2. Time Management.
In this project I have worked very well with my time. Personally I feel like I have completed all my tasks in a
reasonable amount of time. In this time I had to complete my tasks I feel like I have completed the work to the
best that I could of done. Some tasks took longer than others. The Tabloid article task was my most strongest task
with time. I got my idea straight away and used a source of yahoo to help me write it and it was my most strongest
piece of writing. I took me two lessons to gather my information and write the article which was one of my
quickest pieces of writing but this was because I had a very strong idea and view of how I wanted it to go.
The task that took the longest to complete was my magazine article through production. It started off taking up a
lot of time as it was not going to how I wanted it to go. Then towards the end of the week that I started to pick up
the paste and it all fitted into place and it took me a little longer than I planned but it did not effect any of my other
tasks. Some of the longer tasks were the production of a magazine article, NUJ presentation and my press release.
These took up a lot more time as they involved a lot more content going into them than others. The press release
for me was the hardest to write and this is why it took some time to write compared to the other writing tasks.
I made sure I have left some contingency time at the end of my work to go back and correct my work and make it is
up to a good standard. I will only need a couple of lessons to do this. As many of my tasks are already up to the
standard that I want them to be. My interview is a task that I could possibly need to spend some more time on
because there is some areas of it that could be improved but I am going to get a seconded opinion on this piece of
writing then this will indicate if I do or not.
I was ill for one of the days which set me back a bit and I had limited time to write the interview for the magazine.
This didnât disrupt my focus on the interview that much as I caught up fast in my own time to make sure my time
was on track. Overall my time management was on track and I had enough time to complete all the tasks.
3. Reviewing my work in progress
All the way through each writing task I did I was reviewing my work and evaluating it by sending it to my tutor by
email and then we would sit and go through the piece of writing and he would tell me what needs to be done to
improve it. He sent me a copy back and put in the details that need to be changed in read and then I sorted these
out. This could possible happen a couple of times before the final draft was created. I found this very helpful as it
detected what the elements were that I needed to change and I would not of known this otherwise. I feel like this
was very helpful for creating my writing pieces. It allowed me to know what worked and what didnât. I feel like
evaluating my work through creating it was something that I will do in the future when I do projects like this one.
It was beneficial to my work a lot. I donât think that my work would of worked out as good If I never did this. I did
get a lot out of this towards my work and this all was very beneficial as I said before. Reflecting this over the run of
this course I may use this method of evaluating throughout other projects that I do. I think it works really well. It
worked the most on my press release as that was the piece of writing that I struggled the most on. I sent this to my
tutor to check many of times. It really worked with correcting my press release as it started off not much like one
and a lot of areas and if it was not for this evaluation throughout method I would of never have got my press
release up to the standard that I have it now and it would still be full of mistakes. I will defiantly be using this again
in the near future.
5. Technical CompetenceâŠ
I used appropriate fonts that were feminine and trendy. Then I used colours such as grays and pinks. In Design
worked really for this as it was easy to place where I wanted everything. The guideline tool was very beneficial for
this.
There was a cosmopolitan spread that I took a lot of inspiration from involving Jessie J.
I took a lot of inspiration from this piece of work in Cosmo. Like the
gradient background and the dashed lines in-between the writing.
It was not hard technically to create something like this. This made
me confident about using the program In Design. I am going to be
using this program in the future with future projects as a picked up
the skills fast and it was really easy for creating a product like this
kind.
I only used the two programs to complete my finished piece. I
found In Design a lot easier to use for this task. I started out my
work In photoshop but it got very hard to layout the writing with a
picture and you are not able to have the guidelines that In Design
provides you with.
None of the other writing tasks such as the press release and the fanzine took up much technical work as I used the
program Microsoft Word and this is a pretty straight forward program which is just there to process my work out
on the computer.
7. Creative Abilities.
My creative abilities in this project were strong because this is my most strongest point. I really enjoyed writing and
I really enjoyed the creative writing aspect to my work. I really enjoyed having to come up with content and do
writing pieces on them. I feel like this is my strongest point in the whole course. My creative ability flared in the
energy drinks project but I feel like personally for me I show a lot more creative ability through my writing. As I love
writing and this is what I want to do as a career.
