Welcome to Writing For The Media. Here you'll work on fine-tuning the basic writing skills you'll need in your academic and professional endeavors — whichever J School sequence or career you may choose. You'll also strive to acquire, at an introductory level, the more specialized writing skills of some of the various media. The overview may help you select your J School sequence.
We will explore three basic functions:
These functions of journalism are not tied to a particular medium (magazine, television, etc.). All of these functions are found in all of the media.
It is essential that you distinguish the goals of journalism from the goals you may have pursued in WR 121 and 122. In those classes, you may have written first-person essays expressing your opinion. Forms of opinion writing such as editorials or essays are also important in journalism, but we'll begin with less subjective endeavors such as reporting and analyzing facts and ensuring that our writing is fair, accurate, and balanced. Avoid first person, unless specifically instructed to use it for a particular assignment.
You'll study a variety of structures, from "inverted-pyramid" newsbursts and feature articles to broadcasts, telecasts, advertisements and press releases.
Some of our work here, particularly in the early weeks, entails adhering to formulas, and in these cases there are two essentials to grasp. First, there is not as much flexibility allowed as you'll find later on (in writing features, for example). Second, you'll lose points if your idea of what's important or newsworthy differs from standard news, advertising, or PR practice.
Creatively inclined students: don't be discouraged! Entry-level media writing isn't the only kind of journalism, but it's what many employers will expect of you, and that's why we teach it. (Also, the basic skills addressed in this course -- clear nonfiction writing for a mass audience -- will serve you well in any endeavor where good communication is valued.) You can get more creative later on in other classes, and in the meantime J203 does introduce feature writing, ad copy writing, etc. But to start, our emphasis is on discovering and conveying facts — with precision, accuracy, clarity, and economy.
Various media have their own needs and quirks, and many structures are available. Nevertheless, good writing is good writing. The essential elements of precision, accuracy, clarity, and economy transcend boundaries between forms, structures and media. This realization is a cornerstone of J203.
In your lab sections, you'll have plenty of hands-on experience with media writing in a variety of forms. To communicate with your GTF away from class, you are encouraged to use e-mail. (If you don't have e-mail presently, check with the Computing Center. Using computers is a prerequisite for anyone interested in media writing.)
You are expected to have already acquired a solid grasp of grammar and punctuation rules. While I will provide helpful materials and will be happy to recommend useful books and guides, we will not rehash Grammar For Journalists. You will be held to a high standard for all written assignments, and marked down substantially for errors in punctuation, grammar, usage and spelling.
You should be well versed in those subjects prior to taking J203 and are expected to bring to the class an understanding of essential concepts such as:
The home page for this course refers you to a Quick Reference Guide to Grammar. Be sure to review it thoroughly.
If English is not your first language and you are uncomfortable conversing in it, please be sure to see your GTF during the first week. For questions about content or registration in the Academic English program (formerly SELT), call ext. 6-0513. For questions about academic English requirements for international students, call the Office of International Education and Exchange, ext. 6-1332.
Deadlines. Your GTF will be just as willing to hear excuses regarding late assignments as an employer would be regarding missed deadlines — not at all. Late assignments will be marked down one letter grade per day, so please plan your calendar with care.
Food for thought: This is a professional school. Our classroom experience differs in several respects from typical experiences in elementary school or high school. In those earlier classrooms, your progress was often neatly plotted with lesson plans. But here, while we do have many schedules and plans, you also have one foot in the real world. Journalism students practice journalism, which entails getting off campus to interview sources, to observe events, to track down details, to follow up on a lead, and so on. And the real world doesn't always accommodate us quite as neatly or conveniently as we might like.
So here's a tip: Finish early. We all tend to look at deadlines as the moment when we finish a story. But that leaves little time for unplanned contingencies: the writing takes longer than expected, or a source leaves town, or your computer breaks, or your printer runs out of ink, or Brainerd lab is closed. None of these will excuse late work, so give yourself a cushion for emergencies.
Assignments will be handed in at the beginning of the specified class. Assignments turned in any time after that will be downgraded based on one full letter grade per day.
Calendar of deadlines
J203 Fall 2001
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9: no lab on Fri. 23rd (happy Thanksgiving!)
Week 10: