Reflection on Project 1 Draft

I reviewed the QRGs written by Gabee Mazza and Stef Antonopoulos.  Gabee covered the recent Planned Parenthood videos controversy, and Stef covered the ongoing struggle to provide children with healthy school lunches.  I'm now spending time reflecting on my own draft, and the revisions I have to make.  Here, I explore some tips for global revisions.  I've realized mainly I need to reduce the length of my QRG.

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My audience is my peers and my instructor specifically, although this QRG should be readable for all the general public.  I want to reach everyday/common people to inform them on how ivory trade is threatening elephants with extinction.

This general audience has varying values and beliefs, but I'm assuming most of the general public doesn't want elephants to go extinct.  However, how much each person is willing to do about this issue varies greatly.  By explaining the viewpoints of all the key groups involved, I hope to include and represent all these beliefs, and explain the motivation behind them.  Conservationists and pro-trade readers should both draw knowledge from this article.

Reading this QRG, the audience is expecting to get a fundamental understanding of the political, social, economic, cultural, and environmental factors of ivory trade.  This QRG should explain the basic details of ivory trade, and the status of African elephant populations, as well as relate the issue back to the general audience.  I'm accomplishing this, but I am writing too much.  The readers will expect a quick and easy read, and my article is too lengthy.  I need to cut out information that is common knowledge, or goes too much into detail.

This is a very complex issue, and I don't want to oversimplify things.  Everything is interrelated, so all aspects of the trade are important in understanding the big picture.  Most people know what an African elephant is, and that it has ivory tusks, so I don't need to explain that.  And most people know that elephant poaching is an issue.  However, most people don't know how big of an issue poaching is, and how close elephants are to extinction.  When I first started this project, I definitely didn't know that they could be extinct in as little as 10 years.

I don't think a lot of people know about the terrorism aspect of ivory trade, which is a huge part of the problem.  If terror wasn't driving trade, governments would have less at stake.  If people weren't being brutally tortured, killed, and kidnapped by groups like the LPA, there wouldn't be such a high priority to crack down on illegal trade.

It's kind of confusing, because I think most people know what National Geographic is, but they are a key group in my controversy, so I have to explain their values/stakes/fears etc.  Also, I think I'm being too technical with the legality of the ivory trade bans, and should simplify the details.

General language and a casual tone is appropriate for this audience.  Nothing too technical or difficult, but still including necessary details and interesting sentence variety.  Throughout the whole QRG my tone is kind of too professional; I sound like I'm writing a newspaper article.  I need to work on making it sound more casual.

I have met the formatting requirements.  I have lots of white space, hyperlinks, illuminating images, and bold subheadings.  I have met the content requirements and probably gone beyond them, since my QRG is so long.  I explore all the major groups involved, and their opinions.  My writing has its own distinct voice, and I have proofread to catch grammar errors.

The biggest issue is the length.  I will work to cut out unnecessary details, while still retaining the informative global understanding of the controversy.  Some of it can be shortened by cutting wordy sentences.