The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

"The magazine reading was excellent!"

Can you explain why 'Lame posts'?

I disagree and it annoys me due to the magazine being funded. It should be absolutely perfect.

More than a month late, with a horrible cover, horrible formatting and badly written, shallow content: Good job SU magazine!

I honestly think it's an embarrassment. Flicking through the pages I almost had an epileptic fit; there must be more than a dozen different fonts with zero consistency in the layout. The magazine tries to cover so much (appease so many budding writers?), that practically every issue - important or trivial - gets boiled down to a single A5 page. It’s atrocious.

The student community would be much better served if some of the money wasted in producing this rag was handed to the Gown. It may be short, but at least the paper has editorial focus and a comprehensible layout. …Not to mention a website!

The magazine reading was excellent! Obviously its the Gown who are having a problem here. It was entertaining, especially articles by Ethan Loughrey and Latifa Akay. I agree it was unfortunate about the binding but some copies were grand because my sister got one and you could see all the text and then mine didn't! Maybe Gareth could provide some insight as to whether he has had many complaints or compliments? After all, he and the team have asked for your feedback! Correct me if I'm wrong Gareth! McGreevy, keep up the excellent work!

"Is this an SU Mag person talking or a really strange student with too much time on their hands?"

Or someone who's published a A5 booklet for a convention, and who's cousin works in the printers where the SU Mag was printed perhaps?

"It wasn’t a cut in the actual text content of the mag rather a cut-off of the text visible on the pages.

I’ve looked into this a bit more and now have a fair idea of what appears to have happened."

Is this an SU Mag person talking or a really strange student with too much time on their hands?

Colin, I agree, I only read some of the magazine and I found myself going into proof reading mode. Where's that packet of red pens?

Also, I expect an opinion piece on Jedward's demise in the May 2010 issue.

I thought the standard of the writing was pretty poor. Were articles proof read before publication? Some of the grammer was terrible.

I'm with White Lights on this. I also thought it was quite strange, and would have thought that the girl from Hollyoaks would have been a more relevant front cover. I don't think there's enough of a link between Miss NI and Miss University to deem Gareth's argument plausable. It looked more to me like an alluring front cover that would make people pick it up. And yeah, it probably works, but I'd say most people would agree with us! It's not 1950s! I also agree with 'Surprisingly dissapointed' regarding the magazine's lack of identity...it's not altogether relavant for QUB students, but then it's not altogether relavant to general public either. I think it needs to go to Thailand to find itself.

A double page devoted to beauty pagents in 2009 in a Students' Union publication?!?! WTF??!!? It'd be different if it was a debate on their place in modern society...but just a general "beauty pagents exist and sure aren't they grand?" type thing is a little questionable, especially for the typical QUB student who I would hope would have little time for such things! And for all of you reading this thinking I'm ugly and jealous, I'm not. I just think that it's strange in a contemporary student magazine.

It wasn't a cut in the actual text content of the mag rather a cut-off of the text visible on the pages.

I've looked into this a bit more and now have a fair idea of what appears to have happened. When you do the layout for an A5 magazine like this you need to include a inner margin so that text printed on the page doesn't appear printed to close to the point where the pages meet and thus becomes difficult to read.

When the SU mag team received the proofs they were in the form of individual pages not bound together so the cutoff that appeared in the published copy wasn't apparent. (Feel free to correct me on this if I'm wrong Gareth)

Its an easy mistake to make and isn't a crippling blow to the quality of the publication, you only learn from experience.

Having read Surprisingly disappointed's comment I feel in hindsight that the layout and design of pages in the SU Mag could be more consistent as at times it feels like several graphic designers exploded content onto pages. The next issue might benefit from better organisation and distribution of content so that similar articles appear together. This would help the "flow" of the magazine making it more readable and accessible.

I had to have several of the mild jabs at the Gown team that appear in the SU Mag pointed out to me. While a little back and forth makes for an entertaining read I'd hope that both the SU Mags team and The Gowns editorial staff keep things above the belt as it were.

The SU Mag is funded isn't it? Why the hell would the printing result in cut off in the text?!

Surely there would have been a test run to see how one copy would look first!?

Thanks to pleasantly surprised for your comments. Unfortunately the cut off on the text was not on the proofs we recieved and was an error on the printing part but this has been raised for future editions.

Thanks for your comments folks and it is great to see that students are appreciating both The Gown and The SU Mag and the work that is put into them and also to Queen's Radio! The student media on campus is excellent and here's to it going from strength to strength!

Hi Surprisingly disappointed,

Thanks for your comments! We will take your comments on board for the next edition and hopefully build on this! The Miss Northern Ireland has a question posed at the end in relation to the whole beauty pagent area, in particular, The Miss University coming to Queen's so it was tied in with this!

It is sometimes hard to strike a balance between comedy and seriousness but the team will take all constructive criticisms on board and here's to the next edition!If you wish to get involved give me an email at su.vpcampaigns@qub.ac.uk

Gareth

I don't think I'd fully agree with 'Pleasantly surprised'.

Although the magazine has great variety, with themes varying from the serious to the trivial...I think that this is perhaps a flaw of the magazine. The magazine doesn't seem to know what exactly it is...one page has a fun lighthearted thing and the next has something about legalized rape in Afghanistan or Grace Mugabe. Also...I'd question its relevance to QUB students. What has Miss Northern Ireland got to do with QUB? She's not a student here.

I don't like to criticise too much, as I'd be pretty confident a LOT of work went into the magazine, but I don't think the majority of the articles are well written at all. There seemed to be a lot of potential in some of the stories and features, but that potential was diminished due to poor writing and too many exclamation marks. Although maybe the exclamation marks is a minor criticism.

I do look forward to the next edition though! I'm sure that with each edition there will be an improvement!

Despite some formatting issues where a margin is missing the first issue is well worth the wait.

The SU mag is in a much better state than the abysmal first issue last year with "that editorial". The mag now much more resembles the publication as it was envisioned by Sarah Mc Cafferety when it was launched.

Density of text is very high (no large white spaces), varied and interesting content good writing and layout. A quality publication and the whole team should be proud. I look forward to the next issue in December.