SPCA Condom Campaign: The world’s first pet condom
Session 2: Today we will be discussing the Web Based Informational Campaign requirements. Afterward I will begin demonstrating the the techniques for creating the Web Based Informational Campaign.
Required Reading: News Writing from Prof. Michael O’Donnell
Assignment 4: Web-based Informational Campaign and Tweet
Due: Week 10, Session 1 (40 points)
Description
An informational campaign is essentially a news story designed to persuade people to act. The content of the story should be 500 words in length (give or take 25 words). Convey the information to your audience in a factual manner. Good news stories are concise and well organized. They use crisp, active language, and flow well. Effective news stories also draw the reader in by including at least one news value, such as: timeliness, proximity, significance/impact, prominence, conflict, novelty, audience or drama.
Include a five to seven-word headline at the top of your informational campaign. The headline and the first paragraph (referred to as the “lede”) are especially important in order to quickly interest your audience in the campaign. Your lede should answer who, what, when and where. It should be 25 to 50 words in length. Do not write a question lede! Your story should flow from there. Remember to include the why and how – as early as the second graph. A good rule-of-thumb is one idea per paragraph. Citations/attribution of your sources is crucial.
Objectives
The purpose of this assignment is to write and design a web based informational campaign to persuade us that:
1) there is a significant and harmful problem that merits consideration, and that,
2) through the implementation of a social, behavioral, or policy change solution the problem will be solved and/or result in advantages.
3) The website will used to give a 5–7 minute persuasive presentation and contain the usual components of an informational campaign.
Web-based Campaign
The website will contain the following elements that are easily identified by the listeners:
1. The topic/resolution is clear to the audience – we need to know what you’re asking us to consider.
2. The components of the introduction are clear and compelling: opening attention-getter, identification of the topic and the thesis statement.
3. The problem is structured to emphasize one or more main points, and contain evidence that proves the significance and harm of the problem.
4. The solution is presented in a clear manner, with emphasis on the listeners’ understanding of the social, behavioral, or policy change being proposed.
5. The website contains an “argumentation” section that has a plan-meet-need argument and/or a comparative advantages argument. Other pre-emptive arguments, such as workability, cost, disadvantages and/or desirability, may be included where appropriate and necessary.
6. The websites will contain a variety of evidence forms and at least three different sources cited.
7. Emotional appeals may be used where appropriate and if necessary.
Logistics
1. Build the website using the templates provided by the instructor. Follow along with the demos produced in class. Videos of the in-class demos will be provided so that you can review them outside of class.
2. Use a color scheme, images, typesetting, and layout that supports your campaign.
3. Create a folder that contains all the files necessary and then archive the folder using .zip format and turn it into Canvas before the due date.
4. Your website will be used as the topic and slides for your presentation.
5. Write a Tweet this is 280 characters or less in length that summarizes your campaign and includes a link to your site (this links will be provided in an announcement on Canvas).
6. The Web Info Campaign will be graded on the basis of how well it meets the requirements for the assignment and makes use of the strategies outlined in the reading.
Session 2: Today we will have the first of several demos regarding the Web Based Informational Campaign project. In today’s demo we will use the Atom text editor to create an HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) document. This document will include a title (shows up in the tab), image, headline, paragraph, unordered list, and a link. The demonstration will be recorded and posted on Canvas under Pages. Here’s some resources to get you started.