Factual Writing Evaluation

For the first draft of my fanzine I mostly wrote in a more formal evaluative
style. Fanzines are typically written in a chatty style rather than formal. They
are written by fans, for fans, so there is no need to write formally.
I ended up including far too much background information on all of the
albums. Such as the album length [a], the sound of individual tracks or the
album as a whole [b], or Noah’s influences [c]. In fact I think that most of the
fanzine consisted of this kind of writing. I think that it would have been more
suitable as a general review of Noah Lennox as an artist, aimed at an audience
who had never listened to him before. Fanzines are usually aimed at audiences
who are already familiar with the person, meaning that this background
information isn’t needed.
I used a lot of description in my writing to demonstrate to the reader how the
track or the album sounded. Though I like this descriptive writing, there was no
need to do it as my audience will probably know how it sounded. [d] is an
example of descriptive writing that I quite liked in my work. However, I realize
that it was unnecessary for my audience.
I think that one strong bit to my first draft was the introduction [e]. As you can
see I have directly addressed the audience by saying “us”, making it a little less
formal. Though this was not consistent throughout the fanzine.
[a]“Panda Bear consists of 14
songs, lasting 53:37 minutes”
[b]“The songs are all a mixture
of acoustic guitar and piano,
janky, hollow sounding
electronic sounds, and this
child-like sweet voice that Noah
has”
[c]“Noah Lennox was influenced
by the likes of Aphex Twin,”
[d]“In fact the entire album
consists of seemingly endless
sample loops that drive you into
a complete state of numb.”
[e]“let us reminisce over what
he has given to us in these past
16 years…”

(final draft)
In my final draft I added a few paragraphs dedicated to more
personal feelings about each album. This more personal writing
is better suited to a fanzine as the audience is already familiar
with the work, so wont want to read tones of background
information. [f] is an example of where I have written about a
more personal experience with the music.
As well as adding in more personal experiences, I took out most
of the background information, such as album lengths.
However I did end up keeping a small amount of background
information, such as the record labels each album came out on.
I tended to speak more on matters that a fan would already
know in my final draft. For example [g], which refers to how
Panda Bear’s albums always come out much later than
planned.
I tried to write much less formally this time. For example [h],
where rather than giving a formal reference to the interview I
was thinking about I just said “in an interview somewhere”.
I think that I kept quite a few of the descriptive elements of my
fanzine. Though I don’t think that they are that necessary for
my audience, I quite like the descriptive writing. I think it makes
the fanzine a bit more pleasant to read.
I was able to time this aspect of the project really well. I did a
little bit of work on my first draft at home, enabling me more
time to make improvements to my work. Prior to writing I felt
that I also had a good idea about what I wanted to write about,
giving me a bit of a head start.
[f]“I can see that this album is coming from
a really dark place from Panda, and that
usually makes for the best kind of music, as
sad as that sounds. However I really cant
get into this album at all. Personally I think
that style Panda has got going on with more
recent albums fits him like a glove.”
[g]“in true Panda Bear fashion, it’s not
actually dropping until January 13th next
year.”
[h]“I saw in an interview somewhere a while
ago that when Animal Collective are
creating an album they try to do something
completely different to the last album”

Fanzine layout
For my fanzine layout, my designs was mainly inspired by the Animal Collective website. I took a screenshot of a segment of
their website and used it as my background [i]. I was also inspired by some of the images that they used for the background
of their website, for example [j], which inspired to me create an image for my fanzine using similar colours and patterns [k].
For my text and for some of the patterns I created I used a really fluorescent green colour. This was to match the green grid
pattern from the background. I also think that the colour looks pretty striking and weird, suiting the artist that I was
covering in my fanzine.
[i] [j] [k]
In my initial planning for my fanzine layout I selected a few kinds of fonts that I liked, however I didn’t end up using any of
the ones I thought. This was because most of them were not clear enough it read in a small size. I decided to use a really
bold font to make it more readable. This was the font ‘Minecrafter’ [l]. Another font I considered using was ‘ceriph 05_56’
[m]. This font fitted in with this weird glitchy technology theme I had going on with my designs, however I still felt that it
wasn’t clear enough to read. I still think that perhaps the fanzine is quite difficult to read. On each page I separated the text
out into columns to break it up making it a bit more readable. I started out in my first draft with 5 pages, and about 6
columns on each page, however I wanted to reduce it down as much as I could by using wider columns. I managed to get it
down to 3 pages, and at most 3 columns on a page.
[l] [m]

