Chapter 1 1 Rules of good writing. What makes good writing and good writers

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Syllabus for a course

using Writing for the Mass Media

The following syllabus is based on the one the author used while teaching at the University of

Alabama. You are free to use any part of it that can be adapted to your course.

Mass Communication 102

Introduction to Media Writing

Overview

This course introduces students to writing in a professional environment and to the forms of

writing for the mass media. These forms include news stories for print and broadcast, advertising

copy for print and broadcast, and other types of writing for public relations.

Texts

Two books are required for this course. They are Writing for the

Mass Media by James Glen Stovall; and the Associated Press Stylebook

and Libel Manual. You should also bring a dictionary to your lab.

Attendance

Grading

Academic honesty

All students attending the University of Alabama are expected to be honorable and observe

standards of conduct appropriate to a community of scholars. The university expects for its

students a higher standard of conduct than the minimum required to avoid discipline. All acts of

dishonesty in any academic work constitute academic misconduct. This includes, but is not

necessarily limited to, the following:

• Cheating — using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in

any academic exercise.

Course schedule

Week 1 Introduction to the course

Topics: Basic principles of good writing

Expectations of the MC 102 student

Writing assignments: ch. 1 exercises

AP style, grammar quizzes

Week 4 News and newswriting

Topics: Writing with unity

Inverted pyramid

Writing assignments: ch. 5, supp. exercises

AP style, grammar quizzes

Week 7 Writing for the Web

Topics: Writing styles and techniques

Content and format

Writing assignments: additional Web writing

AP style, grammar quizzes

Week 9 Writing for broadcast I

Topics: Characteristics of broadcast news

Criticisms of broadcast writing

Dramatic unity

Writing assignments: ch. 6 exercises

AP style, word precision quizzes

Week 12 Writing advertising copy II

Topics: Key facts

Advertising appeals

Writing assignments: ch. 7 exercises, print

AP style, word precision quizzes

Week 14 Writing for public relations II

Topics: Writing letters and e-mail

Writing memoranda

Writing assignments: ch. 8 exercises

AP style, word precision quizzes

Lesson plans

for an Introduction to Media Writing course

using Writing for the Mass Media as the main textbook

Note: The “supplement” referred to in these lesson plans is no longer available. Much of the

material in the supplement can be found at JPROF.com (http://www.jprof.com)

Week 1

Lecture — Syllabus. Rules of good writing. What makes good writing and good writers.

give a real grade on this one.

Assignment: Write “incident” exercise, again being careful to have them use the principles of

good writing we discussed in class.

Lab 2 Current events quiz.

Introduce them to the computer tutorials by going through the tutorial sampler with them. Then

should be prepared to discuss this in class. Pick several of the best and discuss in class for next

time, 45 minutes maximum.

Thought

Writing is thinking, but it’s not free thought — stream of consciousness. It’s organized thinking.

Week 2

Lecture — The importance of grammar, punctuation and spelling

Lab 1 Current events quiz.

Give them some time (10-15 minutes) to go over grammar tutorials.

Lecture: Review grammar/punctuation terms in the text. We will begin grammar quizzes next

week. Also review spelling words in Appendix C of Stovall text.

Lab 2 Current events quiz.

Lecture: Go over common grammar problems, particularly pronoun-antecedent agreement; use

of its, it’s; sentence fragments and run-on sentences. Review common rules for using commas.

Assignment: From Stovall book combine 2-8 and 2-9 for one graded assignment.

In addition:

o Given them additional grammar exercises from exercises in chapter 2 of the text.

Week 3

Lecture — Writing in the media environment

Lab 1 Current events quiz

Grammar terms quiz

Give them some time to go through some of the AP style tutorials (10-15 minutes at least).

Lecture: Cover AP tip sheets in Chapter 3 of the text. These are some of the most common style

Lab 2 Current events quiz.

AP style quiz

Students need to get used to using the stylebook as a reference, not just a source of rules. Play

stylebook trivial pursuit. Divide them into two or three teams and let them look up questions that

do not involve style rules.

The importance of writing efficiently should be emphasized.

Week 4

Lecture — News and newswriting; news values; standard conventions of newswriting

Lab 1 Current events quiz

Grammar terms quiz

Lecture: Discuss news values because that’s not something I’ll hit heavily on in the Monday

lecture. Bring newspaper to class and discuss news values in stories contained therein. Discuss

Lab 2 Current events quiz.

Do another AP style trivial pursuit game.

Lecture: Use the previous day’s exercise to talk about leads and about newswriting in general.

Also talk about where a story can go after a lead. Nothing is automatic about newswriting. The

Week 5

Lecture — Writing in the media environment I, in which we discuss the concepts of accuracy,

information, the writing process, etc.

