Semester Exam Review

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Spring 2012 semester exam for Journalism B, EMAC Advanced Reporting and EMAC Basics of Reporting

STORY STRUCTURE

When finishing your story, please look it over and check for the following.
· Is the lead paragraph 1 or 2 sentences and totaling 35 words or less?
· Is each paragraph indented?
· Are the paragraphs following my lead 1, 2, or 3 sentences and not 4 or more?
· Are my sentences concise (25 words or less?)
· Do I have a minimum of three quoted sources? These need to be good, insightful quotes that do not state the obvious.
· Do the quotes follow the following style?
“Students at the high school who have turned 18 or will be by election day need to get out and vote,” school board president David York said. “This election is very important and will really benefit all of CISD. It would be great to see high school students voting.”
· Remember, it is not ,” said David York.  It is ,” David York said.
· Did you check for AP Style? All stories must comply with AP Style
· Avoid redundancies. For example, you would not say At the age of 16, instead say Joe Bob, 16, is the sports editor of the Sidekick.
· For dates, remember it is April 16, not April 16th .
· Did you start a sentence with It’s? If so, change it – we do not start sentences with It’s
· Did you use the phrase a lot anywhere in your story? If so, take it out. This is a weak, vague set of words we must avoid. Also avoid words like many and some as much as possible.
· Do NOT insert any opinion in a story unless it is a column/editorial. News stories must be objective without your opinion.

ASSOCIATED PRESS STYLE

 

- Times: Is it AM, PM, A.M., P.M., am, pm, a.m. or p.m.?

- What is the proper abbreviation for months with specific dates? List all 12 months. (Note: do not use the abbreviations under “In tabular material”)

- When are numbers spelled out and when do you use the numerical figure?

- What is the form for the word “okay”?

HEADLINE WRITING RULES

-      Give each headline an action verb: “Attorney showdown heats up”

-      Do not capitalize each word in the headline; only the first word and proper nouns. Do not end with a period. Avoid articles (a, an, the) as much as possible

-      Use present tense for past events: “Coppell names new principal” rather than “Coppell principal named yesterday”

-      Use the following for future events: “Bush to visit Coppell”

-      Use short words. Be creative, especially with mascots or names: “Cowboys corral Dragons in upset win”

-      Use comma for ‘and’ and a semicolon for a period: “Parcells resigns; Phillips named new coach”

-      To preserve space, use the numerical figure regarding numbers: “Schools to close for 5 days”

-      Do not use more than one acronym (DECA, SADD, FCA, NTHS) per headline

-      Be careful with negatives. You want the headline to be objective

-      Do not repeat any words – this includes repetition from a main headline to a secondary headline

Assignments for Weds. – Fri. May 23-25

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For All Students

JOURNALISM B AND EMAC BASICS OF REPORTING

You need to think of 2 topics of interest -it can be anything that is school appropriate. A sports team you like, a movie or book, a vacation destination, a high school organization you are a part of – anything. (Note: You may have started your first page on Tuesday).

Go online and find news/feature stories about your topic and appropriate photos and graphics. Copy the stories onto separate Word documents and save the images as jpegs all to your H drive. Note: you do not have to actually write the stories – use stories already published and photos/graphics available online but be sure to to cite the source (website) with each item.

Utilizing the handouts you received on Tuesday and the information on the PowerPoint presented on Monday (it’s attached to this site – look at the examples for ideas), design two visually appealing pages.

All pages must include the following

- no more than 50 percent text (think balance)

- minimum three headlines/titles (note: there is a difference between a headline and a title – the title can be something overarching while the headline is attached to the story).

- minimum two photos (this must include people)

- minimum one graphic (think of a team or company logo; it can also be some sort of chart)

- minimum one photo or graphic that is text wrapped

- minimum one photo or graphic that is rotated/angle adjusted (basically, when the item is selected, use the rotation feature when hovering over the corners – we practiced this on Tuesday).

- minimum on headline/title that is in a different color

- minimum one photo or graphic is in a shape other than a rectangle or square

- use the Type on a Path feature at least once

- use the color features. When using a dark background, change your font color to white

- pages must be in the 4-6 column range and tabloid size

- Remember, the less 90 degree angles in your design (basically, a page with a lot of squares and rectangles), the better! Take your time and do your best!

Pages will be due at the end of class Friday.

EMAC ADVANCED REPORTING

Edit, revise and post Story No. 3. Be sure you have a photo and graphic.

SIDEKICK NEWSPAPER

Work on your end of the year deadlines

- Freshman Podcast due Thursday

- All NSPA entries due 4 p.m. Friday

- Freshman online content due June 1

- Portfolio (website) due by the end of your exam period

The Sidekick end of the year deadlines

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For The Sidekick newspaper

Here is a list of reminders for all Sidekick students as we near the end of the semester.

- May 25 will be our final day of updates on CSM.com, with the exception of graduation

- Your portfolios are due to Mr. Wofford by the end of your semester exam period. Third period exam is May 31 from 10 – 11:30 a.m.; Fourth period exam is May 30 from 9:50 – 11:10 a.m. Links to portfolios must be emailed to cwofford@coppellisd.com and will not be accepted prior to May 24.

