A news-sampler for Bob Stepno's news writing students
Before the semester ends, you should know how to keep your self out of jail as a journalist…
SO… Go to the course home page and copy the links to media law resources into YOUR blog, so that you will always have them where you can get at them when needed.
We’ll talk about them a bit in class, but you also should (have) read Chapter 7 in the textbook.
Back on my homepage, there’s a news reading assignment for you to post to your blogs.
Meanwhile, over in the right column you should see a new “widget” — a list of my last 10 Twitter posts. Some will be relevant to this class, some won’t. Watch for stories to cover, jobs and internships, tools and distractions.
Note: For those new to Twitter, something beginning with “RT” is someone else’s Twitter post that I’ve forwarded to my readers because I think it’s interesting — not always because I agree with it 100 percent. A hashmark — # — is a keyword that may help explain a group discussion, collect tweets from or about a particular event [e.g. #sotu for the president’s State of the Union address], or help a writer collect ideas on a topic for publication or just for fun [e.g. #datelikeajournalist].
I’m posting this here to remind myself to mention Grammarly and other grammar websites in class… But maybe some students will check this blog BEFORE class and get a head start.
Using Grammarly grammar-checking website through Radford
RU has paid the subscription fee for all students and faculty to use this service! Maybe you have used it already. I’ve tried using Grammarly with our Inside Reporting textbook’s online grammar quizzes. The results were mixed, but even when Grammarly misunderstood the problem, figuring out its logic was interesting.
Grammarly wants to check full paragraphs, so sending it individual sentences from our multiple-choice quizzes won’t work. You can try copying and pasting a whole quiz into Grammarly as if the sentences made up a paragraph. The site’s grammar robots will flag some things as questionable that are perfectly O.K., and learning to tell the difference will be part of your education.
My course home page and bookmark lists also have links to a variety of free grammar sites on the Web. Browse around and find one or two that look like fun to use — and use them.
Remember, as a journalism student “finding out the answers” is a skill you should be practicing. Be curious, check multiple sources, get to the truth. You can do that with textbooks, websites, Google or Bing searches, the library and — in a pinch — by asking the professor! Also remember no one source is right all the time. 🙂
It was quick and crazy, but as just a part of the first day’s classes, two 20-student sections of my News Writing course dove into WordPress.com and signed up for free blogging accounts so that they could do the “What You Read” assignment posted at the top of this page.
The follow-up assignment will be for the students to get to know each other by reading their “Media Diet: What I Read” articles and talking about them in class. To do that, I’ve made a page with all the students’ WordPress addresses. I asked everyone to create a WordPress site using their campus username plus the course number 104.
The shortcut list on the tab above is based on that idea. If WordPress blocked you from using that exact combination, or if I typed it wrong, or if you misunderstood the naming idea, the link won’t work. If that’s the case, e-mail me the correct URL (the “whateveryoucalledit104.wordpress.com” address) for your blog or show it to me in class on Tuesday.
Note: As my About Page explains, I changed the “Theme” of this blog today to make it a little easier to use on the small monitors and small projector screen in the Whitt 222 computer lab.
This also demonstrates that YOU can change the theme of your blog without affecting its contents. From the WordPress Dashboard, “Theme” is a selection on the “Appearance” menu. Note that some themes are free, but some cost extra. I am not requiring anyone to spend money on this project, and I am not giving extra credit for having the money to spend!
Also, if you don’t like the “Tagline” under your blog title, the place to change that is on the Dashboard’s “Settings” item, under the “General” heading.
News Reports for COMS 104 at Radford University 