine within the
BBC website. By doing this, I found an article that said that Mr Joel Tenenbaum
had been charged with illegal downloading and forced to pay a fine in America,
which showed that it is possible to get caught and there are penalties for
file-sharing. However, at first I was just looking at the headlines of articles
and taking notes without reading the actual article, and I got some notes on an
article that wasn’t about what I needed information on. However, after this I
made more of an effort to see that the article was relevant before making notes
on it. I also wrote down the exact web page and the date so that I could go
back and get more information when doing extra research for my article after
the debate. However, I wrote down the web address of one BBC article wrong, so
when I went back to it, the address wasn’t recognised. Therefore, I had to
search again and sift through three years’ worth of articles on file-sharing
before I could find the right one again. Luckily, I had written down the date
that the article was published, so I only had to look at the dates to find the
article again.
Journalistic and Writing Skills
I felt really comfortable writing
my article. I have already written articles before, and am confident in my
writing style. I really enjoyed writing the article and feel that it flows well
as I planned my article before beginning writing it.
InDesign Skills
For this induction task, I learned
the following skills on InDesign:- How to use text boxes
- How to use rulers to show where columns would be
- How to import a picture
- How to resize a picture
I then began to copy-and-paste my article into text boxes and import pictures. I first imported a picture of the Limewire logo, and wrote a caption beneath it. I then carried on adding text boxes and copy-and-pasting my article in, using rulers as guidelines for my columns.
However, when I imported two other
pictures in – one of James Blunt and one of Tynchy Stryder – I found that I
couldn’t get them to be the same size without distorting them. Unfortunately,
this is a problem that I was unable to fix, and therefore I need some more
practice resizing pictures on InDesign. Also, once I had sorted out my columns,
I realised that there wasn’t enough room on the page for the final paragraph of
my article. Therefore, I had to select everything – all of the text boxes and
all of the pictures – and move them up slightly on the page. I then had to
copy-and-paste bits of my article from one text box to the one before in order
to make room at the bottom of the page for the final paragraph of my article.
Therefore, I think I need to lay out my columns and any text boxes better.
Finally, I exported my article as a
JPEG file. I had no problems with this, but I realised afterwards that I had
not put a by-line in my article, and this meant that I would have to write my
name on the article after I had printed it out. As having a written name on a
printed piece of work is one of my pet peeves, I had to go back onto InDesign
and add a by-line before re-exporting it and printing the second JPEG.
Therefore, in future I need to check over the entire document before exporting
it to JPEG in order to avoid having to export it twice.
Web Publishing Skills
At first we had some trouble with
web publishing as the college network would not allow us to set up our blogs.
However, eventually we were able to do this and we posted our articles on our blogs.
I feel that I was competent at this as I already know how to use Blogger and was
comfortable using the tools; including changing the design of my blog as the
default was rather confusing to see where everything was, editing the widgets
and posting the JPEG file of my article.
Audience Feedback
The positive feedback I received
was: that the structure of my article was very strong, that I had used lots of
statistics and quotes, that I had included both sides of the argument, that my
article was fluent and that the facts I had used were good.
However, I also received negative
feedback: I had said ‘people my age’ in my article, but not backed this up with
a quote from someone my age; the logo for the publication I was writing for was
not really legible; and I had used too many pictures.
Therefore, in future I need to not
put an opinion in an article without backing it up, make sure that there is
enough room for the logo of the publication I am writing for – or simply put it
in a different place – and use fewer pictures.
Targets
-
Practice re-sizing pictures on InDesign
- Lay out articles on InDesign better
- Check InDesign documents before exporting them to JPEG
- Make room for the logo of the publication I am writing for, or put it in a different place
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