Purpose of Documents

• Although all businesses are set out to sell their products or services the documents they produce may have slightly different purposes. Some examples being:

• Inform• Sell• Attract Attention• Entertain

Purpose of Documents

• What is the purpose of each of these documents?

Suitability of Purpose

• When you are looking at documents you will need to decide if they suit their purpose.

• Complete the table on the following slide to indicate the characteristics different documents would have.

Suitability of Purpose

Document Purpose Characteristics

Brochure about the side effects of cannabis.

Inform Lots of written information, statistics, labelled diagrams etc.

Advertisement in the newspaper for a Peugeot 206.

Billboard with a picture of a man who’s chest is being crushed.

Animated cartoon on a website.

Suitability of Purpose

Document Purpose Characteristics

Brochure about the side effects of cannabis.

Inform Lots of written information, statistics, labelled diagrams etc.

Advertisement in the newspaper for a Peugeot 206.

Sell Large picture of product for sale, basic information, price etc.

Billboard with a picture of a man who’s chest is being crushed.

Attract Attention

Large picture, possibly large writing that stands out, good use of colour.

Animated cartoon on a website.

Entertain Bright colours, movement, aimed at a certain age group.

Presentation Styles

• Page layout• Header and footer• Page orientation• Paper size

• Graphic images• Textual styles

• Fonts• Heading and title styles• Bold, Italic and underline

• Paragraph format• Justification• Tables• Bullet Points• Line spacing

• Position of common items

Writing Styles

• Documents vary in writing styles depending on the intended audience. Some styles to look out for include:

• Formal / Informal• Persuasive• Informative• Brief

House Styles

• Most companies use a House Style in order to set a professional corporate image.

• A House Style incorporates the following:• Use of a logo• Colour Scheme• Same fonts throughout all documents from the same

company

Suggesting Improvements

• Valid improvements• Look at the pieces of writing below. Which

ones would achieve higher marks?

1. To improve the article the company should change the colours to make them look better.

2. The company should change the colours they have used because having red text on a green background is difficult to read and does not make their information stand out.

3. The writing styles could be improved by making it less formal. The advert uses lots of long words which some people may not understand so therefore will not be attracted to the product.

6. The text should be bigger.

4. Add more pictures.

5.The title should be made bigger as it will attract peoples’ attention.