Technical Marketing Project: peer review assignments, and peer review guidelines

Here are the assignments for tomorrow's peer review session for technical marketing documents:

• 2010 Chevrolet Camaro (Group 3 -- Garety, Robbe, Yablong) will review Tesla Roadster (Group 5 -- Bailey, Baker, Bashover)
• Tesla Roadster (Group 5 -- Bailey, Baker, Bashover) will review 2010 Chevrolet Camaro (Group 3 -- Garety, Robbe, Yablong)
• Kodak Digital Photo Frames (Group 4 -- Cunningham, LaBerta, Reeves) will review CFL bulbs (Group 1 -- Panfil, Smith, Wise)
• CFL bulbs (Group 1 -- Panfil, Smith, Wise) will review Alli (Group 2 -- Dalbec, McNicholas, Swalley)
• Alli (Group 2 -- Dalbec, McNicholas, Swalley) will review Kodak Digital Photo Frames (Group 4 -- Cunningham, LaBerta, Reeves)

During our peer review session, each individual group member will post his or her feedback as a comment to the writers' story post (on the front page of the course website).  Please address the following, as they present -- or don't present -- themselves within the writers' technical marketing document draft.

Writing

• The document should have an appropriate combination of marketing-style prose and technically-oriented details throughout.
• The cover page should have a title, and in many cases will benefit from an attention-getting slogan.
  
• The document should present evidence of research done on the product/manufacturer, as well as on the target audience.
• Prose be considerably less formal than that found in a white paper, with emphasis on well-chosen action verbs, vivid adjectives, a lively, upbeat voice throughout -- and might even include deliberate sentence fragments.  Paragraphs shouldn't be more than 2-3 sentences long.
• Product specifications must be included somewhere within the document (generally will be found on the back page, or on a back inside page.

• The document should use a grid-style presentation -- in other words, elements are aligned, not randomly scattered.
• The document should have a dominant visual element, and present items with an appropriate text/image ratio (again, avoid 50/50, as well as anything higher than 80/20)
• Typography choices (fonts and point sizes) should make the document easy and enjoyable to read.
• Color should be applied strategically -- complementary colors, and no more than 3-4 colors total.
• Document type (brochure, flyer, booklet, postcard, poster, etc.) should fit the product/manufacturer, as well as the target audience.  In addition, all pages/panels must have content

Audience analysis

• If the document seeks to attract a specific target audience, it should do so effectively and knowledgeably -- without excessive use of gimmicks
• If the document seeks to attract a general audience, it should include features that "speak" to both genders, multiple age groups, multiple socioeconomic statuses, multiple values/attitudes concerning consumer items, and multiple user interest/expertise levels