For my pages, as opposed to doing plain A4 sized pages, I though I would create my own page size. Fanzines don’t tend to
have a specific style, they can be much more experimental. I thought about the art book that was made for Animal
Collectives film ODDSAC [n]. The pages were longer than they were wide. In my first layout draft I had my pages extremely
narrow [o]. I wanted to limit the amount of pages I used for my fanzine, so I needed to make the pages a bit wider to allow
more text on each page. For my final layout the page was quite a bit wider [p].
[o] [p]
[n]

From my research into fanzines, I found that many of them looked quite home a made. They sometimes features hand
drawn looking artworks, rather than high quality photography that you might find in a magazine. I was inspired by [q] to
include some of my own hand drawn work. Though I decided not to draw images, instead I drew up my own title. The main
theme running through my designs was somewhat technology based, this meant lots of perfect straight lines. The title I
drew up didn’t fit this criteria, however by turning it a bight colour and using two layers it came out looking all glitchy, and
fitted in with the rest of my designs.
[q]
[r]
[1]
[2]
Because of the many small details I wanted to add into my fanzine design, such as image [1], I needed to give myself plenty
of time to come up with these designs, create them, and work out how to incorporate them into my work. I spent a fair
amount of time experimenting with different designs to incorporate in my fanzine. I played around a lot with the positioning
of [1]. Image [2] you can see where I’ve tried to incorporate a drawing of mine into the [1]. I thought that this looked a bit
too messy so I didn’t use it for my final design. One problem I faced was trying to narrow down the amount of pages I used,
narrowing down the amount of columns, and getting the columns spaced out neatly. This was something that I spend a lot
of production time on, so perhaps other aspects may have got neglected. However this didn’t impact on when I got the
design finished, as I still managed to finish in time.

I think that my finished product is pretty interesting. Like many
fanzines, I have included quite a bit of detail, and put quite a bit of
thought into the look of my fanzine.
I knew beforehand that I wanted to have a page that was shaped longer
than it was wide, like a photograph, however I changed the dimensions
a few times.
One of the first things that I created towards my fanzine was the title
that I drew up and scanned into the computer. I may have done quite a
few bits of post production of it, but the intention was always the same.
Though I changed the fonts a few times, I stuck with the same colour
throughout.

(first draft)
In the first draft of my fan
interview I did an extremely basic
question answer layout, and
features a small introduction. I
labeled the questions I asked with
“ME:” and labeled the fans answer
with “FAN:”. This structure was
efficient, however didn’t make for
a very interesting read.
I think that the introduction was
quite good. It give the audience a
specific reason for the interview
existing, rather than it just
appearing as a random interview. I
think that [s] shows where I did
this. In the introduction I also give
the reader the key information
that they need to know about the
new album. I think that this will
encourage Panda Bear fans to read
[s]“During the hype
this new album has
created, I asked a
keen fan to let me
know what it is they
love so much about
Panda.”
the article as they will be
interested in the new album
coming out.
Although this fan interview
has quite a boring structure,
one positive is that it was
extremely quick to write up.
This left me plenty of time
to make improvements.

This time I expanded my question and answer bit a lot more.
I got rid of my questions, and instead added in some context
before each answer. For example [t]. All of the bits in italics
shows where I gave context to the answer, as opposed to
writing to writing out my questions. I think that this makes
for much more engaging reading, and is more appropriate
for a magazine.
To collect my information for my fan interview I needed to
put out a survey. I managed to gather together quite a few
responses to my questions. I think that the responses I
chose to use in the end were the best choice, as they were
the most detailed. They gave about a paragraph for each
question. One worded or shorter answers wouldn’t have
been appropriate to use as it would have been much shorter
and less interesting to read.
In my first draft I only featured an introduction. However for
my final fan interview I included a short line at the end [u] to
finish it better. This line at the end links in with my
introduction nicely, and emphasizes the reasoning for the
existence of the interview. The last line I used is an advert,
which is something you commonly find alongside in
magazines. Many interviews exist as forms of
advertisement.
The first draft was extremely quick to finish as all I needed to
do was write out the questions and answers from Survey
Monkey in an extremely basic format, and then add an
introduction. It was the second draft that took the longest as
I needed to figure out how to give my answers context
without including my questions in the article, and make the
[t]“On the new EP, Panda has definitely
changed up his vocals. Normally he has then
firmly in the background of his songs, but this
time its put them more in the foreground of
the songs, especially on the song Mr Noah.
Typically, his lyrics are difficult to make out,
but his super personal lyrics make for some
beautiful reading on lyricalcollective.
“Lyrically I find it quite difficult to distinguish
certain words on a lot of Panda Bear songs.
His songs for me are not about the lyrics, but
what the music makes me feel. However the
lyrics in ‘Take Pills’ stand out to me.””
[u]“Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper is
available now to pre order at
http://ac.dominorecordco.com/ac/albums/2
2-10-14/panda-bear-meets-the-grim-reaper/.”

