EVALUATION

Hayley Roberts

Fanzine Draft

FANZINE EVALUATIONThe written work for my fanzine involved being really open and informal with my language and had to fit in with a

younger audience age range so I felt a lot of punctuality (e.g. exclamation marks and question marks) would fit in

more with the age range as this is how a younger audience tends to write like this (especially when they are writing

about their favourite pop stars). I needed to think creatively in this piece of writing as I had to really sell the fanzine

article and make sure that the language in there would fit in with my audience. I feel that it was really creative and

there was quite a few different sized paragraphs within the fanzine so it wasn’t too long and boring for the

audience. I used a really controversial topic by using the pop star Miley Cyrus as people have a lot of different

opinions on her so I was very wise and creative on using my subject matter and story as I wanted an interesting

story that can also get the reader to think along when reading the article. I felt that the time management for this

piece of work went really well as I had time to write a first draft and get some feedback for it and then do a second

draft to make it the best I can. I had time to do this and get it done to a standard I was happy with and so it

sounded like a fanzine. I had been given feedback from my tutor on my first draft and he explained how to make it

sound more like a fanzine (try and be less formal and to use a more chatty tone to the fanzine). I think that this

style of writing was a little harder for me as I write quite formally and not as informal so compared to the tabloid,

this style of writing wasn’t my strongest point. I also had to remember to use less quotes in my fanzine as I had

used quite a lot so I needed to take some out and the introduction to my fanzine was a little too formal and went

into too much detail about the band itself when really the fans will know all of the information about the band so in

the second draft I had removed the first couple of paragraphs about the information about them. I then added more

about another cover version of their song I had heard and gave my feedback about that as well so it wasn't all

about Miley Cyrus and so I could express my different views about the different versions. After I had changed those

parts around, I had an interesting fanzine for people to read and it fit the criteria of a fanzine. When I did my first

draft of the fanzine, I didn’t feel that confident about the style and if it worked or not. As I went along I was looking

back at the work and changing a lot of it because I was reviewing my work in progress. I wanted to make sure my

first draft was really strong and I’m glad that I was deleting some of the parts and adding little bits on rather than

having to redraft the whole fanzine. This was because I kept reviewing and reading my work before carrying on and

then adding or deleting some parts to make the paragraph better and then I carried on. This is why I got it all done

in time and had enough time to do another draft and get it to the standard I wanted it because I managed to get a

really strong first draft with some minor changes to be made to it. Without reviewing my work I think I would have

struggled to finish it on time and even though I didn’t feel that confident with my first draft, after I got my minor

changes to make and the positive feedback it helped me gain confidence for my second draft.

FANZINE EVALUATIONI feel that the final outcome of the writing of my fanzine is very professional and will reach out well to the fans of the

Arctic Monkeys as I have included quotes from what fans have said (both Mileys’ and Arctic Monkeys’ fans). I have

also made the style of the fanzine very informal and chatty which is what the fans want as it’s a piece of writing

which won’t be making the news or any formal format and is just something for the fans. This is what I wanted to

achieve from this and I have done and this was my intention. I haven’t seen any examples of a fanzine so it’s hard

for me to relate my work to an example like but from what I have read about fanzines and heard about them, e.g.

being informal, direct with the audience and help them feel included with the article and write about the pop star not

too seriously and have a fun story for them to read, I got the ideas for my fanzine from that. Before I did the

fanzine, I got a list of ideas together/stories to write about so I had a clear mind of what to write about without

struggling too much and I think the story I chose was really appropriate for the fanzine as it’s not too serious and is

quite an interesting story for them to look at. I think if I was to improve this piece of writing, I would add some

images within it for the audience to look at, even though they know who the band is it still makes the story more

enjoyable to read if there is images within it (especially when aiming it at a young audience). I also think I would

pick a more powerful and interesting ending for the fanzine as I feel it kills off the whole energetic side to the

fanzine as it’s a very flat ending and looking back at it I would definitely make it a lot punchier to go with the rest of

the fanzine. As I said earlier, my audience for the fanzine will be a younger audience of about 16 or older and I

want it to not sound too young or too old. I think that the work fits the appropriate audience as the language used

fits in with the language a 16 year old would use and there isn’t a complex vocabulary throughout the fanzine so it

doesn’t apply to an older audience and makes it easier for a younger audience to understand.

