Young Team Proves It Belongs

On the plus side...

Great cover. The writing was good, nice and tight. The sports section was terrific, three well-written stories packed with action. In news, the budget story was wordy but contained good, important information for your readers. And the beach break-in story was well-reported, well-written and a great scoop.

On the other hand...

From a design standpoint the issue disappointed.

There were too few photos to begin and the few photos on the pages focused on the wrong things.

The museum photos should have been bones closeups, not a wide angle of display cases.

The photos for the puppet story should depict puppets not a guy with a rubber nose.

The layout showed little creativity. Get edgy. Show some personality on your pages.

Like this....

Not this...

Too many grammatical and typographical mistakes and some of them were embarrassing.

Terrible headlines, all around.

Alliance for the CSU Fights Budgetary Defiance
Beach Break-ins: Has it happened to you?
Three Years makes it more than just another club
Attractions or distractions: New TVs appear in the J
Overtime takes its toll

You need to show, don't tell.

• In the World of Puppets: "The show lacked socks, but did involve a number of gadgets used for sound effects." Show the gadgets and describe the sounds. And describe the puppets.
  
• In Overtime takes its toll show sloppy play.
• In Jacks prove they belong on top show how the game started physical.
  

You need to focus on what the reader will care most about.

In the budget story, readers don't care about the Alliance for the CSU. They care about the students who might not get in. They care about declining quality of the eduction they pay more for each year. And when you hit on a focus, lead with it. In the museum story you started with bones, which was interesting, but then the story focused on generalities about volunteering, internships, and other blah blahs. Bones are fascinating and visual so stick with them. The rest can go into a fact box.


Get SERIOUS!


The world out there is going to hell. If you report only the fun and fluffy you will look out of touch and be irrelevant to your readers.




Avoid adverbs. You don't need them and they deflate a sentence.

...but after the television was introduced their popularity steadily declined.
They also get to work on highly individualized projects in their field of interest.

Avoid quoting Paul Mann unless the information he gives you is vital and there is no one else you can get it from.


Activate your passive verbs! Instead of:

The collection of current exhibits was built from other donations.

Flip it!

Other donations formed the current collection.

Instead of:

A win against the first place Tritons would have moved HSU into second place...

Change the verb:

The loss cost HSU a second place spot in the California Collegiate Athletic Association.

Make sure your nouns and pronouns agree.

The collection became so large that the couple housed them at them in their barn...

Split up long quotes around the attribution.

Instead of:

"I just want to tell everyone to be observant. It was an unfortunate experience but I learned from it and I hope others will learn from my loss as well. Leave your valuable things at home," said Weserman.

Try this:

"I just want to tell everyone to be observant," said Weserman. "It was an unfortunate experience but I learned from it and I hope others will learn from my loss as well. Leave your valuable things at home."