As my chosen celebrity was quite obscure, I felt that they could perhaps
appear in a more obscure magazine. This meant that I was a little more
free to play around with fonts, layouts and images.
One thing that I really like about my fan interview layout is the font and
positioning of the title. [v] shows you how I positioned it initially. I liked
this positioning, however I wanted to allow myself some more space for
text. [w] shows how I changed the layout. The Image stayed in the same
position, so did the words “Panda Bear”, though I moved “Fan Interview”
underneath the image. I think that the title isn’t positioned exactly where
you’d expect it, which makes it a little more interesting. In the title I also
had the text overlapping slightly, again making it a little more obscure.
I really like the font I chose for my title. I chose selected it from the initial
ideas I generated. Its very simple, though with a small amount of detail
that doesn’t obstruct you from being able to read it. The font was called
‘Xack’.
The image I used for the fan interview is one of the artworks that will be
sold inside CD and vinyl copies of his new album. This is relevant to the
article, as the new album is something I spoke about in the introduction
and right at the end of the article.
For the main text I used a really simple font as I want for people to be able
to read it. The font I used was called ‘Myriad Pro’. It wasn’t one that I
chose in my initial ideas as most of the fonts from my initial ideas were too
difficult to read in smaller sizes. I put the answers that were given in the
interview in a light grey colour to make it obvious that these bits were
different from the main text [x], I also put the short advert at the end on
the article in grey to separate that from the rest of the text as well. All of
the other text was in black. Black and grey are two very simple colours. I
[v]
[w]
[x]

didn’t want for my text to be too brightly coloured so that it might be unreadable to some people. I
think that brightly colour text would also not be appropriate for a magazine article. I rarely see
magazine articles featuring large quantities of colourful text.
Like my fanzine, I put all of the text in columns. This is definitely typical of a magazine layout. I think
that adding columns breaks up the text, making it easier to read and can make a large amount of text
look a little smaller perhaps.
Another obscure feature I added to my fan interview was instead of classic pace numbers, I used lines
to symbolize the page numbers, as shown in [y]. These were placed at the bottom right corner of the
pages.
Prior to making this one, I had already designed my fanzine layout. I used the time I had spare after
making my fanzine to create my fan interview layout. This meant that I had a lot less time to play
around with layouts, imagery and fonts. I think that my layout is quite basic in some areas, though
more interesting in others. Though if I had more time to think about it I could have come up with a
more interesting layout over all, however this may not have improved it as it could have become too
messy and experimental for a magazine.
One thing that I have noticed since finishing my fan interview layout is that the widths of the two
columns on the front page are different. I think that if I had had more time to complete my layout
then I may have noticed that beforehand.
[y]

I think that my finished product has some interesting aspects to it, though due to timing
there are some parts that are a little plain, and perhaps there are some imperfections.
As I created this in the spare time I had after I finished the fanzine, I didn’t get the
opportunity to do the same research and planning as I got to do with the fanzine. This
meant that I didn’t get so much inspiration, or insight into the conventions of a
magazine layout. However I do have experience in reading magazines so I managed to
take inspiration from memory.
Prior to creating the layout I knew that I wanted to do something interesting with the
text. For the fanzine I got to do a lot of interesting things with my images, however
magazine do not tend to focus so much on the imagery, and more on the text. I used a
font that I planned on using initially for my fanzine though wasn’t suitable. I found it was
much better suited to the title of the magazine as it is very clean and simple when
enlarged.
I think that a lot of my inspiration has come from Dazed and Confused magazine
(example below). Especially in terms of font style. I really like the more minimalist look
that they have. Their pages are very black and white, and the text is all really clear and
readable, though slightly edgy. I tried to incorporate that into my own magazine layout.

(first draft)
The side bar was meant to show the reader a shortened
version of the main fan interview. I needed to select
some key bits of the article, and condense them down
into about 100 words.
In my first draft I selected a bit of the introduction, so
that the audience got an idea of what they were about
to read straight away. I also included one of the
questions. This questions was “Which do you think has
been Panda Bear’s quintessential album?” and for that
question I put a shortened down version of the persons
answer, where I just included what I though were the
most important bits.
I think that just selecting one of the questions may seen
quite random. I don’t think that there was any particular
question that stood out to me as the most important. I
selected that question because it had quite a nice
answer.
At first it took me a while to decide what I was going to
use as my side bar. I found that bit quite difficult.
Though once I had decided, condensed everything down
and writing it out I found quite easy and quick.