Press Release

Draft

PRESS RELEASE EVALUATIONWhen I was writing my press release, I had to keep it in mind that it didn’t have to be completely formal and like a tabloid

and I had to remember the press release was slightly different to this. There is quite a comparison from my first draft to

my third one I did for my press release as I had to do a lot of shuffling with paragraphs to make them shorter and

snappier. The feedback from what I got back from my tutor involved me using a lot more emotive and persuasive words

that would really sell the album (e.g. the album will feature 12 incredible tracks) and words like this really help sell their

music and album. I also needed to make sure I didn’t go into too much detail about their background and to really sell

the album that they had done because that’s what the press release was about. I managed to do 3 drafts of the press

release and managed to complete it to a standard I was happy with. I was happy with how I managed my time and I

managed it well because I got 3 drafts of the press release done in the amount of time given. There was only minor

changes that needed to be done to the drafts and I felt I had a really strong first draft to start off with and that’s why I

only had a few minor changes to the draft. I felt that the language I used fit the press release perfectly with only the use

of persuasive and interesting vocabulary to try and sell the album. I had to redraft some of the paragraphs to split them

up more and make them not as long and to lose some of the background knowledge of the band as I’m not trying to

explain their background. I made sure I was reviewing my work as I went along to try and make sure it was at the best I

could get it as I didn’t want to go through and end up changing all of it so it definitely helped refining my work. I had

looked at a similar press release that was done for the ‘AM’ album from the Arctic Monkeys and this helped me frame a

structure to my work as I could get an idea of paragraphs and what language they use in their press release to include

into my own. I feel that this task had a different creative element to it compared to the fanzine as it wasn’t as such

making it so fun like the fanzine but I was being creative by using persuasive language for their album. It was also really

creative in how I tried and advertised their album in the press release and I felt it still was a creative piece of writing

using minimal information and using my knowledge of the band a creativity to make it sound the best album ever. The

overall intention of my press release was to get an exciting piece of work that really put the album out there and

describe most of the songs and their own individual beat to help persuade the audience to buy the album who is

reading the press release. I felt that I achieved this by using descriptive language to help speak for the album (e.g.

exceptional album, brilliant album and outstanding). I also think that getting a few drafts done helped me see where I

needed to go from the first draft to improve it and helped me critically evaluate the first draft as well to help me move

forward. I feel that I have gained a range of skills from this writing task as it has helped me be able to write in a

descriptive and slightly informal way which is something I don’t really focus on as such in my writing. I feel that I could

also improve some areas as I should remember not to go into too much detail about the band itself as I’m trying to sell

a product and I should focus entirely on the product itself and remember to use the descriptive words as that’s what

was missing in my first draft and it took a couple of drafts for me to realise I needed them.

Obituary Draft

OBITUARY EVALUATIONFor my obituary I did only 2 drafts and there was quite a large amount of change to be made to the first draft. As I was

trying to be careful on what I was writing and making sure it was in a sensible and slightly formal format I was really

reviewing my work as I went along to make sure that the language suited what I was writing for and making sure I was

being emotive as I went along to keep the reader interested in reading. I managed my time really well by getting the firs

draft almost to a standard I was happy with and changing quite a bit of the text but I managed to complete it in the time

given without rushing or running out of time. After my second draft I felt happy with what I had done and the emotive

side of the story as well as using a appropriate language. I got feedback off my tutor for my first draft which involved

showing me how to improve the text. The first paragraph was the main issue as I had started off really formal and as if I

was writing a news story which is really what I’m used to reading rather than obituary’s so I needed to make sure I

wasn’t writing like a reporter as such and make sure I was being emotive. I also needed to make sure I used minimal

detail on how the band died and focus more on their life and career for people to look and reflect on and to do so it

meant deleting a lot of the first paragraph and slightly rewording some of the second paragraph. I feel that the overall

style of the writing is really professional and this is what I was wanting from the writing tasks was to complete really high

quality and professional pieces. I feel that this written task again gave me a different way to be creative rather than

making it fun or descriptive I needed to be emotive. The use of emotive words and the emotive language helped me get

creative on how to write in this manner and so I felt that I could get creative as I also needed to be imaginative as I was

having to write as if they had died. The audience age range will be from a younger audience (16) to quite an older

audience (30) and anyone he enjoys listening to their music and I think that the piece of writing suits all ages as the

language suits all ages and is easy to understand as it’s not a news article so it’s slightly informal. I also struggled

writing some parts in the past tense (e.g. their music was…) and I was writing more in the present tense and had to

remember I was writing as if they had died so needed some of the words to be in past tense so it related throughout the

obituary. I feel that this piece of writing was really interesting to do and it was one that had to really make me think

about the way I was writing making sure I was emotive and covering most of their success over the years and I enjoyed

this writing tasks more than the others. I feel that I have gained skills in writing emotively and with care but I do feel I

can improve some element that I did in my second draft. For an obituary I need to remember to not write in a reporter

style and if it’s going into a newspaper and to write more about their success and life as a band and after I got the

feedback I improved this but I still need to remember to do this and to also write some parts in the past tense. For my

obituary I basically just looked at different websites to get different facts from their awards they have won to when they

first started out and this gave me a wide range of different things to talk about. I feel that this was a really strong piece

of writing for me which would have worked really well as a final piece too and it helped me write emotively and play with

the audiences emotions a little so that I could get that sensitive side to the article as well as the happy side

remembering their success.

