Evaluation of my Journalist Task

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