(Short) genre analysis of the two categories:
Press release:
· Readers/users: broad audience
· Organization/format: start with most general information, gradually move through more specific information
· Style: use fairly short paragraphs, third person
· Range of variation: can depend on type of news. If it’s an event, it will include date, time, and location.
FAQ page:
· Readers/users: often users of a website or of a product (who need know about or do something with the website or the product)
· Organization/format: split up into questions with short answers.
· Style: often use first-person (e.g., “How do I…?”)
· Range of variation: can be categorized/ordered based on different audiences
Existing compatibility for re-purposing:
· Users of press releases and FAQ pages can be looking for both specific information and general information. Press releases accommodate this in their format (starting with general information first, gradually moving through to more specific information). FAQs
· These familiar formats also make the information easy to navigate if users are looking for something specific. Users expect the information to be easy to find.
· Both use fairly short chunks of information. Press releases have 1 or 2 sentence paragraphs, and FAQ answers need to be short to address only the question being asked.
Problems for re-purposing:
· FAQs are often written using first/second person (e.g., Q: “Why should I use Venture?” A: “Venture can help you…”), while press releases are written in the third person (e.g., “Venture can help students…”). If the text is meant to be informational like this press release, which is about Venture in general, re-purposing can be fairly easy—it was doable in this case. But if the FAQs need to be task based or procedural (like how to navigate Venture), the third person nature of a press release isn’t as easy to convert into FAQs.
· Press releases can often be written for too broad an audience for an FAQ list; FAQs tend to be for specific people looking for specific information. In the case of the tax information on rounding, the FAQ users were entirely different from the press release’s audience, so the re-purposing would not save as much time/work.
How to make them more compatible:
· Press releases tend to be actively sent out to people to try to inform them of something, whereas users choose to look at FAQs when they are looking for specific information. For easy re-purposing, press release writers would need to consider what questions the audience would have about the topic.
· Include a specific, concise definition of the product/situation because that will often be one of the most important FAQs.
· Use present tense. The Venture press release uses the future tense at times (“Venture will help students…”), which doesn’t translate well into the definition question, especially since the site is already active.
· Use tags to indicate the audience for each piece of information so that it can easily be separated by audience. The Venture press release addresses general information, student information, and faculty information, and in an FAQ list these should be split up so the audiences can find the information they’re looking for. Tags would help this.
Press release used:
· http://msutoday.msu.edu/research/?article=08Feb2008-5
FAQs:
General:
What is Venture?
Why is undergraduate research important?
Who can use Venture?
Students:
How does Venture help students?
What can students do with Venture?
Faculty:
How does Venture benefit faculty?
What can faculty do with Venture?
What is Venture?
Venture is a database of undergraduate research and creative academic opportunities available to all MSU undergraduate students. It connects students and faculty with similar research interests.
Why is undergraduate research important?
Students learn better when they have real and direct involvement in and connections to their work in and outside the classroom. These research and creative scholarly experiences help students develop self-confidence, critical thinking and communication skills.
Who can use Venture?
MSU undergraduate students can search for postings. MSU faculty can post research projects.
How does Venture help students?
Research and creative opportunities throughout the university are available to students, but they don’t always know how or where to start making those contacts. Venture is a place to connect with MSU faculty and learn about their research and creative interests and projects.
What can students do with Venture?
Students can read the research postings, search for projects by key words or faculty name, request notification when newly posted projects meeting their search criteria come up, and apply for those projects online.
How does Venture benefit faculty?
Faculty can market their research and creative opportunities to students.
What can faculty do with Venture?
Faculty can recruit qualified and interested undergraduate students quickly and efficiently, post research projects, edit the projects at any time, or designate another staff person to monitor and process the applications
Where else can students find research opportunities?
MSU colleges that currently maintain Web sites about research opportunities are the colleges of Arts and Letters, Lyman Briggs, Natural Science and the Honors College.