Tabloid Draft

TABLOID EVALUATIONFor my tabloid, I decided to pick a subject which was really controversial again as this is what most journalists go for when

they are writing news stories. I enjoyed writing this tabloid piece because it was slightly more formal and the skills I

started to apply in the obituary task (when I was writing in a reporter style) I got to apply it to this task. I wrote about

how Alex and Luke had a little scruff and I got quite a few quotes from Luke so I could write about what he was saying

and make it quite controversial. I did two drafts for this piece and my first draft was nearly at the standard that I wanted

it to be at so I was really pleased that there wasn’t much tweaking to do to it. This was because I kept looking back at

my work when I was writing it and making sure I was changing things on the way so that I didn’t have a lot of things to

edit when looking back. All I really needed to do was tweak a few sentences that didn’t make sense and I also decided

to change the headline as when I looked back I thought it was too long. But from when I got my feedback from my tutor

it was a few minor changes a few sentences to change so it all fitted in well and I was really happy with the outcome. I

completed this task on time and I managed it really well ii made sure I had a strong first draft so it was all complete and

to how I wanted it with only a few tiny changes to make so I got it done in time. For this writing task, it was different from

the other ones as I needed to be more formal in this one than the rest so I had to make sure I was writing like a

professional and so it was quite formal and so in a way I had to be creative in a formal way and to create a really

controversial article which will engage people to read it. I think that I managed to be really creative and write so that it

engaged people, for example, I used some rhetorical questions as this will get the reader thinking in the article and

engage them. The audience for this piece of writing is for a more older audience as there isn’t many younger people

who will sit and read a newspaper so it is more towards an older age range (about 25-35 year olds) and with it being

quite formal they will be able to understand it a little better than a younger audience. I also had to think that if some of

their fans were wanting to read the article I made some parts slightly informal so I could also aim it at the fans who are

wanting to read articles about them so it had to be a flexible piece of writing so that it would help fit all age ranges. The

intention for this piece of writing was to create an article that was interesting to read but also to make it quite funny to

read. For example, I chose to have sarcastic headline for the tabloid article because when you hear about celebrities

fighting it is over a valid reason which can be linked to anything. But for this article they started to fight over a guitar so

it sounds really petty and immature so having the sarcastic headline will make the audience laugh and then it doesn’t

come too serious but still has that bit of controversy so I felt that I had achieved this intention. I feel that for this piece of

writing I have gained some skills like learning how to write in a formal way with slight hints of informal language to relate

to all age ranges which was the hardest part for writing the article and I felt that this was a strength to me. If I’m honest I

felt really relaxed writing this piece and I felt that I don’t have any improvements to make and so I don’t think there is

anything I would improve as I felt really confident. I used an image for this article because I decided this was going to

be my final piece so I got an image woven into the article so it gave me some ideas on the images I could use for them.

Interview Draft

INTERVIEW EVALUATIONThe interview was also a writing task which I found really interesting and fun to do. For this writing task, we needed to go

onto Survey Monkey and write a list of questions for the fans of the band to answer so we could collect a wide range of

primary research. This made the writing task a lot more interesting and fun to do by conducting our own research for

the task. The survey responses took a while to come through but once I had all the research I got the interview done

quite quickly and I did 2 drafts for this one. I got feedback from my tutor on my first draft and the interview was good

overall it just needed a summery (ending) at the end of the interview so I could round it off. I felt that the interview was

an interesting task to do but I felt my final outcome wasn’t entirely good and I didn’t feel as strong about it as I did for

the other tasks. I had completed the two drafts on time and I managed my time for this draft really well as I had made

sure I was refining my work as I went along so it was up to a good standard. I felt that I had gained skills from this

writing task as I had to conduct my own research which helped me gain skills in doing my own research and making

sure I get the right amount of answers I want by advertising the research and I also gained skills writing in an interview

style and making it fun and interesting. I could improve my interview piece by not only just doing a question and answer

style interview but to also incorporate quotes from the answers I got within the interview and make it a lot more of a

longer and full of information type of an interview. I felt that I could of added more text to make the interview a lot more

interesting but I was still happy with my final outcome. The audience for this interview was more towards a younger

audience (16-25) as it would be based in a music magazine (e.g. NME) which is mainly read by a younger audience.

