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FINAL THOUGHTS:Practical, Job-Related, Social, Stimulating, Therapeutic

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Journalistic Writing ­ MCM310
VU
LECTURE 45
FINAL THOUGHTS
The purpose of this lecture is to review and re-stress the importance and the application of this course in the
personal, academic and professional lives of students, novice writers and of course would-be journalists.
Donald Norman from Stanford University rightly said:
"The invention of writing is probably the most important tool for human advancement, making it possible for
each new generation to build upon the work of the previous, to transmit knowledge from person to person,
across cultures and time."
Writing is
·  Practical.
·
Job-Related.
·
Social.
·
Stimulating.
·
Therapeutic.
Qualities of a good writer:
"Anyone who wishes to produce a good writing should endeavor, before he allows himself to be tempted by
the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid." H. W Fowler/The King's English
Writer is
·  An effective communicator.
·
A fact finder.
·
Reader, purpose and context sensitive.
·
Influencer of readers' behaviors.
·
Knows his medium.
And, good writing is
"Writing should be `terse, simple and direct' and should avoid the use of the `unusual, longwinded, stilted
and circumlocutory' phrases and words." Gowers et al.
Fowler's all time favorite words:
1. Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.
2. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract.
3. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution.
4. Prefer the short word to the long.
5. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.
Why to follow a writing process?
It can help writers
·  To organize their thoughts.
·
It can help writers to avoid frustration and procrastination.
·
It can help writers to use their time productively and efficiently.
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Journalistic Writing ­ MCM310
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The writing stages are:
Invention, Collection, Organization, Drafting, Revising, Proofreading
Words and dictionaries:
How words are formed?
·  Word forms, Portmanteau words, Prefixes, Suffixes, Compounding
Important word aspects:
·  Collocations, Figurative language, Connotations
Dictionaries:
·
Types: unabridged, abridged, learner's dictionaries
What dictionaries can tell you?
·
Word, meaning, pronunciation, grammar, label, polysemy, etymology, collocation, register, etc.
Parts of speech:
·
Picture words: noun, adjective, verb and adverb
·
Function words: pronoun, determiner, conjunctions, interjection
Basic grammar sense:
Basic clause patterns:
·  SV, SVO, SVC, SVI, D, SVOD
Sentence types:
·  simple, compound, complex and compound-complex
Sentence purpose:
·
declarative, imperative, interrogative and explanative
Modifiers:
Adjective, adverb, appositive and prepositional
Grammatical sentence:
·  Subject-Verb Agreement
·
Problems with Pronouns
·
Adjectives and Adverbs
·
Sentence Fragments
·
Comma Splices & Fused Sentences
Effective sentence:
·  Sentence length
·
Unity
·
Coherence
·
Emphasis
·
Parallelism
Style pitfalls:
·  Colloquialism
·
Circumlocution
·
Ambiguity
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Journalistic Writing ­ MCM310
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·  Redundancy
·
Cliché
·
Euphemism
·
Grandiloquence
·
Inseparable
·
Slang
·
Verbiage
Paragraphs and essays:
Paragraphs
·  Simple listing paragraphs
·
Order of importance paragraph
·
Time order paragraph
·
Spatial order paragraph
Essays
·  Strategy and the terms of question
·
Response, coherence, words, grammar
High impact language
·  High impact words, sentences, appearance
Signal words
Writing styles:
·  Report, Descriptive and Narrative writing
Art of persuasion:
·  Ethos (ethics), pathos (emotion), logos (logic)
·
Rhetorical device: parallelism, triads, antithesis, and rhetorical questions
Research writing:
APA and MLA
·  Reference Page
·
Parenthetical Citations
Reading skills
Punctuation and Mechanics
Journalistic language analysis: what to se in a newspaper language
1. Register
2. Lexis
3. Grammar
4. Metaphorical language
5. Sources
6. Typographical features
Newspaper related writing:
·  Inverted pyramid: news writing structure
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Journalistic Writing ­ MCM310
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·  Editorials: opinion of the newspaper
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Columns: opinion of the columnist
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Features: a research and investigative or a detailed reporting
·
Articles: analytical essays
·
Letters to editors: opinion of the public
·
Press release: sending new to newspaper
·
Reviews: critical analysis or commentary of a text, object, place, or event
·
Obituary: death news
·
Interviews: to seek information from resource persons
As Jon Franklin, reporter, author and teacher, said:
"A reporter does have to be intelligent, but the big thing is courage. Courage to open your mind and
let the whole damned confusing world in Courage to always be the ignorant one, on somebody else's
turf. Courage to stand corrected. Courage to take criticism Courage to grow with your experiences
Courage to accept what you don't understand Most of all, courage to see what is there and not what
you want to think is there."
