Instructions:Think about an interesting or meaningful experience you’ve had—one that seems socially significant–that you would like to explore further, as exemplified in the readings for this unit. Begin by drafting a short personal anecdote detailing the experience, then consider and formulate the focus you want your story to have. Research the facts behind the experience by making and addressing socially relevant questions raised by your experience. You should incorporate historical data, conduct interviews (optional), and/or explore the cultural or political issues implicated in your personal essay.The point is not to simply narrate your experience but explore it using fact-based research that uncovers a socially meaningful story within your personal narrative. Personalization will likely change your voice, tone, and style, but don’t forget that this is still journalistic writing and as such should adhere to AP style guidelines and demonstrate other techniques of writing for news media.Please also take a look at the attachment below for better understandingReference: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/735/02/My experience：When I take bus, I find that every time if I try to get on it, I will complain about those people on the bus, why they keep so much place empty for their own comfort. However, if I got on the bus, then I may complain about those people who try to get on the bus and make the place so crowded. In the society, people try their best but still cannot get it, they will complain about those people who does not share. However, when people owned something, they may not share it.
week10.pptx
week11.pptx
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Week 10: Literary Journalism
Writing for the Media
Prof. Manivannan
Spring 2017
Diction
• Sentence maker as watchmaker:
language that doesn’t work breaks down
logically
• Repeated elements: Make sure they
match within and across sentences
– Parallelism
– Interchangeable elements should really be
interchangeable
• Avoid mixed constructions:
– E.g., The reason/because
• Autocorrect is the kiss of death
Confused Words
• Spelling errors, homonyms
– Affect/effect
– Complement/compliment
– Do/due
– Its/it’s/it’s
– They’re/there/their
• Words with the wrong tone for a given
combination (support/fence,
donate/bomb)
Nonhomonyms
•
•
•
•
Amount/number, less/fewer
Imply/infer
Lay/lie/lie
Like (noun phrase)/as (introduces a
clause)
Capitalization
• First word of a sentence
• Even if the author’s name is lower-case,
capitalize it in the news
– If you’re confused, reword the sentence!
• Avoid slang and cliches
• Make sure your meaning is understood
in context (e.g., “take care of those
people”)
The Ethics of Language
• Language use matters
– Describes the world we know
– Describes the future we could have
• Improving your language and precision
sparks creativity
• Look for models of writing outside of the
“blank” Internet
Punctuation
• Punctuation can (but doesn’t always)
stand in for body language
• Determines meaning
– Let’s eat, Grandma v. Let’s eat Grandma
13 Uses of the Comma
• Natural pause or preventing misreading
• Marking an omission (e.g., headlinese)
• Separate items in a series
– Don’t omit between main clauses
• When joining main clauses with “ABS of
NY” conjunctions
• Commas separate appositives (noun
phrases)
• Should set off other
nonrestrictive/nonessential elements
13 Uses of the Comma
• Can set off introductory clauses and
phrases
• Should be used with “interruptive”
expressions (e.g., on the other hand)
• Conventional uses in dates, titles, degrees
• Used for contrast and emphasis
• Set off mild interjections
• Show direct address
• Represent attributed dialogue
Fine Tuning
• Superfluous commas: avoid commas between
the subject and the verb
• No comma before that (except in quotations)
– That can be the subject of a sentence or main
clause
– Precedes elements essential to the sentence’s
meaning
• Comma before which
– Not a subject clause—except, rarely, as
foregrounding for emphasis
– Which includes “nonessential” elements, and
usually refers to the material directly before it
Fine Tuning
• Avoid commas in short sentences
• Commas, semi-colons, and dashes have
different levels of emphasis
• Dashes emphasize an internal sentence
element
– Or clarify something if commas are already
there
Week 11: Literary Journalism II
Writing for the Media
Prof. Manivannan
Spring 2017
:
• Introduces a list, long(ish) quote,
element singled out for emphasis, at the
end of salutation, expression of time,
end of a sentence to set off an appositive
for effect
• Avoid after noun phrase
;
• Joins independent clauses when they’re
closely linked
• Establishes and separates elements in a
list, when one or more of the list’s
elements have internal punctuation
• May also mark pauses
’
• Form a contraction (indicates the
missing letter)
– It’s vs its
• Names ending in “s”: be consistent,
check your style manual
• Some pronouns take apostrophes to
signal possession, some don’t (e.g., his,
hers, ours, nobody’s)
– vs. —
• Hyphen: Compound word formations
• Use hyphen to avoid awkward repetition of
a vowel
• When 2 words act as an adjective
• Compound numbers
• Awkward combination of letters (re-sign)
• Em dash: Set off an element of a sentence
for emphasis
• Not interchangeable with em dash
“…”
• Represents dialogue
• Represents verbatim information from a cited
source
• Periods/commas go inside quotation marks
• Colons/commas precedes quotations
– Comma may follow it, depending on where you place the
attribution information
• For quotations embedded in interrogative or
exclamatory sentences, the question
mark/exclamation mark goes outside the quotation
mark
• Use square brackets to indicate if you modified the
quote
“…”
• Special uses of words may also be used
within quotes (first instance only)
• Use single quotes inside double quotes if
you’re quoting within a quotation
Run-Ons
• Collision of two sentences that require
separation with a period, semi-colon, or
a comma+conjunction
– Conjunctive adverbs (however, although,
etc.) operate differently
• Run-ons with a conjunctive adverb do best with
a semi-colon preceding the adverb
More Than Marks
• Punctuation (creating relative clauses,
subordinators, etc.) allows us to give
different weights to different sentences,
thereby aiding with tone
…
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