Evaluation of my Journalist
Task
Throughout
my Journalist task, I have developed my research skills by learning from my
strengths and weaknesses. My strengths on having to research a particular type
of data information was that I was independently searching the web on my own,
as I was used to having to work in pairs for any type of research task
obtained. I also gained more confident by working independently as I would need
that important skill in the future presence for job preference. My other
strength was that I have gathered a lot of data information based on file
illegal downloading and statistics from the web and they were all appropriate
for the main task given however, since I only needed 200 words to write for my
journalist task, I have picked out the important facts and statistics that
would be suitable for my main target audiences of my chosen magazine, which was
Glamour; mainly targeted for teenage girls with ages between 11 years old and
above.
On the other
hand, there were some weaknesses that I had come across with this main task.
One of my weaknesses was that I have relied in using the web access (mainly on
Wikipedia) so the data information or statistics collected may be unreliable
and inaccurate as it would not appear professional and would not make any sense
for the readers of the chosen magazine, Glamour. Even though there are a lot of
information displayed, I was still not convinced whether I should include it on
my magazine or not- but in the end, I have included the information down my
journalist set of writing hoping it was reliable enough by the looks of it. My
other weaknesses was that I needed to work on my time management as I took
quite a bit of time researching for statistics on file illegal downloading and
what impact it has in the Music Industry.
All the data information gathered took a bit of time, as I've used more
than 30 minutes searching for the appropriate information I needed which is why
I need to improve my time management pace in order to get my sub tasks
completed on time or, if I have some spare time left, I’d look back and check
for my work to be on a high standard. Finally, my third weaknesses was that I've received some audience information, which was a friend of mine and his own
set of view about file illegal downloading may be biased to the audiences
benefit. This type of information collected may not be accurate and it’s only
looking at one person’s point of view.
Moving onto
the Journalistic & writing skills, I also have faced a few strengths and
weaknesses as well. My strength in Journalistic & writing skills was that I
had some experience on how to write a journalistic type of writing since I’ve
studied it during my GCSE English Literature & Language years. I had confidence
in myself so that’s why I enjoyed reading back my notes that I've gathered
using web access and having to include the main important bits of information
about the given topic for the main task obtained. My second strength was that I
have chosen an appropriate set of font style and sizes for my journalist
magazine and used appropriate and appealing images, which links back to the
file illegal downloading topic as it would be able to catch the audience’s
attention and be interested at it. However, my weakness for the Journalistic
& writing skills was that I don’t think I've included enough data
information about file illegal downloading and how can it impact the Music
Industry in the future presence. I felt like I should've included more
important and interesting statistics and information, too, but we were only
allowed to write 200 words more or less so I decided to just leave it.
On this main
task, I have used and worked on InDesign software in order to produce my won
journalistic page of my chosen magazine, Glamour. My strength in using InDesign
software was that I was quite familiar with where the tools are and what they
are used for, as I’ve used with many other types of software’s before like
ADOBE Flash, Photoshop and Fireworks CS4. I gained some confidence and that’s
why I managed to lay out my structure neatly and included appealing colour
schemes for the audiences chosen magazine obtained. In contrast, my weakness
was that I didn't know how to add a background colour and how to add images on my
page as I had forgotten to write it down when the teacher told us to. Also, on
my web publishing skills, I have learned that advertising an organisation
online on the web would gather more audiences than having to publish it on
newspapers and posters in the streets. The only weakness was that it would have
some financial issues, as it may be expensive to hire someone to create the web
and having to pay for them monthly in order for any updates. From the audiences
feedback, they have said that my journalist article page was appealing and
appeared appropriate for the type of magazine that I have chosen to do; Glamour
in order to advertise it to young teenage girls and above. The enlargement
image of Shakira would attract guys as well, as feedback obtained gathered,
which the more audiences interested, the more well known the topic of ‘file
illegal downloading’ would be.
My four main
targets in order to improve my weaknesses, is to:
- Work on my time management pace
- Be more focused and concentrated in class
- Gather more audiences opinions (generalised)
- Collect more reliable set of data information from a trustable website
