Dorm Life

This issue was much better than the last one.

You paid attention and it shows. There were some good articles in this issue:

On Campus Housing Shortfall
Lack of Off-Campus Housing
Yell on Your Cell
Coastal Cleanup
Bad Weather and Tough Play
Having Fun With Your Furlough

I spotted some good ledes:

A tiki bar, women’s panties and scattered Playboy magazines. These are the things one would find at a college party and not on California’s coastlines. But these are just some of the items that volunteers find on trashed beaches. Good thing the annual California Coastal Cleanup Day is here to clean up the mess.

And:

On a Monday evening, after a long day of school with piles of homework mounting on the floor, why would any half-sane person want to take another quiz? “I get to drink during this quiz!” said Katie Mills, a grad student at HSU studying Sociology.

I also spotted some good quotes:

“It’s the best when you have a row of little kids sitting at your feet listening with these big grins on their faces, and sometimes there’s even a few that actually have rhythm,” Isley said. This monthly event is a good way to bring the community together and experience all different types of new art.

And:

“It was a free kick on the other side of the field from me and as the ball came in I saw all the defenders shift over to the other side leaving a bunch of free space,” said Nakamoto. “I just waited to pounce on the ball if it got through and when it did I was there to punch it in.”

You came up with better headlines too

If the quality improves at the same level with each issue you will produce a great publication by the end of the term.

So here are ways to improve the next issue:


First, here is a quick guide to ledes:

1. Default to "You" ledes, or a descriptive or anecdotal lede.
2. Question ledes rarely work.
3. The "who" is never the lede unless the "who" is Jessica Simpson.
   
4. Unless you use a "you", descriptive or anecdotal lede, the "what" is usually your lede.
5. Ditch the lede you start with on your first draft and look for it elsewhere in your story.

For example, in the women's soccer story, if you ditched the first paragraph the story would start on Nakamoto's wonderful anecdote.

The free kick came in from the opposite field.
Sara Nakamoto saw all the defenders shift to the other side, leaving a bunch of free space. "I just waited to pounce on the ball if it got through," she said of her lone goal that won the game for the women's soccer team Sunday. "And when it did, I was there to punch it in."

How to handle attributions:

1. For your first quote, you can start the quote before the attribution. On every other quote in your story you must first introduce your new speaker before the quote.
2. Place the attribution immediately after the first break in the quote.
   
3. When transitioning to a new speaker, try paraphrasing the first part of your quote as your introduction to the speaker

Not:

"Arts! is a good way to get your name out there. You ca take a demo to a vendor and if they like your music they'll let you play," Wallace said.

Instead:

"Arts! is a good way to get your name out there," Wallace said. "You can take a demo..."

Or if you needed to transition to Wallace from someone else:

Musician Karrie Wallace said that Arts Alive! helps your get her name out. "You can take a demo to a vendor," she said, "and if they like your music they will let you play."

Use Active Verbs!

Not:

Spice was greeted by an anxious crowd that sat through...

Instead:

After a few too many opening acts, the anxious crowd greeted Spice.

Other examples of passive verbs:

• ...the Northcoast Environmental Center are hosting the event...
• Thousands of sea animals are harmed every year.
• Collecting and reporting the debris not only helps the wildlife...
• For students living on campus...
• The dorm rooms are slowly deteriorating.
• ...our school is trying to expand.
• The Jacks were unable to come up with the points and were defeated by WEstern Oregon University.
  

When a sentence is passive there is one or more words that separate the noun and the verb. So in the first example the word "are" separates the noun " from the verb "host." That is true for the third example, although the noun "People" and the word "are" are invisible. Sometimes you can turn a sentence active by making visible those invisible words. So:

When people collect and report debris, they not only help wildlife...

Show, don't tell. Here is telling not showing:

Spice was timid and seemed unsure of the crowd.
Spice has lived with violence.
The teams began to get livelier, yelling out wrong answers in hopes of messing up the competition.
...the game was filled with hard tackles and highly physical play.

To figure out if you are telling and not showing, look at your verb.

Suggs capitalized on a beautiful pass from Simpson and scored his third goal of the season...

Can you visualize capitalizing?

Here is another example.

...as rushed passes and the inability to put the ball in the net stopped any promising possession.

Show us how they couldn't put the ball in the net. And:

A big interception by the Wolves off Jack's quarterback Mike Peroux swung momentum out of the Jacks' hands.

Show us the big interception. So slow down when you write. You don't need to tell your reader everything. Just the highlights.

Forget the play-by-play.

Instead, focus on the best players and how they played. And focus on the strengths and weaknesses of the team and how those will help or hurt the team in the next game and the rest of the season.

But don't forget the Nut!

The nut graph is a paragraph high up in the story that summarizes all the major points. It tells the reader what the story will be about and so gives readers a reason to read to the end.

You don't need a nut graph in a story focused on only one piece of news or idea. But you need it whenever you have multiple elements.

In the Coastal Cleanup story, for example, these were the points that needed to be summarized in a nut graph:

1. Icky things end up on beaches
2. Animals die from the trash
3. Picking up trash can be fun!
4. It all started at HSU but now nationwide.
   
5. The cleanup project finds wierd stuff.
   
6. It is amazing how much garbage the project finds

If you have a good nut graph you will have a well-organized story.

Try writing your nut graph first, not last. To do that you will have to outline your story.

Delete the dull so it doesn't bury the good stuff

Here is an example:

When asked to explain Arts!, David Isley said, "It's a gift to citizens and patrons."

Now that is dull. What followed was much more interesting:

Isley is a music teacher who plays seven instruments including the guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle.

When you think you are done, try flipping the whole story. Writers tend to write backwards.

Kill those adverbs.

They weaken, rather than strengthen your copy.

While College Creek will provide desperately needed on-campus living space...

Kill hyperbole and strengthen generic terms

Words like "unparalleled, "very", "incredible," and "unique."

Understatement is more effective than overstatement. Remember that readers tend towards skepticism. So if you understate they believe it is bigger than you say. If you overstate they believe it is less.


End your stories with a bang!

To do that you need to think as much about your kicker as you do your lede.





Break apart run on sentences.

The Jacks continued to battle back into enemy territory until kicker Kyle Scheierholt was sent in for a field goal, ending teh first half with 3-3 tie.

Consider how many things you smushed together in one sentence:

• The Jacks battled back into enemy territory.
• The coach sent in kicker Kyle Scheierholt for field goal.
• That ended the first half with a tie of 3-3.

Improve your sourcing

In some stories you need to seek out sources most relevant to your story

In a story about Rosh Hashonah, it doesn't help the reader to interview people who know nothing about the holiday.


In others you need to diversify. So while the Word on the Street is informative and entertaining, it does not reflect the diversity of the campus.

Box the fun stuff

They don't have to be just for essential information. Stick in a box the wierd stuff found on the beach during cleanup day. Or the questions and answers from Quiz night.

If you have fun with the information you collect, the reader will have fun reading your publication.

Examing Student Health

What you did well in this issue:

You produced a number of serious, timely stories on important. There were many stories here that had the potential to be cover stories.

There was also some great art, particularly the center spread for the Gay Pride Parade.

Nice cover, as well.

But there was much room for improvement.


1. Be relevant to your readers

It was good that you covered Rollin Richmond's Q&A session with students, but you took seven paragraphs before you got to the actual questions and his answers. You made the mistake of covering the event as an event. The reader cares most about what Richmond said and what questions from students he evaded.

Keep your language simple and too the point.

My first YIKES! of the term went to this sentence in the story F the Furloughs:

These regressions are the result of mandated furlough days higher educational institutions across the state were required to implement due to the massive state budget deficit.

In other words, just spit it out!


Show don't tell.

Imagine that your reader can't see, so a photo won't do. You must describe what you mean.

• Don't tell us Tony Ramirez is a talented midfielder, show us.
• Don't tell us that many of the participants in the Gay Pride Parade wore colorful costumes. Describe the colorful costumes.
• Don't tell us the audience at the Black Joe Lewis concert danced themselves to exhaustion, describe people dancing to exhaustion.
  

