Newsletter Project

Overview | Content | Design & Editing

Scenario: The Business & Technical Writing Program has decided to spotlight information design in the first 2 issues of its new newsletter, beginning with an April issue, which you'll design and write within the following parameters:

1. Layout should be a four-page spread with a blank back page for mailing info.
2. Important upcoming dates and events should be included — see Content details below.
3. Focus overall should be on introducing faculty and students to the field of information design — why it's important to people in the program — and to your chosen specialty.

For featured content, you might spotlight your speakers from the Flyers Project, and further info could be recycled from the Brochure Project and from sources surveyed throughout the term so far — but please be sure to compose your own non-plagiarized content: no copying and pasting without proper citation. Please maintain a list of your sources & submit an MLA-style Works Cited with your newsletter (or include it on the otherwise blank Page 4).

You should consider your main audience to be current faculty & students — and consider designing particular parts of your newsletter directly for them (eg a job trends article for students).

Content

So that you get practice with different genres of newsletter writing, please include each of the following content varieties:

1. Explanation of the newsletter's focus in this issue.
   Consider posing this either as a straightforward declaration — why the newsletter & program have chosen to focus on info design — or else craft that declaration within the context of another announcement, eg about visiting speakers. In addition to declaring this issue's focus, it's conventional to tout "what to look for next issue" as a brief note or inset.
   
   
2. Listing of upcoming events & important dates.
   In addition to dates for departmental speakers, you might also give reminders about registration deadlines, or a heads up about non-departmental events such as conferences, media events, or anything else worth noting: check the sources you've discovered in your research so far, peruse the InfoDesign blog, & check nearby universities or museums. You might also include something like an "In the News" digest, summarizing news from the technical communications and design world. Finally, check the English Dept Calendar of Events & other relevant RU resources (SCILS, Mason Gross, Libraries), and consider including specially tailored sections such as "Student Reminders," etc.
   
   
3. Review or feature a recent event or happening, or a significant person or publication.
   Beyond exploiting the legwork you've done for the Flyers project, you could also profile something you discovered in your Brochure research — or anything at all you consider worth noting, eg a new direction from Tufte, Horn, Brown, or Norman. You should also check relevant journals & publishers (Peachpit, New Riders). Typically there would be departmental news to cover, and you may look into that if you like, but you can instead just focus on your special topic, reviewing a recent book or development, or spotlighting a speaker from your Flyers.
   
   
4. Preview or feature on an upcoming event or happening.
   A simple idea you might try here would be to announce a new course (or two), perhaps based on your info design subspecialty. Just a brief announcement would be one possibility, or you could try a longer article previewing the course's contents and perhaps introducing a visiting professor as the teacher.
   
   
5. Tutorial: for example, give quick tips on a how-to topic such as choosing fonts (and give sources for further info), or else offer a brief intro to a new development in the field or in the news. Your job here is to help your audience feel in-the-know.
   

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Design & Editing

Before building your newsletter electronically, please review these quick newsletter Dos & Don'ts (from Williams and Tollett's Design Workshop). Then on paper draw a design grid with irregular columns and prospective headlines and article lengths for your three-page spread.

Please follow the Dos & Don'ts, plus these further design & editing requirements:

1. No standard, regularized two- or three-column layout! Try, for example, two wide columns for normal articles, then dedicate a third, smaller columns for event listings or other short features — or go with three columns at the top of a page, but break that pattern on one part of the page as in the Dos example.
2. Follow Williams as if she were your god — CRAP principles, concordant or contrasting type, etc.
3. For your masthead (and other page elements), feel free to carry over anything that worked well in your flyers, and you may also use Business & Technical Writing Program imagery from this website.
4. Perfect all titles and other microcontent as discussed in class: no excess verbiage or orphans & widows, etc.
5. Avoid fluff and generic writing; for example, never give advice without giving a specific example or tip, whether a source for more detailed info or a particular first step to try, etc.
6. Avoid surface errors such as spelling or grammar mistakes.
7. Use only black, white, and gray.
8. Include at least 1400 words.
9. Don't plagiarize! Please maintain a list of your sources & submit an MLA-style Works Cited with your newsletter (or include it on the otherwise blank Page 4).