QRGs: the Genre

QRGs:

Flickr. Making Baby Smile, January 25, 2008, Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

What are they?
- A quick reference guide is just that: quick, like a notecard to an essay or speech. It provides the reader with a concise bundling of notes and facts about a specific topic. They work extremely well in informing readers on topics that generally consist of a lot of information, space travel for example, and basically, dumb it down to appeal to the masses and make it enjoyable to read for the everyday person.

How do they work?
- QRGs work by dividing information up into sub-topics, and briefly explaining each topic. The author can choose to format this by creating a main header, usually describing what the QRG is about, and then multiple, smaller sub-headers that contain the information. The Gamergate QRG is a fantastic example to this. The header states it is the only guide you will ever need to read, because it contains all the vital information in a quick, easy to read format. The author's sub-headings are questions that a reader might have about Gamergate, and then he goes on to explain the question in a condensed paragraph. This makes the information crisp, and easy to understand by just looking at the formatting.

What is the purpose?
- The purpose of the stem cell QRG is to inform readers of the different types of stem cells, and their respective purposes, in a way that the average human would understand. It doesn't include complex scientific equations, or terms that some people would consider alien. The Gamergate guide picks apart the world of gaming, and the two different sides that have emerged in the internet culture. Again, it does this in terms that everyone would understand, not just people of the gaming community. That is the real purpose of QRGs: inform an entire audience on a topic that only a certain few would be able to get technical on.

Who is the intended audience?
- For these listed examples, the intended audience is all the same in my opinion: the general public. The authors of each QRG are clearly well educated on the topic, and want to bring the same understanding to the masses. They keep it basic and to the point, which keeps most readers from drifting off and losing interest, and thus, the reader becomes informed on a topic they may have never even heard about beforehand.

EDIT:
- After reading Nicole's, Sayanna's, and Mark's posts regarding the QRG genres, I decided my opinion on the intended audience being the same for each QRG was not correct. My classmates' opinions and supporting facts about how the audiences differ made me think the same way, and now I believe the intended audiences do indeed differ from post to post, as the reader has to be somewhat interested in the topic at hand to enjoy reading it, which therefore means the audience cannot be the entire general public as I first thought.