Research and Planning Revision

Detail how your understanding of the importance of good research and planning skills developed throughout the pre-production of your AS and A2 coursework

Adequate research, drafting and audience feedback are all extremely important when it comes to AS and A2 coursework, and I realised this more and more as I progressed through AS and during the preliminary task for A2. I researched magazine structure and text type briefly first time around for the magazine I was to going to be producing. When I produced my first draft for all pages and realised that they weren’t good enough, I decided to engage in more thorough research. Through doing this research, it allowed me to complete the product quicker as I knew exactly what I wanted and was supposed to do. I found and analysed front covers, contents pages and double page spreads from a number of different magazines and looked at structure, text to image ratio and the general appearance. I also looked to see if it served the correct purpose and was suited to the genre of music it was representing. Doing this research more thoroughly enabled me to see what I needed to include in my magazine to make it look better than the first draft. I also made questionnaires and handed them out to members of my class to gather views on what other people think would look best in my type of magazine. Looking back at AS, I feel that I should have planned the images that I was going to put into my magazine in more detail.

How did your knowledge of digital technology and your research and planning skills develop throughout the pre-production of your AS and A2 coursework?

My knowledge of both digital technology and research and planning skills developed significantly throughout the pre-production on my AS coursework. For example, my skills on the Apple Macs and using Adobe Photoshop improved through using them all the time in order to make my product. My research and planning skills also developed throughout AS. They developed at times when I realised that my work wasn’t good enough and so I engaged I more planning to make the work better. These skills are currently progressing at this moment in time, through starting the A2 coursework. I am aiming to take these sets of skills which I learnt last year and build on them, which will hopefully result in an increase of quality in my work.