Three Weeks Down

Somehow after 5 years of highschool and 3 weeks of uni, I cannot grasp the skill of reading a timetable.

My timetable reads: 2:00-2:50pm - JOUR1111 - Lecture. There it is, in black, bold print in it's labelled column so even a dummy can't miss it. Well, it seems I can.

It's not that I couldn't understand it, I just didn't see it. Somehow my mind jumped straight to my 3:00pm lecture, completely forgetting about this one. I have 4 subjects to keep track of, and apparently that is just a little too much for me.

So I sat down at my desk this morning, coffee in hand, and watched the lecture online. We had a guest speaker, Skye Doherty, and I could only hear her yet see the slides. Even though I had the text of the powerpoint, I spent quite some time trying to imagine Skye (in the least creepy-sounding way possible) and the way she was delivering her information. Before I let my curiosity get the better of me, I accepted I couldn't have the complete visual and the slides would have to do.

This made me think about how the presentation of something can make it much more appealing. Our lecture this week was on text. I was intrigued when Skye  (well, Skye's voice) mentioned the layout of a newspaper is the largest caption on the top left corner as this is where people begin reading. It makes sense: the bold, catchy caption draws us in and we continue reading the entire page without realising. However, apparently most people don't make it through the entire page.

I was shocked when Skye said if we are lucky enough to entice the reader with our caption, they are only likely to read our first three paragraphs. We must make sure we include the who, what, when where, why and how right at the start and the less important or exciting news later on. If our audience is only going to brief the beginning, we have to give them the info that counts. (See inverted pyramid)

I probably need to practice being concise in having my voice heard in a quick, to the point manner. I've written more than 3 paragraphs and have spun off on a completely different angle to where I was originally headed. I suppose it's better to be full of too many thoughts than not enough. I just hope someone has stuck with me all the way to the end, despite my not-so-catchy caption.

Until next time :)