- All personal items must be taken out of D115 and mailboxes must be completely empty by 4 p.m. on Friday, May 25.

- We need volunteers to assist with our first-ever online Fish Camp edition, which will be linked to CSM.com. You can use this for one of your last stories or blog posts. The final podcast will be all incoming freshman related so please see Wren Culp for direction. Fish Camp online deadline is Friday, June 1.

- NSPA Awards Deadlines: All students must submit nominations (think of the files on your portfolio) for the 2012 National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) Awards.

Individual Awards include Print Story of the Year (limit one entry per school in News, Feature, Sports, Diversity and Editorial), Design of the Year (one entry per school in Page 1 and Centerspread), Cartooning Awards (two entries per school), Picture of the Year (two entries per school in News, Feature, Sports Action, Sports Reaction, Environmental Portrait).

NSPA Best of High School Press submissions are also being collected. Categories for Best of High School Press are:

- Page 1 design

- Editorial and Opinion Pages

- Editorial Cartoons and Comic Strips

- Features

- Sports Pages

- Art and Graphics

- Centerspreads

- Special Coverage

- Photography

We can submit as many entries as we wish for Best of High School Press. I would like each student to supply a minimum of three entries.

Most of these entries can be submitted online as a PDF but see me for specifics. More information and forms can be found at http://www.studentpress.org/nspa/contests.html.

You will not submit your entries individually as I will submit our staff entries.

Your deadline is 4 p.m. on Friday, May 25.

Headline and cutline writing guidlelines

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For EMAC Basics of Reporting and Journalism B

Please be sure to follow these guidelines as you write headlines and cutlines for your WordPress site.

HEADLINE WRITING

-      Give each headline an action verb: “Attorney showdown heats up”

-      Do not capitalize each word in the headline; only the first word and proper nouns. Do not end with a period. Avoid articles (a, an, the) as much as possible

-      Use present tense for past events: “Coppell names new principal” rather than “Coppell principal named yesterday”

-      Use the following for future events: “Obama to visit Coppell”

-      Use short words. Be creative, especially with mascots or names: “Cowboys corral Dragons in upset win”

-      Use comma for ‘and’ and a semicolon for a period: “Cowboys fire Phillips; name Garrett interim coach”

-      To preserve space, use the numerical figure regarding numbers: “Schools to close for 5 days”

-      Do not use more than one acronym (DECA, SADD, FCA, NTHS) per headline

-      Be careful with negatives. You want the headline to be objective

-      Do not repeat any words – this includes repetition from a main headline to a secondary headline

CUTLINES

A cutline needs to add to a photograph. Great photographs can often tell a story themselves but cutlines can really enhance the story for the reader. A cutline tells the 5 W’s and an H. It shares the experience of the photographer with the audience by adding the details that a reader might not know since they were not there to experience it.

With photos of six people or less, you must identify all people by name and title (title can be their grade). All cutlines must answer the 5 W’s and an H (for the when, do your very best – at a minimum, give the year the photo was taken but if you can be more specific with date/month, please do so).

Captions cannot be opinionated and must be complete sentences. Each caption needs to be at least two sentences. Verbs need to be in present tense as much as possible as you want to bring life to the photo and describe the action as if the audience is watching the photo take place in person.

When identifying a group of people in a photo, list from left to right or start with the most prominent person in the photo, regardless of their location. For example, if there are five people in the photo but four of them are watching the fifth person juggle bowling pins, you would identify the juggler first then the remaining four observers from left to right.

Tip: candid photos work best. Six friends just standing together is not only boring for somebody who is not friends with these people but it makes it much more challenging to write an engaging cutline. Take action photos relative to the story topic.

Example cutline:

Journalism teacher Chase Wofford (right) assists freshman students Mary Sue and Bobby Jack write cutlines during first period on Friday. Sue and Jack are planning to apply for The Sidekick newspaper as photographers and will need to write cutlines for their photographs.

May issue editing assignments

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For The Sidekick newspaper

Make sure you edit all pages and they are returned to Mr. Wofford (not the editors) prior to the start of 3rd period on Monday.

Edit in ink (no black) and do not make any edits that are unrelated to the page, such as edits meant to be a joke or comments that distract the editor. Students will lose points for not following these instructions.

Make sure your name is on the top of each page you edit and do not staple the pages.

News/Page 1: Kara, Ben, Chase, Kelly, Mary, Madison, Haley, Kimberly

Page 7 (senior front)/Opinions/Media: Lauren V., Wren, Chris, Trevor, Dyer, Tanner, Brian

Academics/Fine Arts/c-spread: Addy, Ivy, Sammy, Jordan T., Jodie, Jordan B., Sarah, Rowan

Entertainment/Page 18 (senior back)/Back Page 24: Christina, John, Erica, Lauren U., Julianne, Rachel, Tolu, Corrina

Senior Sports/Sports: Caroline, Lance, Annie, Jack, Jay, Kristen, Thomas

DEADLINE: Issue No. 6 edits are due before 3rd period on Monday, May 14

Tips for great storytelling

Posted on by cwofford

For all student journalists

This video is courtesy of the Poynter Institute and features Bob Dotson of NBC. Even though his stories are for broadcast, use his same strategies for your print and web stories. He offers great insight and suggestions.