Blog Post VI

View the literacy narratives listed above and evaluate them (what do you like about them? what don’t you like? why?). 

1. Scannell: I like that this literacy narrative involved her parents reflecting on her childhood while also showing past work and experiences by flashing examples and additional videos. However, it was way too long. While six minutes can be a length that doesn’t bore an audience, nothing new was being said beside her accomplishments. It was the same speakers talking about the same topic that simply became repetitive and uninteresting.

2. Andfull: I like that she introduces herself and her voice follows the timing of the video perfectly. However, I found her comments to be tedious. The length was okay and while the effects were unrelated to the actual topic, it gave the audience some interest at the beginning. Unfortunately, the book covers had awful resolution so the titles and pictures were unreadable, and paired with her uninteresting voice feedback, it left me feeling bored and slightly annoyed.

3. Truaman: Out of all the videos, I enjoyed this video the most merely because his words were interesting and the video is simple. It was him, a blank canvas and slight background noise that wasn’t distracting. While occasional examples of work he refers to through pictures would have been helpful, I found this video to keep me interested throughout its entirety.

4. Peyton: My first thought when watching this was that the film strip action seems to be a popular choice for amateur videos. My next thought was how I didn’t appreciate squinting at a blurry phone screen in a failed attempt to read what he was texting. I also did not like the loud music that was making my current headache worse. The only things I liked were that it tried having some direction and that the length wasn’t unbearable.

5. Wooten: While the music seemed out of place, it almost helped add to the humor of the video. It was a lame story to say the least and he only had the same effects of screen shots and captions, but after seeing other videos, I appreciate the simplicity and clarity of the video. It led to a conclusion and was easy to understand.

What criteria do you think we should use for evaluating these types of texts?

I think the criteria we should use for evaluating these types of texts is keeping audience interest in terms of length of the video and how well viewers are able to follow along with the narration. Also, how well the special effects, like pictures and words work together, and how well these effects aid to the topic, is another criteria we should incorporate.

Blog Post V

Part 1: Summarize what you learned about what makes an effective text in what situations and why. Refer specifically to the projects you looked at.

Courteney Dowd: This analysis explains that an effective text needs to be eye catching in order to perform the uniform purpose of any movie poster, which is to sell tickets and accumulate avid fans. Once the author has caught the attention of an audience, incorporated modes hint at the characters, the movie content and simply encourage seeing the movie once it’s been released. Overall though, each purpose may be the same, but the strategies authors use are based on the film content in order to hint at the story and inspire the audience to see it.

Haley Elder: Depending on the chosen medium, an effective text depends on the organization and modes used within it. While an older book may focus more on linguistic modes and a lengthy sequence of wording, a website may emphasize calming colors and the organization of links in order to surround and compliment the main content. Both are potentially effective in a chosen situation because the incorporated features may uphold audience expectations due to past experiences with that particular medium.

Nick Gourlie: An effective text requires strong linguistic use for any kind of media, but especially within books and websites. As long as it is clear and easy to understand, an audience will not leave the site due to lack of clarity. If videos are used, these are more effective depending on both the amount of modes incorporated and how well these modes interact. But overall, combining linguistic text and visual features through the use of alignment and organization, will ultimately allow a text to be extremely effect in any situation.

Brief overview: Overall, a text can be effective when all modes and formating compliment each other. The content must be easy to understand and the visual elements need to strengthen that text. Any text within a chosen medium, online or in hard text, can be effective, it just needs to organize information well enough to meet audience expectations. Most likely, this will then spark further interest in pursuing the purpose of that topic.

Part 2: Now, quickly explore every student’s Project 2 (no need to read in depth, just poke around). Describe which web text is your favorite and why.

Personally, I enjoyed viewing Megan Hitchen’s analysis. It was different from any other student’s regarding design and was extremely easy to move around. Ultimately, I like the creativity and personalization she incorporated into the site so it represents her while also meeting the requirements of project 2.