Article Planning Sheet

Article target audience: Predominantly males aged 16-25.

Planning Comments

Article genre

The genre of my magazine is football. Its purpose is to inform my audience about the latest results, injury / transfer news etc. I would also like to entertain to try to maintain reader’s attention.
I will include facts and statistics on footballers within both double page spreads that my audience is unlikely to already be aware of. I will entertain by including exclusive interviews with Malcolm Crosby (former Sunderland Manager and Middlesbrough Assistant Manager) and Jonathan Grounds (Current Middlesbrough player). These are football figures that many local football fans will be able to relate to. I will ask questions that are specific to them.


Narrative voice

I have decided to write my article in the first person throughout for both double page spreads. This is because it will give the impression that the readers are getting first hand, reliable information that was genuinely spoken by my interviewees. It is important that my target audience considers my magazine to be dependable and that what was really said has been changed to make a better read. I will give background information on interviewees before typing out the interview in full.


Register

The register will be consistent throughout the magazine. It will be neither formal nor informal. It is important that I bear in mind that my target audience is predominantly young males, who live in North East England. Therefore, most of my readers are likely to want to read anything that is too formal or that they may not understand. On the other hand, it is important that my magazine still appears professional, for that reason, I will use little or no colloquial or taboo language.


Stylistics

The title of my magazine is: ‘Offside Official’ and I will use the slogan ‘Keeping You Ahead Of The Game’. This title and slogan suggests my magazine is legitimate and reader’s will be kept up to date. Also, I will use subject specific lexis that football fans can relate to.

Using stylistics such as alliteration is an effective way of engaging the audience. This is a stylistic that I am considering using.

However, I don’t believe other stylistics such as repetition is necessary because as I am only producing two double page spreads, space is limited, therefore I will get straight to the point and use that space wisely by filling it with interesting / entertaining language.
Whilst it is vital that sentences are structured correctly and there aren’t any language errors, as far as using language is concerned, I believe that the most effective way of engaging reader’s attention is to give them an insight of what is to come in the title and/or on the front cover. I will do this by including a quotation from an interview as headings/sub headings.


Tone of address

The Tone of address must not be in any way patronising or offensive. I will be friendly / matey towards readers because the genre isn’t a particularly serious topic. This should also make my audience feel at ease

Structure and pace

Throughout my magazine, I will structure the text in an organised and logical fashion in 3 neat columns on each page. This will enable readers to easily follow the text, without getting confused of where their eyes should go next. I will also include paragraphs to separate text, i.e. so it is clear where the end of each answer is.
The pace of the text will be medium because if it were too slow is may seem to drag on and if it were too fast, reader’s may struggle to keep up.