QRGs: The Genre

To gain an understanding of a topic, you could read the hundreds of detailed articles that have been written about it, or, if that sounds like a lot of reading you'd rather not do, you could just read a quick reference guide. (QRG) QRGs are articles that give a basic, easy to understand, and most importantly, quick, overview of an issue. This type of allows anyone to gain a quick understanding of a topic without needing technical knowledge or having to devote a large amount of time to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usain_Bolt

QRGs have several conventions that make them simple and easy to understand. The first of these conventions is the use if headers. Headers break the QRG into different clearly labeled sections. This allows the reader to quickly see what they are reading about and gain an understanding of where the author is going with the article. The headers seem to come in just about every form possible, questions, fragments, statements, etc.

Another convention is the presence of links to other websites. These links allow the reader to go to sites that contain more information or provide clarity if the reader wishes to. The links serve as a way to provide large amounts of information to those who wish to have it while still keeping the article short for those who only want a brief overview of the issue.

Another convention of the QRG is using pictures to bring attention to points. the pictures usually relate to the topic discussed in the writing that they are associated with and serve as a visual representation of the topic discussed in the writing. The picture also serve to grab the attention of the reader and draw them into to different sections of the QRG.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Icon_attention.svg

The conventions of QRGs and very similar to those of blogs. they both are short, don't use technical wording, and include pictures. This makes sense when the purposes of the QRG and the blog are compared. Both attempt to capture the reader's attention quickly and keep it by being brief. Both also attempt to convey a point with a short article and both try to reinforce that point with pictures.

Reflection: After reading Spencer's and Massimo's posts on QRGs, I was able to confirm my thought that the main reason QRGs are useful is their short length and their easiness to understand. Every post I read mentioned these conventions at length. I also saw that other people found that QRGs are similar to blogs in their conventions. Here is the link to my QRG draft.