Chapter 6
Chapter six deals with writing news stories, which is something that is very intersting to me seeing as I intend on being a Journalism major once I leave LSC. Much of the information covered in the chapter are things I have learned about before in a previous communcations class which focused on the media. However, the information in this book was much more in depth. In my opinion, the most important piece of information in this chapter and in writing news stories is the inverted pyramid model used to write articles. It is very important that a journalist follows this method when submitting an article. Stating the “news lead” and summary first is what draws a reader in or provides a “skimmer” of the basics of an event without reading the whole article. There are a few things that were new to me that I found interesting as well. The first is a somewhat minor detail, but something that will definitely come in handy while writing our news story assignment. On page 197 it discusses how to use quotations. The rule that stuck out to me is when it says to follow each quotation by using the “simple verb said.” This is contrary to what I have been taught in my experience with creative writing or fiction writing, where I have been encouraged to use many different verbs in this place to avoid redundancy. The next thing that stuck out to me is found on page 207 where it discusses ending a news story. It states the news stories do not have a true ending or conclusion paragraph to bring it all together. This also goes against everything I have been taught about writing, where a conclusion is a required and crucial part of every assignment. It was very interesting to learn that this method was adapted from news stories being “chopped off” to make room other articles placed into publications. Overall, this chapter provided an excellent model for how to compose a quality article for our assignment.
February 19th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
I’m thrilled that this assignment has direct applicability to your future career goals and that you found the chapter enlightening. Good work. 20 points.
Your next blog prompt:
The second paper you’ll be writing this semester is an editorial. This means that you need to not only figure out a topic that interests you and has an argumentative bent, but you also need to get informed on the topic. By next Tuesday, February 27th, write a blog entry that presents two “hot” topics that are going on in our school, in our community, or in the area. Present each topic and then give a 3-4 sentence description of the arguments behind it.
Note: You don’t necessarily have to write your editorial paper on one of these topics. Keep in mind that not only will I be reading these, but your classmates may be reading them as well.