General
Information | Grading | Class
blog |
Week-by-week
| Useful
links | Viking Code
Note: This webpage will change; please refer to it frequently. Do not merely print it out the first week of class.
Lose your paper syllabus? Download another one
In the beginning . . .
This course will make you a more effective communicator and a stronger writer. The focus is on story crafting and journalistic writing, skill sets that are highly sought after in industry, including the professional fields of journalism, content development, public relations, marketing, institutional communication, and philanthropy and fundraising.
The design of this course reflects my own experience as a storyteller, mostly in print and digital. I have been a writer, reporter, photographer and editor. Before earning a doctorate and getting into full-time teaching, I was an editor and reporter covering Internet-related businesses and technologies.
Several values or attributes will guide our explorations, including:
· Precision. If the information is not truthful and accurate, it's a disservice to your audience. Our job is to ensure the accuracy of everything we write and create.
· Imagination and Curiosity. Great storytelling requires creativity and flexible thinking.
· Convergence. The walls have come down within and between media. We need to be able to operate in multiple domains, and to think for a mobile, geomapped, personalized media experience. We need to think of our stories across several media, and to take advantage of each of those media.
· Critical thinking. In communication as in life, you will find that not every question has a clear, unambiguous answer, if it has an answer at all. Expect to be challenged to think on your feet, to analyze ambiguous information, to find answers on your own, and to evaluate the credibility and utility of various sources of information.
· Industry. The first rule of good reporting and information gathering: Get out of your chair . Hit the streets. Talk to people. Get the documents. The story will not come to you.
In this course, it is critical that we communicate well. If there is anything you do not understand, please ask. Do not be shy; do not wait, hoping it will all become clear; do not assume that you are the only one who does not get the material. There are no dumb questions. OK, there are, but better to ask anyway. This is your education, and it isn't delivered, it is sought after.
"Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon it." --Blaise Pascal, 1657
COM 250 Course Description: Students will learn non-fiction storytelling and story crafting primarily for digital media, from generating ideas and identifying the best media format(s) for delivery to producing the story or story package and publishing the content. Primacy is placed on the value of narrative and, therefore, on the skill sets of information gathering and interviewing, writing, and editing. Special attention is paid to ways of achieving a smart balance of graphical content, multimedia, and hypertextual, interactive elements.
Course Purpose & Objectives: To introduce students to the fundamentals of story crafting, including reporting, interviewing, source development, journalistic writing, basic news and story judgment, and digital publishing. To increase students’ knowledge of local, national and international news and events. To equip and cross-train students across media.
Stuff you need to know
Class
format
This course is hands-on. In the classroom and in the lab we will attempt to simulate a newsroom environment. Students will gather information, check facts, develop sources, use news judgment and write on deadline. We will have lots of small assignments, such as quizzes, in-class exercises and activities, and practice with elements of story development and publishing. In terms of content, we will generally follow the organization of the textbook, Writing & Editing for Digital Media, 6th edition.
Attendance: Be here every day on time, just as you would for a job, surgery or even a haircut. Everyone gets one unexcused absence or late arrival, maybe two, with no questions asked. Stuff happens. After that, unexcused and/or unexplained absences (and/or lateness) will result in point deductions from the "professionalism and participation" portion of your grade. What is excused is at the instructor's discretion, so you are best served by discussing situations and extraordinary circumstances prior to class whenever possible. Chronic tardiness and/or absenteeism will result in whole letter grade deductions for the course, with “chronic” defined as five or more (latenesses and/or absences). If a student misses six or more class and/or lab sessions, that student might be administratively dropped from the course. An absence for medical reasons with documentation does not count toward this threshold.
Professionalism in the classroom: The instructor needs your attention and your respect, as do your peers. And this instructor is easily distracted. So, no unauthorized device use, therefore, including Apple watches for texts. Put your phones away, and make sure they are silent. Do homework for other classes somewhere else. If your phone goes off on class, or if you are seen texting or reading texts, etc., you will be treated as absent. It’s a respect thing.
Preparation: Complete the assignments, do the readings and be ready to tackle the activities of the day. Be ready to discuss, even to debate, our course topics for the day. This means coming to class having already mentally prepared to participate. It’s a state of mind and an attitude toward learning.
Academic integrity: Because academic integrity is the foundation of college life at Berry, academic dishonesty will result in automatic failure on the assignment in question. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, the following: cheating, unauthorized collaboration, plagiarism, fabrication, submitting the same work in multiple courses, and aiding and abetting. Students who are sanctioned for violating the academic integrity policy forfeit the right to withdraw from the class with a grade of “W.”
• Quizzes: What resources students may use will vary. Before each quiz, I will tell the class whether the quiz is open book. Students will be free to use the Associated Press stylebook in most cases.
• In-class/in-lab assignments: Unless otherwise instructed, you can and should use reliable references, including stylebooks, dictionaries and online sources. Be careful with information found on the Web, however.
• Collaboration: I support collaboration, but any graded work must be the student’s own. In some cases, I will encourage feedback sought from one another. For other assignments, I may require solitary work. Generally, students should operate under the assumption that they are accountable for their own work. When in doubt, ask.
It is not just policy, it is foundational to the academic environment we enjoy and in which scholarship thrives. It is in force in this classroom and during all lab sessions. For the complete Viking Code, please consult the student handbook. In short, each student is “expected to recognize constituted authority, to abide by the ordinary rules of good conduct, to be truthful, to respect the rights of others.” The College’s mission, in part, commits to a community of integrity and justice. During an era when ethics are sometimes suspect, there seems no higher goal toward which students ought to strive than that of personal honor.
Students
with special needs
If you have special needs of any kind, including learning disabilities and/or medications, please let me know. Let us discuss it and work together to overcome. In addition, “students with disabilities who believe that they may need accommodation in this course are encouraged to contact the Academic Support Center in Memorial Library as soon as possible to ensure that such accommodations are implemented in a timely fashion.” – Academic Support Center.
Stumped on spelling? Not sure of an acronym? Need a thesaurus? Looking for off-beat dictionaries? Robert Beard's one-site shopping center, On-Line Dictionaries, links to more than 400 searchable references. Copy editors who use pop words and phrases -- buzzwords -- do so at their peril if they do not know the word's meaning. BuzzWhack identifies and critiques the latest language trends.