I took from already existing written pieces. I did this with the Obituaries and the Tabloid piece. I researched these
writing pieces online and found some which I liked I then studied the way that they were wrote and the content
they involved and I created my writing pieces to be on the same level. I was very proud with how my tabloid piece
turned out as I found this the most interesting to write. I had to be creative when picking words to use as I had to
dumb myself down to write it.
11. Press Release.
For this task I had to use my skills in researching and gathering sources together which my skills in this area are pretty strong so I did
not struggle with this. I then had to use skills in using a word document but again I had no problems with this as I am very familiar with
Microsoft word. This press release didnât require many skills. I just found it hard to write it as I kept reporting instead of giving a
statement. For this task I didnât have to learn any new skills in a technical way as I already very familiar with what I had to work with
technically. However I did gain the skill on writing a press release in general. I now could write another press release and I would know
how to write it. Before this I had never wrote a press release before and I did not know how to write one but now I have gained the
skills so if asked again I could write one a lot easier.
I donât fell personally that my work needs improving as such. I feel like I have evaluated it enough through out the production of this
piece and edited enough that I canât any more. I feel like it canât have any more done to it as it is the right length the right number of
words and includes the right content. The problems I did find was that I was reporting to much in my work and I was putting sources to
quotes which didnât mean to be there. I was able to solve these quickly as I edited them out. I got good feedback overall from my tutor
who said it was a strong press release once I finally finished my last draft.
13. Obituary
The kind of content that I used for my copy was that I found quotes that she had said in interviews and made out like she said this a last
interview that she ever had. Obviously she is not dead so I had to find sources from the internet that possibly could sound like she had
died. This was hard but I was able to gather some up. I did not use any images on this as images are not typically seen. With this piece of
writing I had to edit it twice and there was two drafts before I got my final draft. I had to send it to be evaluated to my tutor twice as I was
reporting rather than explaining and celebrating her life. It was really hard for me to not report. As my first draft was like more like a
magazine article it was seen as something quite gossipy which I had to try and stay away from. I learnt this in my second draft and
changed my words around to create a piece of writing that was a lot more like a obituary. The style of this piece is formal. I wanted it to be
formal because the obituaries that I research were all formally written I think this is because it is a sign of respect. Comparing my work to
others that I found online I feel like mien is looking as professional as actual published pieces. I took Inspiration from my favorite obituary
written for Peaches Geldof and I went with this kind of style. I talked about her death and interview and what she had said in them. Then I
concentrated what people thought about her. The peaches Geldof one that I found on the times website was a lot like this and I really
liked the way it was written it was like celebrating that person in a whole. The skills I used was my skills to wrote emotively and I feel like
this went very well. I used words that were emotive and gave feeling to my work like âsadlyâ and âdeeplyâ these words really show the
emotions in this piece of writing. Technically I did not struggle at all with the word as I used a word document Microsoft word to create
this and I am very confident with this program. In Critical approaches most of this work was on a word document and I can use it very
confidently unlike In Design and Photoshop.
My skills developed in this area with actually writing a obituary. I did not know how to write one and now I do know which is a skill I can
take into practice in the work place for when I am older. As I wanted to be a magazine journalist I may get asked to do this in the future
and now I have the skill to be able to write one. My skills in this area have developed with writing as it is writing in a different way to what I
am used to. I feel confident now with this skill.
There could be some areas to improve this work. Add some more emotive language or talk about her background some more. I feel like
this sounds a bit more like celebrating her life this could be added.
16. Tabloid Article
With this piece of writing I did one draft and sent it to my tutor and he told me that I did not need to edit anything as it was exactly
how it should be. I was very happy with this as it showed my strong point in this project. I do not want to improve anything in this
project because I am very happy with it. I have it exactly how I want. I am very proud of this piece of work. It has made me realise
what I am good at in this field.
19. Interview
Over this project I was able to develop my writing skills in general which is something very very useful to me.
Overall I feel like I have preformed very well in this project. It was something that I really enjoyed writing and I feel like I do not need to
improve this work any more. If I was to go back and change something about this I would changed the order the fans talked and make
each one of them talk first each time. This would of made my interview more like a conversation and not so much like something that
has been put in order. I only realized it sounded like very robotic to when I finished and went back and read it and then I had ran out of
time to change it.