Tips and reminders about IMPACT Trop stories
JRN 3315

Steve Stewart
2/1/14

· Your story has an identifying number assigned to it. Use this number on every filename, every photo, every email to the teacher, every draft — every internal communication of this class that relates to the story. This will help us track the story throughout the production process.

· Remember that your audience is students attending summer orientation. They won't be reading your story until sometime in the summer. Put yourself in their time frame, and write accordingly. For example, don't describe events as coming up if those events will have already occurred by the time students read your story.

· Identify every student by full name, hometown, major and class rank. However, students whom you mention in stories may be sophomores now, but their class status may have changed by the time the story is read. So instead of saying "John Doe, a senior political science major from Ozark," say, "John Doe, a political science major from Ozark who was a senior in the spring."

· In a publication such as the IMPACT Trop, it's more crucial than ever not to start a story with a general statement of a fact that many people already know. If we used this kind of lede repeatedly, we'd wind up with a newspaper full of similar-sounding ledes that could have as easily been written last year as this year. Readers would quickly get bored with such ledes.

· Your best lede is probably going to be an anecdotal lede — an example involving an individual mentioned in your story. Within the first four paragraphs, place a nut graf that tells readers the point of the story. This is the "kabob" story organization mentioned in the textbook and discussed in class.

· Your goal should be to give your readers practical and detailed information that will help them succeed on our campus. A collection of vague opinions and general facts will not be helpful to them.

· Don't shy away from controversial topics; they make stories interesting and give them practical value. However, be sure you explain everything fully and fairly. If a story casts someone in a bad light, you must try your best to talk with that person and give his side of the story.

· Most of these student readers will not be familiar with the campus, and they will have no knowledge of events that took place here before their arrival. Educate them.

· You, the writer, are responsible for taking or arranging a photo to go with the story. But this doesn't mean you should shoot only one photo. Shoot half a dozen or more photos of each scene — and shoot several scenes — so that we'll have several options to choose from, and so that if one photo has technical problems, we can use another one. And remember that almost all photos need close-ups of students' faces, and you will need names and complete identifying information for those students.

· The point immediately above applies to multimedia content that you produce. Don't be satisfied with your first effort. Get more material than you need; keep working until you are satisfied that you have good stuff. Then edit. That means cutting out the bad and mediocre stuff, while making sure that all the essential information is included.