Lab 1 Current events quiz

Lecture: Talk about the inverted pyramid structure. In the story about the soccer team, see if you

Lab 2 Current events quiz.

Lecture: Use previous assignments to show them examples of wordiness problems and how they

can be fixed.

Assignment: Rewrite the previous assignment as necessary. This time the writing assignment will

be graded.

Week 6 — Writing for the Web I

Lab 1 — Current events quiz

Grammar terms quiz

Lecture: Review major points from the lecture as necessary.

Assignment: Exercise 1 from chapter 6.

• Write a concise summary of the story. This is a summary, not the lead paragraph. It should be

no more than 25 words and two sentences long. A summary has two purposes: to give enough

information so that the reader will know what the story is about and to help persuade readers to

read the story. The summary should display the following characteristics:

• It should be accurate (as well as complete, efficient and precise).

Lab 2 — Current events quiz

Lecture: Review major points from the lecture as necessary.

Assignment: Exercise 2 from chapter 6.

A good “who we are” statement is direct, efficient and factual, not self-indulgent. It gives the

Week 7—Writing for the Web II

Lab 1 — Current events quiz

Grammar terms quiz

Lecture: Review major points from the lecture as necessary.

Assignment: Exercise 3 from chapter 6. Write the copy for a splash (opening) page for a website.

This assignment will include an opening statement and descriptions of five section pages for the

Lab 2 — The assignment will be the same as that of lab 1 for week 6 — an inverted pyramid news

story with headline and summary. You should grade this and have it ready for the first lab next

week.

Week 8, Midterm

Lab 1

News quiz- 5 items

Discuss problems related with previous assignments.

Give students more practice in writing full news stories.

Through all of this writing, students should be learning AP style and putting it into practice.

Lab 2

More news writing practice

ALTERNATIVE—Feature writing

Important concepts from Chapter 5:

• Emphasize material on feature writing.

Week 9

Lab 1

News quiz- 5 items

Important concepts from Chapter 7:

• Emphasize material on selection of news.

• Watch out for the student who will say that we have already studied the criteria of news. You

will want to punch home the idea of timeliness as the second part of every story. For instance:

Lab 2

News quiz – 5 items

Return the assignment and comment. Did the student recognize news criteria?

Discuss style and broadcast, pages 236-240; go over the elements of newscast and agenda.

Week 10

Labs 1 and 2

Continue broadcast writing practice with exercises in the book. If possible, show a videotape of a

newscast and get students to listen closely to how the news items are written. Pay attention to

lead-ins.

Week 11

Lab 1

News quizzes are eliminated for the remainder of the term, however there may be spot quizzes

that will test our students’ basic ability to stay informed.

Important concepts from Chapter 10:

• To tell the truth.

• To write interesting exciting and persuasive advertisements without resorting to semantically

null words such as goodness.

Re-emphasize the material on appeals. From this our challenge is to get the student to accurately

Lab 2

Work on the following concepts: the audience, emphasizing demographics and psychographics;

the product; and the advertising situation.

Select one of the advertising exercises to do in class. Make sure the copy fits in with the appeal

that is being made.

Week 12

Lab 1, Radio

Important concepts from Chapter 9 related to radio.

The theater of the mind. No other medium works as well as radio when it enlists the

individual’s imagination. Our challenge this week is to get the student to understand how and

Make the connection to the basic forms of a print advertisement.

The headline and the illustration

They are used to gain attention and promise a benefit. Can the student use sound and music to

show a benefit? Develop in groups advertisements for the following problem page 192 car repair

shop.

Use narrator and sound only.

Use dialog to tell a story.

Divide into groups. Have them develop dialog for two people only. They must include dialog

Lab 2, Television

Important concepts from Chapter 7 related to television.

• Adding vision. Writing for television demands additional skills, not new skills. How do we

write visual directions?

This week, we must get the student to visualize the final product. What do we, the writers, want

to appear on the screen? How do we write these instructions?

First: Understand that this medium allows us to see a product demonstrated. What is different?

What is the same? From print we have an emphasis on illustration. — artistic, relevant. From

radio we have an understanding of sound effects, music and dialog. Now we must add sight to

this well-formed foundation.

Week 13

Lab 1

Important concepts from Chapter 11.

How do we enable our students to understand that public relations writing is not a one-way

street? Students must be aware of the need to communicate outside information to the

organization as well as dispense information to the public about the company.

Traditionally the path to a career in PR has focused on the journalist. Hammer home that the PR

person writes. Everyday and often each day there be writing to do. The reason for writing is the

Know thy audience!

Work on understanding of news journalism. All of what we learned about news writing applies

here!

Assignment write a news release. Assign one of the releases in exercise 11-1.

Lab 2