(final)
Because I changed my fan interview quite a lot I needed to
change my side bar to go with the style of the new fan
interview.
In my previous side bar I had used the simple question
answer format, labeled “ME:” and “FAN:”. This time I
needed to condense down a much larger bit of text, and
select key areas of that text to include, and filter out the
stuff that wasn’t needed.
In this version I didn’t include the introduction, however I
think that my side bar still begins pretty well, and would be
effective in drawing in the readers attention.
As opposed to using a segment of one question, I used
segments from a few different questions. I think the
questions I selected were a good choice as they give a clear
indication to the theme of the article. It gives people the
opportunity to judge whether they would be interested in
the article or not.
As I had a lot more writing for my final draft of the fan
interview I had a lot more text to filter through to find the
most interesting stuff. This also made it more difficult to got
it down to the right amount of text. This final draft took
quite a bit longer to produce than the previous side bar.

For the press release I needed to stick to giving out key
information first, then to add in a little background
information later. The main purpose of a press release is to
inform the reader of the upcoming release, so it is best to give
out the key information first.
I ended up giving most of the key information in the first
paragraph, however continuing the key information another 3
paragraphs down. I feel like I should have ordered my
paragraphs better. I should have perhaps merged the first and
fourth paragraph together, or at least have put them next to
each other.
One good thing about my press release is that I have
incorporated a few quotes from Noah Lennox about the album
[w] (next page). I think that this is information that fans will be
interested in reading about. I also incorporated a quote from a
track review of a song that was released on the new EP [x]
(next page).
I didn’t end up writing too much for my press release. I could
have perhaps filled it out with a bit more background
information. I did a paragraph explaining a bit about who Noah
Lennox is, and a paragraph on his previous album. I perhaps
could have discussed another album.
I found that I could write the key information out very quickly,
such as what was being released, when it was being released
and where you could pre order it. It took me quite a while
however to bulk out the rest of my press release with other
information. During the research stage of this project I

[w]“The drum stuff, I feel, is a real focal point
of the music. It's heavier and break-centric
music.”
[x]“If you’re so inclined, you might even be
able to dance to this one—not necessarily a
fate predicted by Tomboy.”
acquired a lot of information on Noah Lennox’s career as Panda Bear, so I needed to spend some time filtering through my
information to get stuff in that would be relevant to my press release. This was made slightly simpler as I had tagged every
page of my research with key words, so I was able to search for certain words to find the relevant information.

In order to write my tabloid article about Noah Lennox I
needed to think of something that he might do that could be
news worthy. Noah is quite an obscure artist, and would not
typically be seen featured in a tabloid news article, so this
task was quite difficult. I decided in the end to cover his
association with the animal welfare charity PETA.
At first I wrote the article from a compassionate point of
view. I spoke about how “Kind-hearted” Noah is, and how
he “generously donated” to the charity.
I gave a quote from a different company [y], which I think
was useful for backing up statements about what a kind
person Noah is. I also made up a quote from Noah’s ‘speech’
[z] which was useful for backing up the story. In my article, I
put [z] in a larger font to draw attention to it.
[y]“We have worked with lots of different
celebrities on shoe lines, but no one else has
been quite like Animal Collective. They hold a
special place in our heart. We feel that as well
as giving off the right image, they are
genuinely nice people, and easy to work with.
Their shoes sold out faster than anyone’s ever
have too.”
[z]“Everyday the homes the animals we share
our planet with are being destroyed, and
replaced with dull, grey concrete.”
Typically for a tabloid article, they would use quite low
register language, making it a bit more relatable for the
audience. In a few parts of my tabloid I used more chatty
language, for example [3].
I used an image in my article [4] to break up the writing a
little bit for the reader. I used this particular image of Noah
and two fellow Animal Collective members, as it featured an
animal in the image, which made it a lot more relevant to
the story. It could almost look as if it was taken for the story.
[3]“Okay, so not an actual panda”
[4]

