The Many Things I Learned

Tuesday was our final class. Although we took and test and did not learn anything new, I can reflect on what i've learned throughout the entire semester in this class. In fact, during the test I realized just how much my writing has grown. I am, admittedly, protective over my writing. Yet this course has taught how much room I still have left to grow. Like I've posted about time and time again, news story writing has never been my favorite. Without this course, however, I would not have ever learned to be better at it. Therefore, this last post should not be titled, "The One Thing I Learned," it should be titled, "The Many Things I Learned".

Thanks Professor Young for everything. You will be missed!

Big Sean

Last week in class was the final workshop for the "Big Sean" news story. Looking at my grade, I realized that I did a pretty good job. Hopefully, during today's test, I will be able to bring my "A" game.

Progress

Last week in class I had to tweak a few minor details in my Big Sean news story. I habitually forget that quotes need their own line. Also, a few of my sentences have awkward phrasing when I try to make the sentence structure too complicated. However, I feel that my Big Sean news story is better than my Snowiest City news story. I learned that I actually love interviewing people, but I need to start using less direct quotes and more paraphrased sentences. Also, I am continually working on setting my quotes up better and better each week.

News Stories

Last class, we focused more on news stories as a whole instead of just summary leads. I much prefer to write whole news stories instead of just summary leads. There is not as much pressure to word it just the right way or to condense it to 25-30 words. Writing the whole news story makes be feel more comfortable with language use. Writing news is not my strong point whereas creative writing is. I think I like to make the news too fancy or I get carried away with creative language and forget that news is not meant to be necessarily creative.

The Write Timing

Last Tuesday in class, I remember feeling how confident I was in my newstory. However, I realized how much work I actually need to do to it. I love writing creatively, so writing in "news" style is difficult. I, personally, love to give readers a smile or a witty line rather than cold hard facts. I am coming to realize that it is not important to have frilly and witty lines in newswriting, but, instead, to make absolute sure that the reader knows the facts. I guess what i've learned most is that there is a time to write creatively and a time to write factually.

Nail in the Coffin

Last week in class, I think I finally pounded the last nail in the coffin of ambiguious leads. I find that I always leave too much information out of the lead such as time, date, and place. Trying to draw the reader in, I tend to give the reader the most exciting part of the news as the headline. However, by doing so, I neglect the purpose of news altogether which is to give the facts. After last week's class, I can confidently say that I have found the balance between the exciting and the necessary ingredients in a news lead.

Headers (not footers)

In my Comm160 class, we learned the secret to writing news headers. Some are born with the gift to seek out proper ommisible parts of the story, while others must learn what is necessary to include in a headline. I realized that if a reader could get all the information in the headlining story, why would one continue to read the full article? In my opinion, leaving the "who", also known as the "perpetrator", out of the headline, will keep people reading. We are quite the judgemental species, and often look for the perfect person to pass judgement (or give praise) to. Things like the date and time are perhaps not so important in local daily news.