Media Writing Skills

Media Writing Skills Prashant Jaiwardhan, Published by - Jharkhand Rai University Subject: MEDIA WRITING SKILL Credits: 4 SYLLABUS Introduction to Writing What is writing? Concept of Writing; Philosophy; the act of Writing; Evolution of Writing; Different Aspects in the Evolution of Writing as Technology and as an Art; Writing for Media as an Art. Medium of Writing; the Write Spirit. Research: Sources of News Gathering Primary Sources and Secondary Sources; Finding and using News Sources; Recognizing the Sources; Getting Acquainted; Sources of News; News Sources and Solutions; at the Scene; Making Phone Calls; Stringers; Tipsters; Employee Inputs; Eye Witnesses; Do Cameras Influence Eye Witnesses; Researching The Story: Press Officers; Spin-Doctors; Experts; Ordinary People; Reference Books and Archives; Contact Book; E-Mail; Newsgroups; News Agencies; Hard News and Soft News. Grammar Basic Grammar Skills: Verbs, Adverbs, Nouns, Pronouns, Conjunctions, and Interjections; Compound Words; Adjectives; Prepositions and Punctuation. Active and Passive; Compound and Complex Sentences. Use of Abbreviations; Synonym’s; Antonyms; Phrases. Writing Styles The Importance of Style: an Overview; the Fog Index; Write the Way You Talk; Metaphors are More Fun; Clarity; a Personal Style; Write Better than You Talk; Write with Your Ears; Words and Phrases; Sentences and Paragraphs; Figures of Speech; House Style; Writing For Various Media; Writing for Print Media; Writing for Radio; Writing for Television; Writing for Web; Writing for Advertisements.. Types of Writing Fiction and Non Fiction Writing; Tools for Non Fiction; Description; Interviews: Introduction, Why am I Interviewing? Who should I Interview? How Many Sources are Enough? When should I Interview? Where should I Interview? What should I Interview: How should I Interview; Taking Notes; Final Thoughts; Writing the Interview Story; Feature Writing: What is a Feature? Types of Feature, Structuring and Developing a Feature; Writing Subject Feature; Writing Controversial Feature; Writing Opinion Feature; Business Writing: Introduction; Who is the Audience? Headlines, Subheads, Executive Summary, PR Writing; Finding PR Gigs; Press Releases; Organizing the Information for Easy Writing. Suggested Readings: 1. Media Writing Manual: Print, Broadcast and Public Relations, W. Richard, Whitaker, Janet E. Ramsey, Ronald D, Routledge. 2. Writing for the Media, F. Nel, Kerry Swift, Les Aupiais, Mail & Guardian. 3. Writing for the Mass Media, James Glen Stovall, Prentice Hall. 4. Writing Space: The Computer Hypertext and the History of Writing; Botter .J. David; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; Overview This course provides an introduction to the field of computer We will cover the following topics (in approximate order): architecture. The history of the area will be examined, from the fundamentals of computer design; instruction set principles first stored program computer to current research issues. A and examples; RISC vs. CISC; pipelining; advanced pipelining study of the design of computers. Topics include the design of and instruction-level parallelism; instruction scheduling; combinatorial and sequential circuits, design methodology of a memory-hierarchy design; storage systems; interconnection basic computer, central processor organization, microprogram- networks; multiprocessors and cache coherence; parallel and ming, memory organization, input-output organization, and distributed systems (if time permits); and miscellaneous topics arithmetic processor design. As time permits, further topics, from the current literature. such as vector and parallel processing, are discussed. A func- Topics covered will include successful and unsuccessful machine tional, logical (theoretical) approach is adopted. designs, cache memory, virtual memory, pipelining, instruction This also covers topics in advanced computer architecture with set design, and hardware/software tradeoffs. Readings will be an emphasis on techniques for improving performance. We will from the text and an extensive list of papers. Assignments will examine the interaction between hardware and software include homeworks and a substantial project, intended to (operating systems, compilers, and application programs) as acquaint students with open questions in computer architec- well as the cost/performance tradeoffs of computer architecture. ture. ii MEDIA WRITING SKILL CONTENT Lesson No. Topic Page No. Introduction to Writing Lesson 1 The Act of Writing 1 Lesson 2 Evolution of Writing 8 Research: Sources of News Gathering Lesson 3 News Sources 13 Lesson 4 Researching the Story 24 Lesson 5 News Agencies 27 Lesson 6 Hard News and Soft News 35 Grammar Lesson 7 Noun-pronoun & Verb – Adverb 39 Lesson 8 Tenses 44 Lesson 9 Conjunctions & Interjections 49 Lesson 10 Adjectives 55 Lesson 11 Prepositions 59 Lesson 12 Punctuation 63 Lesson 13 Sentences 66 Lesson 14 Active & Passive Voice 69 Lesson 15 Synonyms & Antonyms 75 Writing Styles Lesson 16 Style 77 Lesson 17 Writing for Various Media 83 Lesson 18 Writing for Print Media 87 Lesson 19 Writing for Radio 92 Lesson 20 Writing for Television (Art of News Broadcasting) 104 Lesson 21 Writing for the Web 111 Lesson 22 Writing for Advertisements 115 v MEDIA WRITING SKILL CONTENT Lesson No. Topic Page No. Types of Writing Lesson 23 Fiction and Non-fiction Writing 121 Lesson 24 Interviews 125 Lesson 25 Feature Writing 136 Lesson 26 Business Writing 140 Lesson 27 Editorials & Advertorials 144 vi LESSON 1 THE ACT OF WRITING Dear student, world and the human condition). The cathedral was a library to At the core, this course wants to embrace writing with a capital be read by the religious, who walked through its aisles looking W, the craft and soul of writing for media, the compulsions and up at the scenes of the Bible, the images of saints, allegorical idiosyncrasies and rituals that define writing. figures of virtue and vice, visions of heaven and hell. Of course, the printed book did not eradicate the encyclopedia in · This chapter will familiarize you with the concept of stone; it did not even eradicate the medieval art of writing by writing, its philosophy and the act of writing hand. People continued to contemplate their religious tradition · It covers the entire process from idea to editing, the in cathedrals, and they continued to communicate with pen and tangibles and intangibles, the range of demands from story paper for many purposes. But printing did displace handwrit- vision to sentence architecture. ing: the printed book became the most highly valued form of writing. And printing certainly helped to displace the medieval organization and expression of knowledge. As it has been shown, by many historians, the printing press has been perhaps the most important tool of the modern scientist. Hugo himself lived in the heyday of printing, when the technology had just developed to allow mass publication of novels, newspapers, and journals. Hugo’s own popularity in France (like Dickens’ in England) was evidence that printed books were reaching and defining a new mass audience. What is Writing for Media? Writing for Media is a writing course, which offers you the opportunity to explore your creativity as a writer and to study craft and technique, while learning to understand the world where writers work, and make you to adapt to all genres of professional writing. You will develop skills in: writing for a range of media, critical reading and thinking, editorial decision Opening the window of his cell, he pointed to the immense making, research, IT, team work and making presentations church of Notre Dame, which, with its twin towers, stonewalls, Writing for media is essentially different from that of creative and monstrous cupola forming a black silhouette against the writing. In this case you have a well-defined audience, created, starry sky, resembled an enormous two-headed sphinx seated in always measured and gauged through marketing techniques and the middle of the city. always sought out through various measures. Writing for media The archdeacon pondered the giant edifice for a few moments basically implies putting and analyzing facts in a simple, down in silence, and then with a sigh he stretched his right hand to earth language stripped of all embellishments. But as we all toward the printed book that lay open on his table and his left know and as it is well known this austere writing is one of the hand toward Notre Dame and turned a sad eye from the book well-developed and powerful genres in the history of writing. to the church. Basically, everyone has a writer within oneself. It is only a matter “Alas!” he said, “This will destroy that.” (Hugo, Notre-Dame of finding yourself, and refining your skills that are taught in de Paris, 1482, 1967, p. 197) any writing course, be it creative or professional. Victor Hugo, the great French novelist in his classic Notre-Dame In these uncertain times it is unrealistic for students to expect de Paris, wrote as the priest remarking “ Ceci tuera cela “ which in on-the-job training. More directly, it is downright foolhardy. At English is “this book will destroy that building”. He meant not one time, editors and senior writers were the best teachers only that printing and literacy would undermine the authority outside the classroom. Today, organizations cannot afford to of the church but also that human thought would change its assign their experienced writers to train novices. Competition is mode of expression, that the principal idea of each generation too

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