(final)
For my final draft of my tabloid article I wrote the story
from a completely different angle. In fact I changed
everything but the title.
Last time I wrote about Noah supporting PETA as a good
thing. I spoke very positively of PETA and of Noah.
However thins time I wrote the article from the point of
view of someone who is completely against PETA. I
though it could be more likely that this would be the
angle taken from someone who writes for a tabloid
newspaper, and perhaps more likely to be what
someone who reads a tabloid newspaper wants to read.
This article is a lot more sensationalist that my previous
article. I wanted for my reader to feel outraged at the
charity and at Noah. In order to do this, I included lots of
shocking facts about PETA such as [5].
Like the previous draft, I tried to write in quite a low
register. For example saying “ ban our beacon” rather
than just “ban beacon”. Saying our is directly addressing
the audience, making it sound more chatty. Another
example of where I have addressed the reader is [6]
(next page).
I did significantly less writing for this draft than I did in
the last one. I don’t think that this story would be
particularly big news in a tabloid newspaper, so I feel like
it doesn’t need lots of detail. The reader will probably
not want to sit and read masses of detail on this story so
I think that the story is much more effective shorter.
[5]“Not only that, but PETA has given
thousands to convicted violent criminals, such
as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). The ALF
are an organisation responsible for burning
down research labs. I don’t know about you,
but I wouldn’t want to be associated with
these people.”

[6]“You like wearing you favourite leather
jacket? Nope not anymore, gone too! Your
child is begging you to take them to go and
see the monkeys at the zoo, sorry cant do that
either.”
In my first draft I had to take quite a long time to generate
an idea for what I could write in my article. For my final
draft I knew what subject I was going to be covering,
however I needed to completely rewrite the previous
draft I did. Typically my final draft doesn’t take too long as
I’ve usually got a pretty good idea of what I’m writing, and
I will already have a sort of outline for my writing from my
first draft. This time I had no outline what so ever as I
wanted to write everything completely differently, just a
vague idea. This meant the final draft took a lot longer
than usual. Although I didn’t have to write as much text
this time as I did in my first draft.

For my obituary I needed to give an overview of his life and
career. This meant gathering together almost all of the
information I had acquired about him, and putting it in
chronological order. One thing that I had difficulty with was that I
had mainly researched Noah’s career as Panda Bear, and less his
career with Animal Collective and Jane. I found that I needed to
do a little extra research before writing my obituary.
In my obituary I split up each stage of his life up to his death into
paragraphs. I found that this was a very neat way of writing it. I
think I could have been a bit over faced by the amount of
information about his life that I could have included but splitting it
up into paragraphs and putting them in the right order was quite
an easy way of doing it. I also think I did quite well to only pick out
the key information from all of my research, rather than rambling
on about his life for pages and pages.
I gave a brief introduction where I explained straight away that
Noah had died and how. I worded it In a way that was respectful
and mindful of his friends and family [7]. I eased gently into
writing that he had passed away, rather than coming out with it
straight away. I also spoke kindly of Noah.
Further towards the end of the obituary I made direct references
to a particular song that he wrote [8]. I thought that this may give
some ease to those who knew Noah, and give those who may
have never hear of Noah Lennox an idea of what kind of person
he was. I did a similar thing again in the final paragraph [9]. I think
that these were both really nice personal touches to my obituary.
[7]“Today we lose a wonderful father,
husband, brother, son, friend and
inspiration. Noah Lennox, a man who
brought so many so much joy, has sadly
passed away.”
[8]“In Animal Collective’s latest album
Centipede HZ, Noah sings lead on the
track New Town Burnout. A part in the
song goes “No more little fights. Never
more a broke mess at night.” Its clear that
Noah, a year before his death, had finally
faced his demons.”
[9]“he was working on a new album,
titled Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper.
As dark as the title makes the album
seem, it was meant as a celebration, and
to show how new growth sometimes
requires death. For Noah’s family and
friends in these dark times, perhaps this
album is the guidance that they need.”

In my second draft I changed the time that I wrote the article
in. In the first article I wrote it as if Noah had died than day.
However this time I wrote it as if it was two weeks after his
death. I think that this is perhaps more typical of an
obituary.
In my first draft I also included a back story to how he died
[10], though I got rid of this bit. I thought that as I was
writing from 2 weeks after his death, people would already
know how he had died. It would be more likely that people
would want to read about his life.
Despite these two changed, I kept everything the same. I
liked how everything was written and laid out. I also think
that all of the content was key to his life, and would be
interesting to the reader.
There was quite a lot of research and writing to be done for
the obituary as Noah had had quite a varied career. The first
draft took quite a long time to write. I spent most of my time
trying to condense all of the research I had done about his
life into a few pages, and then putting everything in order.
Although because I seemed to get things pretty much right
first time, the final draft didn’t take very long at all.
[10]“Noah was driving home from the studio,
where he was putting the finishing touches on
his new album. Pete Kember (aka Sonic
Boom) who Noah was working with at the
time, was one of the last people to see him
alive.”

Factual Writing Evaluation

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (19)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to Factual Writing Evaluation

Similar to Factual Writing Evaluation (20)

More from cloestead

More from cloestead (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Factual Writing Evaluation