Glossary+Page

Ideas: The main message you want to convey to your audience-- it should be a clear message, so make sure you stay on topic. Choose details that are interesting, important, informative, extraordinary, unusual, and unique-- not ones that your audience can predict. And make sure you show your audience-- don't just tell; let some of your pictures and background do it for you. *

Organization: The internal structure of your work. Every part of it must fit the central idea. There are organizational structures: compare/contrast, point-by-point analysis, chronological history, and deductive logic, among others, so long as it logical! Make sure everything you tell your audience is related to the last sentence. Through good organization, your audience should really want to know how the story ends. And make sure you tell them-- the idea is that, when you're finished, that you leave no more questions in their mind, but still leave them thinking about it. *

Voice: Make sure you're writing sounds conversational. You really want to appear as if the words and ideas you pass along to your audience show that you care about what you're saying and that it's important. *

Word Choice: The words you choose to convey your message are very important. While big words are interesting, they mean nothing if your audience doesn't understand what they mean. The words you choose should explain the information you're trying to pass along well. If your peer editors have a clear idea of what it is you're telling them, then you're doing it right. *

Sentence Fluency: Read everything you've written aloud. Listen for rhythm and patterns in what you're saying-- how it sounds, not necessarily what it means. Change anything that's awkward or is hard for you to say well. *

Conventions: Here's they're talking about spelling, punctuation, capitalization.. not terribly important when we're dealing with spoken words and producing video. However, it does have its place because it has to make your reading sound right. If you have a lot of misspellings, are you more likely to stumble over words? Are you going to read things wrong if you ignore commas or periods? Will your talent read it wrong? *

Presentation: This is the most important part of the writing process for you. This not only has to do with how things are said, how clearly words are enunciated, but also how the picture/video conveys the message you're sharing. Much of this you will figure out in storyboarding. The trick will then be how well you manage to get it on film that way. *


 * Adapted from Trait Definitions for the 6+1 Traits, http://www.thetraits.org