QRGs: The Genre

Let's face it; nobody has time to follow every interesting story that might be going on. We live in a busy world, so it is no surprise that reading the day's newspaper is not exactly the highest priority. So that is where quick reference guides (QRGs) come into play. Imagine it like reading the synopsis of a movie so you do not have to watch it - except for current events. QRGs give a second chance to people who do not have the time to keep up with the news, or simply heard about it too late. They lack any of the doublespeak or minute details that an expert or subscriber might know, and project towards the  public. Not exactly the general public, but the public in a specfic area. For example, a medical QRG like this might only be for doctors, so there may be some jargon. While on the other hand articles like this appeal to all. But how is this done? How can somebody take a long-standing story probably described by dozens of articles over many weeks or months and compress them into a single, elegant article? Well it is due to multiple conventions that most follow.

The most important convention is by far organization. Stories do not usually follow a nicely organized set of phases and chunks, and articles released over time desribing specific happenings can seem cluttered when looked at together. Part of what makes a QRG effective is its ability to sort through the mess and group things together - making them easily digestible for the reader. This is done generally through the use of headers. By making a new paragraph and placing a short header above it that gives a general description of the topic, readers can navigate their way through a subject with ease. A large block of uninterrupted text is more reminiscent of a research paper rather than an extended synopsis; these headers are necesarry to keep the reader on track following the author.

Another effective convention is the use of pictures and images. Take, for example, this blog's use of images. The images here are usually just to give the reader a vague idea of what the post might be related to, with some humor thrown in every so often. This is not the case with QRGs. The images here are designed to further aid the reader in understanding the subject, with some blog-like pictures every once in a while. Much like all of the other conventions, this one emphasizes efficiency of learning. Diagrams, images representative of concepts - these are the pictures found in QRGs and are especially apparent here. They help the reader understand more of what is going on, as with such little space to describe such a large idea, everything must be used effectively.

QRGs seem to have one theme constantly recurring - efficiency. It seems as if every tool it has to make things more understandable and concise for the reader is used. The entire purpose of a QRG is to acquaint the reader with a story to the point where it is almost as if the reader had followed the story in real time. It is not about expressing a certain perspective or evoking emotion, it  is purely about information. In many ways, it is almost like a scholarly research article, but with a more digestible tone.