Excerpt from the Magazine War Guide, December 1943 to January 1944 (for Editors and Writers)
A 6-page mimeographed excerpt from the Office of War Information's Magazine War Guide for December 1943 to January 1944, written for magazine editors and writers, credited to Dorothy Ducas of the OWI Magazine Bureau, and sent out as an enclosure in the Department of Agriculture Extension Service's Home Management Letter of October 1943.
What it is
A 6-page mimeographed excerpt from the Office of War Information's Magazine War Guide for December 1943 to January 1944, written for magazine editors and writers, credited to Dorothy Ducas of the OWI Magazine Bureau, and sent out as an enclosure in the Department of Agriculture Extension Service's Home Management Letter of October 1943. It covers one topic, Conserving Our Resources: a new voluntary program by seven industries with the War Production Board, the fuel administrators and the Office of Defense Transportation, aimed at saving coal, oil, gas, electricity, water, telephone lines and transport. The OWI plans a December campaign under the slogan "Fight Waste". A table follows with three columns, Save, Because and How?, giving each resource a reason and household actions: keep rooms at 65 degrees by day, repair leaky faucets, avoid calls between 7 and 10 p.m., travel midweek.
Why read it now
This is a copy-point sheet: the government supplies facts, a slogan and a table of reasons and actions, and editors write the stories in their own voice. The Save, Because, How? layout still works for any behavior-change brief, because it pairs every request with a reason and a concrete action; research since Ellen Langer's 1978 photocopier study shows that giving a reason raises compliance, and specific instructions beat general appeals. The core argument, that small savings in one home add up across millions of homes, is the weaker part. In a 2008 California study by Nolan, Cialdini and colleagues, appeals to protect the environment or act responsibly barely moved household energy use, while telling people what their neighbors did reduced it. What has dated: patriotic duty as the main motive. Use: for a water or electricity saving campaign in the Gulf, or any request to customers, write the brief as three columns with one action per line, then show each household how it compares with its neighbors.
Passages worth keeping
All of us now are asked to be sparing with everything that also is used in the conduct of the war.
المطلوب من الجميع الاقتصاد في كل ما يحتاجه المجهود الحربي، فالاستهلاك المنزلي صار جزءًا من المعركة.
What we can save at home brings nearer Surrender Day for our enemies.
كل ما يوفَّر في البيت يقرّب يوم استسلام العدو؛ الرسالة تربط الفعل الصغير بنتيجة كبيرة.
Savings in a single home may seem small, but on millions of homes they lump large.
التوفير في بيت واحد يبدو قليلًا، لكنه يصبح كبيرًا حين يتكرر في ملايين البيوت.
For additional information desired for the preparation of articles about the seven-point program ask the Magazine Bureau office of War Information for the names of specialists in each field
المكتب لا يكتب المقالات بنفسه، بل يدل المحررين على خبراء في كل مجال ليستعينوا بهم.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
Read the original archive.org
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