The style of the interview was really informal and this is what attracts a younger audience and I feel that I have

approached my audience really well in this task. For this task I got to be creative in a similar way to the fanzine so I got

to be informal and make it really fun and interesting and make it attract the audience compared to the tabloid writing

task which was a lot more formal. I looked at a range of different responses I got and I picked the response which

contained the most detail and was interesting to read. I think to improve this task I could have used different

respondents answers and made the most of all the research I got rather than just picking one of the answers and made

more of a bigger interview from it. I used my own knowledge from the band to start off my interview so it was purely just

all the primary research which I used for this one. I felt that the overall style of this interview was really professional and

fits the NME style criteria and I feel that it works really well overall as an interview. If I wanted to use this as my final

piece I feel that I should have made more of an information based interview but when I looked at examples of interviews

in NME they were all very short and didn't contain much information about the band it focused just on the answers and

the style was mainly question and answer based. The intention for this writing task was to get an interesting and fun

interview which also contained a lot of detail and fitted the target audience well. I feel that I have achieved these

intentions and it fits the target audience well. It fits well with the examples I had looked at and I feel that the overall

writing side is fun and interesting. I think that if I had added a few images to go alongside it, it would have made it a bit

more appealing.

FINAL PRODUCT EVALUATIONI decided to take my tabloid writing task and turn it into my final product. I did two drafts as I did the first one and after

getting feedback from my tutor I decided to go for a double page spread to show my different skills rather than a one

page article and I felt that there is a big improvement from my first draft. I got feedback from my tutor who said to try

doing a two page spread and for my inspiration I looked at the ‘Bizarre’ page in ‘The Sun’ and I created a two page

music spread. My time management for both of the drafts were handled really well and I managed to complete both of

them in a week. I kept refining the work throughout and I was always moving certain elements around or deleting and

changing parts as I went along so it was to a standard I wanted and it took a while to get there but then it helped me

more doing it that way rather than leaving it all to the end. To design both of my drafts, I used InDesign which was quite

new to me as I haven’t really used it before so it was hard to work out at first but nearer to the end I managed to

understand the main elements and how to work them. I feel that the technical work was really good and it’s made the

final product to a high standard and I felt that this was because of the different tools I was using. The images I had

collected were of a high quality and were not blurry or grainy which is what I wanted. The final product is to a

professional standard and it does look professional. This was done by having a main headline which was really big on

the page so that it stood out and also the date and page bar at the top of the paper makes it look really professional as I

had looked at what The Sun had done and got it from there. The main story is in view and it can be seen easily and

having the image as an eye shape draws the audience in more I think as it stands out really well. Also having a box with

twitter names and emails for the audience to look at is similar to what The Sun did as well. Having the thick borders

around the images and the articles separated them and made them individual and this again is what The Sun did to the

articles so I thought this would make each one stand out individually. The final product got me to be really creative in

the way I placed things and the other stories I could collect for the other page and I could be adventurous with the

colours and fonts and it was really interesting to do. As I picked a bright and bold page from The Sun to look at and get

inspiration it gave me the chance to be really creative and bold. From this final product, I wanted to create a bold and

interesting page which I felt was at a professional standard and stood out really well and reached out to the right

audience. I think that it is really bold and colourful and is really similar to the pages in The Sun and so I feel that it’s at a

professional standard and it will draw the attention to a wider audience. For this product, I was aiming it at a younger

audience because of the younger pop stars in the stories and the really bold and bright colours rather than an older

audience. Not a huge amount of younger people read a tabloid and so it could attract an older audience as well as a

younger one and I feel that it can attract a wide range of ages in different ways. The language will attract an older

audience, whereas the design will attract a younger audience. I looked at different stories that were linked to the one I

used and got different quotes from them and developed the story from there. I used images from Google that linked to

the story and I also got different stories from a celebrity entertainment website and got the images from there as well

and I copied these into the article.

FINAL PRODUCT EVALUATIONI feel that my second piece was more of a success than my first piece and there is a lot of skills that I have gained from

making this final product. I used InDesign to create my final piece and I haven’t used it before so learning how to add

pictures and text and to text wrap was all skills I developed in making my product as I have never used it before. I also

learnt how to use drop capitals to make my text look more professional like a newspaper does. I learnt how to add

borders to my images and my text boxes and it works really well and makes it look professional. I also made a block

heading for the headline and for the sub-headline and I also added a date at the top so it looked more professional and

in my second draft I added ‘Daily Mail’ to the top next to the date so it looks really professional and it’s similar to what

The Sun did. These are all screenshots from my first draft and they are all similar in my second draft as well I used the

same techniques. I feel that there is quite a lot I could do to improve my second draft even more to make it to a high

professional standard. I could make the adverts more clearer so they look like adverts because they don’t seem to fit in

much and I could also make room and fill up the page with even mini stories in little bubbles like The Sun did and so

they look similar.