Don't bury your ledes or hide your kickers

After your first draft, look for a better lede within the story. It usually hides in the third paragraph from the end or smack in the middle of your piece.
In the story about intramural sports the lede is that Jan Henry thinks that if you study hard but don't play hard, you only get half an education.

In Gritty, Not Pretty, it was that if you mix Chuck Berry with Iggy Pop you get Black Joe Lewis.

• In the story about the ROSE center it was that students can get free office supplies.
• In the bloodmobile story, it was that Ben Smith donates more than three quarts of his blood every year.
• In the swine flu story it was that if you share a bong with a friend, the high you get will last you two hours but the flu you might catch will last a week.

Use active verbs

Active verbs power up the story and speed the reader through as story. Passive verbs deflate the story and slow the reader down.

Not:

Multiple leagues are provided...

Instead:

The university provides leagues in most sports.

Not:

While students are paying more for their education, they are attending classes less...

Instead:

While students pay more for their education, they attend classes less.

Not:

Among the people who know about it, the program has proved quite popular.

Instead:

People who use the ROSE center love it.

Not:

The intramural sports office is allowing people who are restricted...

Instead:

If you can't enroll in more classes you can pay $2 per team.

Not:

If you are interested in joining a team then you should act soon.

Instead:

If you want to join a team, act soon.

To make a passive sentence active try and flip it. There is a good chance you wrote the sentence backwards.

Keep quotes short

Compare:

"Originally, I started playing maybe my freshman, sophomore year when I was actually living in the dorms," he says. " A bunch of my friends wanted to play and I was looking for a sport to play. I played soccer and softball. It was the first time I played softball, ever, and it was a blast. I had a great time doing it."

To:

"I started playing maybe my freshman, sophomore year when I was actually living in the dorms," he says. "It was the first time I played softball, ever, and it was a blast."

Fish for quotes with personality.

To do that you need to pull anecdotes out of your sources.

In the story about Allison Lawrence, star soccer player, Lawrence says that her dad coached her at age four.

Here are the questions that would pull out the anecdotes:

How did your dad's coaching style compare to that of your current coach? Who was the best coach you ever had and what made him so great?

And ask your source to make a comparison or ask for bests, worsts, firsts, and lasts of something. Those questions force people to think about things that happened to them and pull those memories out of their brains. Spice up a dull story with anecdotes.

Ask for specifics.

Off the field Allison Lawrence enjoys spending time with her friends and family -- who exactly? Best friend Jill Jones? Big sister Jamie who is three years older? Brother Tony who she is really competitive with? Mother who she gardens with?

Ask how and why

If someone says the rock band was killer, ask: "How were they killer?"

If someone says the program is useful, ask: "In what way?"

Or to get a good quote try playing Devil's Advocate.


If someone says that playing intramural sports is fun, you might try saying: "Really? Because I was under the impression that it is really time consuming, what with all that practice and all..."

That prompts the source to say, "No way! There are no practices and when we get together its just a great time. After the stress of classes and tests its a great way to clear your head and blow off steam."

Focus your columns around ONE idea

Column 1: Hector Diaz and students like him: What is it like couch surfing or car sleeping? How many students out there? Who can help him?

Column 2: Rental management companies and how they treat

Column 3: How HSU compares with other schools on providing upper class housing.

Column 4: Arcata's discouragement of student housing

Never accuse without evidence.

You say in Deranged that HPM has little to not time to show units to interested students.

But how do you know that?

So also...


Source all info

It was good that you ran an obituary for Michele Keys, but the information in the article was not sourced. Who said she had an inescapable enthusiasm for adventure?

And in the Foster Farms story, who said that Foster Farms will undoubtedly benefit from the purchasing of the small dairy -- because as a I reader I tend to doubt. And who said that its high end produce is used in many products?

Kill clichés and redudancies

Here's the cliche: One of the remaining flagships of Humboldt County's locally-owned and operated businesses has sailed...

Here's a redundancy: Lewis smiled with satisfaction as he strut about the stage with confidence.

You don't strut with insecurity. Strutting is showing confidence. Don't repeat.