Investigating Genres: The Quick Reference Guide

With all the new sources of technology, it is inevitable that an emphasis on new techniques is growing. We see written works gravitating from traditional publishing companies to being personally published on the internet in blogs, especially in to from of a quick reference guide.

Q: What purpose(s) does this genre usually serve?

A: The quick reference guide has a pretty self evident name. It's purpose is to inform its audience about a specific topic very quickly. The format, consisting of short paragraphs and lists, lends itself to skimming and emphasized a few main points through eye-catching formatting. It's main purpose is to summarize a melee of information and hear-say floating around into a concise summary, making the information easily accessible.

Rohde, Mike. "Chick-fil-A Leadercast Sketchnotes" 5/8/11 via Flickr. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License.

Q: Where, how, or in what context do readers usually find this genre?
A: The quick reference guide populates the internet extensively but still has some roots in the paper world. It includes anything from informative guides of products to recent, breaking news. However, it is so diverse that works such as professional reports or academic notes commonly follow this format.

Q: Who is the typical audience for this genre?
A: The audience is very diverse as there are quick reference guides for almost any topic searchable on the internet. This means people from all age groups and backgrounds use this genre. However, people will not use this type of genre to gain a complete comprehensive knowledge of the topic as it is more of a condensed summary.

Q: What are some of the key features or characteristics that are unique to this genre, distinguishing it from other texts?
A: Quick reference guides spread very quickly, especially those written on current events due to their accessibility. They commonly have bullet pointed lists, effective pictures, and quotes/key statistics isolated from the main body of information. Another distinguishing factor is that the authors of these quick reference guides want their content to be re-blogged and widely viewed so the topics range from the trivial yet amusing to the tragic and morbid.

Q: Based on your answers to the questions above, come up with a definition in your own words for this genre.
A: Quick reference guides are the Cliff Notes on current events or any other topic imaginable that are simple to understand and quick to read.

Reflections:
After reading Elizabeth Hernandez's  and Hannah Gardner's posts on video essays. I've reassured myself that I am actually already familiar with that type of media. At first, when I heard in the class that we had to do video essays I had a completely irrational panic about them because at that time I only associated traditional essays with english classes and had trouble reconciling the two ideas. However, now I'm just realizing that they are just the videos we all see daily over social media such as Facebook or YouTube.

They have also made me realize that Video essays allow a lot of freedom. They are compilations of information from any type of media including audio and visual. While they have the additional element of audio, they lack text which made me realize how limited they are too. The authors somehow have to convey the same amount of information as a text media purely through a persuasive speech without the audience losing interest.