Hughes. Week 6
After reading chapter twenty-four and thirty-seven, I found it hard to implement the theories explained. When creating a brochure with a target to children it’s hard to implement the four sentence types explained in the readings. Yet, I believe we did a very good job in trying to be both, concise and varied in our sentences structure. There are a couple of paragraphs that I believe are a bit too long, but then shortening them would leave important details out. It is also very important the image and picture implementation. Pictures must serve a specific purpose, especially in a brochure like ours that is very explanatory and targets children who perhaps don’t know how to read. Chapter 24 also mentions that fact that pictures and images must have captions, I believe this is not necessary in this type of brochure due to space issues and the fact that most pictures that we include in the future (Because I believe that we do need to include more images in our second draft) will serve an explanatory purpose.
I think it is very important that we reconsider our audience. Perhaps changing who we target our brochure to, can make our job. Chidren are a hard audience, we must be very concise and include alot of pictures and images.
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I agree with you that some of the ideas and concepts discussed in the Thomson Handbook do not apply to this type of brochure. The ideas are important, but the way they are carried out in this project is not the same way the book emphasizes. For example, using a caption with every picture is something that will not be done with brochure. The pictures used are trying to draw out an emotional response from the reader to get them to react a certain way to the images and the text. It is hard to limit the amount of text you use, maybe pictures can help with this. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.
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I agree with you that writing a brochure that appeals to both adults and children is a tough task. Using all four types of sentences for children to read could be tough because you want them to be able to understand what to do for their pet when they get them home. Then you also have to make it professional enough for adults to take seriously and not just something that you give to kids for them to look at. I also saw how they said to add captions and cite your photos within your writing. I think this applys more to papers and professional writings than brochures. It would be dumb to waste space on something like that in a brochure where space is at a premium.
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Regarding to caption in the pictures used in the brochures, I also think it would be a waste of limited space. I don’t think they are really that necessary since the pictures normally go inside or next to the paragraph the image is supporting. It is normally the case that the text is so short that you won’t get confused on what the image is trying to refer to. Also, I don’t think it is so common to have charts in brochures, but in the case of having one, I do think those need to have caption and reference in the part they are writing about the information.
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I think it is interesting that both you and I stated that we included numerous pictures as explanations or evidence for something to appeal to children. I think by saying that we are saying that either children can not read or do not like to read. However, I just realized that photographs appeal to a much larger audience. It is almost humorous because many adults, well educated adults, do not like to read as well. The old cheesy saying "A picture is worth a thousand words," is very eloquent in this situation. Displaying a picture of a child brushing his teeth is a perfect way to not only demonstrate it but show how important it is to do such a task. I guess I never realized the significance that a photograph plays in such a document.
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Writing these brochures was very difficult in that we are writing to a very wide age range in our target audience but this can also help direct us in the right path. This means that the information presented must be written clearly and concisely in order for children and adults to understand it. The audience also ranges from very knowledgeable about pets and the humane society to new pet owners. In brochures you are providing a very basic outline of the topic at hand and I think as a group we did a great job getting that completed with the two brochures we created.
Response
I defiantly agree that it was hard to implement the four different types of sentence structure when we are trying to make this brochure so that kids read it as well. I found that to be the hardest part of making the brochure. I think in the end just like your group we made it work. I think some of the information in the handbook would be better suited working on other types of professional brochures in the business world. Some of the information I thought was very relevant especially the part about the placement of the pictures. This was something that I found important and I felt the book did a good job about explaining the importance of placement and content.