Lauren Kessler/Duncan McDonald/Mastering the Message said:
"Our society of the globe depends on clear, concise and honest communication; unless you master
language skills, information gathering, organization and style, your wok will fall short of what this
society needs."
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Table of Contents:
  1. INTRODUCTION TO JOURNALISTIC WRITING:Practical, THINGS TO KNOW
  2. QUALITIES OF GOOD WRITERS
  3. QUALITIES OF GOOD WRITERS
  4. QUALITIES OF GOOD WRITING:Achieve appropriate readability:
  5. QUALITIES OF GOOD WRITING:Be concise, Be creative, Be correct
  6. THE PROCESS OF WRITING:INVENTION, WHEN YOU START TO WRITE
  7. THE PROCESS OF WRITING II:ORGANIZING, DRAFTING, REVISING
  8. ALL ABOUT WORDS:HOW WORDS ARE FORMED?:SUFFIXES
  9. DICTIONARY-A WRITER’S LANGUAGE TOOL:KINDS OF INFORMATION
  10. PARTS OF SPEECH:Noun Gender, Noun Plurals, Countable Nouns
  11. BASIC CLAUSE PATTERNS
  12. ACTIVE AND PASSSIVE VOICE
  13. MODIFIERS AND SENTENCE TYPES:COMPOUND SENTENCES
  14. REPORTED SPEECH:Indirect Questions, Direct commands
  15. GRAMMATICAL SENTENCE – ISSUES:SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT
  16. GRAMMATICAL SENTENCE – ISSUES II:SENTENCE FRAGMENTS
  17. EFFECTIVE SENTENCE:PARALLELISM, NEEDED WORDS, SHIFTS
  18. STYLE: GUIDELINE AND PITFALLS I:COLLOQUIAL VS FORMAL, CIRCUMLOCUTION
  19. STYLE: GUIDELINE AND PITFALLS II:AMBIGUITY, REDUNDANCY, EUPHEMISM:
  20. PARAGRAPH WRITING: TYPES AND TECHNIQUES:STRUCTURE
  21. PARAGRAPH WRITING: TYPES AND TECHNIQUES:Putting on Our Play
  22. ESSAY WRITING:VARIOUS STRATEGIES FOR ESSAYS, PROMPTS
  23. SIGNAL WORDS:Non word Emphasis Signals
  24. EXPOSITORY WRITING:LOGICAL FALLACIES, APPEAL TO EMOTION
  25. THE WRITING STYLES: REPORT and NARRATIVE WRITING, SHORT REPORTS
  26. THE WRITING STYLES: DESCRIPTIVE AND PERSUASIVE WRITINGS, Observation
  27. RESEARCH WRITING AND DOCUMNETING SOURCES:Handling Long Quotations
  28. Summary and Précis Writing:CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD SUMMARY
  29. Punctuation:THE PERIOD, THE COMMA, THE SEMICOLON, THE COLON
  30. MECHANICS:ABBREVIATIONS, NUMBERS, SPELLING, THE HYPHEN
  31. READING SKILLS FOR WRITERS:EDUCATED READING, STEPS
  32. PARTS OF A NEWSPAPER:Box-out, By-line, Caption, Exclusive, Feature
  33. THE LANGUAGE OF THE NEWSPAPERS II:BROADSHEET NEWSPAPER
  34. News Writing and Style I:WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A NEWSPAPER
  35. NEWS WRITING II:Accuracy, Clarity, Style, Qualities of Effective Leads
  36. EDITORIAL WRITING:WRITING AN EDITORIAL:STRUCTURING AN EDITORIAL
  37. WRITING FEATURES:GENERATING FEATURE STORY IDEAS
  38. WRITING COLUMNS:Column and a news report, Purpose, Audience
  39. WRITING ARTICLES FOR NEWSPAPERS:The Heading, The Lead
  40. WRITING ANALYSIS:purpose, scope, method, results, recommendations
  41. LETTERS TO EDITORS:Four important aspects about letters, Organizing letters
  42. BROADCAST AND WEB NEWS WRITING:WRITE CONCISELY, BROADCAST STYLE
  43. WRITING PRESS RELEASE, REVIEWS AND OBITUARIES:Summary of Content:
  44. THE ART OF INTERVIEWINGS
  45. FINAL THOUGHTS:Practical, Job-Related, Social, Stimulating, Therapeutic