By: J. B. Nangpuhan II
Session 1: Online Environment by Luz Rimban
Online writing is:
ONLINE WRITING TECHNIQUES
Online writing is:
Principles:
a. Identify your audience – age, profession
What they are looking for?
Why do they visit your site? Ex. www.sitesforteachers.com
b. Cut information overhead
c. Keep it short – short paragraphs; concise sentences; simple sentence construction; avoid moreover, however
d. Make it scannable – to get it at a glance, create visual clues, bullets, numbers, bold or highlight text
e. Layer Information – put vital information in short form
f. Chunk information – nonlinear (can be viewed in any order)
g. Package information – not SHOVELWARE or REPURPOSING – dumping information from original site
Story’s Component Pieces
a. News, b. Opinion, c. Feature, d. Etc.
Interactive Elements:
a. Discussion questions, b. Polls, c. Quizzes, d. FAQs, e. Calculators and forms, f. Discussion groups
Online Writing Process:
1. Define the focus, 2. Gather all the materials, 3. Plan visual and multimedia elements, 4. Write a headline and teaser for your story, 5. Write a brief of less than 21 line for your story, 6. Write a paragraph explaining how the story will affect your readers, 7. Plan interactive elements
Session 2: Newswriting by Yvonne Chua
Package
a. News, b. Features, c. Opinion, d. Photos, e. Graphics, f. Audio, g. Video, h. Links to other resources, i. Interactive elements
The Challenge “Not only monthly, quarterly, of final project management reports but also ongoing reporting, real time as much as possible – TIMELY)
Reminders:
a. Content should dictate the style
News – information should be put out immediately, quickly, including breaking stories
Features – information best presented in storytelling
Why learn to write news?
a. Online readers scan; they don’t read much, b. They pause if an item is important or interesting, c. News is structured so you tell the most important or interesting in the first or first few paragraphs
How to tell what’s news?
a. timeliness – fresh, b. Currency – frequency, c. Proximity – closeness, d. Prominence – distinction, e. Significance – impact, f. Oddity – strangeness, g. Human interest
Six honest serving men+1
a. Who: person or people involved
b. What: What happen
c. Where: place
d. When: date, time
f. Why: Reason why an event happened
g. How:
h. So What:
Most used news structures
a. Inverted Pyramid: most common newswriting structure, conclusion at the top, the rest become supporting information in descending order of importance.
Parts of a news:
a. Lead – intro, write a TERSE LEAD no more than 35 words
b. Supporting paragraph, provide a second paragraph with major points of the news
c. Necessary background – use the third or another early paragraph and more paragraphs if needed to explain things for readers, background can come from a source or from the writer. Use quotations early and throughout
Use transitions: a paraphrase, a background, numerically (first, second, third), by time (at 3p.m.), geographically (location), with words (also, but)
Do not editorialize
Use direct LEAD: contains 5Ws and 1H, don’t cram all, position the time element near the action it modifies, rewrite in order to get it right
Wiki – wikis, like a website, you can edit it
Comments for LEAD construction:
1. Do not use quotations in a LEAD unless it is striking or the most important issue to be talked about.
2. Use S-V-O structure.
3. Avoid redundant words.
4. Always state the complete name of people
Qualities of News
a. Neutrality: never takes sides, keep your opinions to yourself
b. Conciseness: stick to essentials
c. Clarity: writing to understood
When writing the news story:
1. Prefer delayed identification or blind lead in a summary unless a prominent person, place or event is involved. (Audience and reader sensitive)
2. Note the use of the article “a” or “an”
3. Supply relevant identification (Ex. a 22-year-old unemployed baker)
4. Always check first and subsequent mention of names (people and places)
5. Always check the spelling of a name
6. Use the past tense to refer to past events for online writing
7. Keep sentences short, on the average (write according to the demand of the medium, remember it’s online writing)
8. Prefer the simple to the complex
9. Prefer the familiar words
10. Avoid unnecessary words
11. Prefer the active over the passive voice
12. Use terms your reader can picture
13. Tie in with your readers’ experience
14. Avoid technical terms, if so, define or illustrate
15. Convert negatives to positives
16. Omit pronouns and adverbs, if you can
17. Drop the infinitive (to)
18. Don’t be redundant
19. Always do the math (be accurate in numbers)
20. Always beware of superlatives (ex. The biggest, the best, the worst)
21. Always use all of the tools available to you: dictionary, STYLEBOOK, spell-checker, reference book, check the facts
22. Write to express not to impress.
Workshop 1: Writing a News
Workshop guidelines:
a. Write the biggest news based on the materials you have (maximum of 150 words)
b. After writing the story: identify texts within the story that need to be linked. Find the URLs and create hyperlinks.
c. If the resources still have to be uploaded, flag them. See if there are sections that can be written in bullet form.
d. Determine if your story needs a subhead(s). Insert a paragraph with three asterisks to the portion where you want to put the subhead.
e. After writing the story, list down other news stories that can still be written
Good points for the newswriting:
a. Most stories have clear news point
b. Appropriate quote
c. Good bullets
d. Define whenever needed
Bad points
a. Don’t assume readers know everything, explain or describe
b. Provide interesting details or example
c. Support the lead
d. Supply background, it is not enough to link it, give a short description
e. Complete the information
f. Avoid big words of phrases, elucidated
g. State the time element
h. Punctuate direct quotations correctly
i. Passive vs. Active voice
j. Use parallel structure
Problems:
a. Word economy
b. Avoid redundancy
c. Don’t editorialize
d. Avoid too many acronyms in one sentence
e. Common and proper nouns
f. Link once
g. No links
h. No related stories
i. In a byline, the word “By” is not separated by commas
Session 3: Headline Writing by Yvonne Chua
Online Headlines:
a. Quickly tell the gist of the story
b. Serve as the text that links readers to stories
c. May be the only reference to a story on the page
d. Long or Short? Hardly any space resolutions: Long, multi-lines; but for cellphone users, short is best
e. External links to other resources
A Headline and a…
Lead: we think in terms of sentences and paragraphs for leads, and in terms of WORDS for headlines; Think SUPER LEAD; Telegraphic
Title of an ordinary article: titles are allowed to simply characterize; headlines must make a complete sentence
Label: headlines have verbs
How to write headlines
a. Write the headline after, not before you’ve read and edited the story
b. Make mental notes about headline
c. Write in skeletonized language – omit minor or non-essential words, a, the, an, who is
d. Headlines always carry a verb ex. UST clinches volleyball tourney (explicit verb), Teacher in coma after bad fall (implicit verb)
e. Avoid the forms of the verb “to be” if you can use strong verb
f. Use the historical present, immediacy
g. Be specific ex. Killer typhoon hits, Typhoon kills 4
h. Use familiar abbreviations
i. Use numbers only if they are important, ex. 1B
j. Use attribution if headlines convey opinion and for direct quotations
k. Prefer the active voice
Quick reminders:
a. Find most important idea/s
b. Omit unnecessary words
c. Look for appropriate synonyms
d. Use appropriate punctuations but never use period: comma to replace “and”; colons and dashes may be used to indicate attribution. Use colon at the beginning; use dash at the end of the headline
e. Don’t use ampersands (&) except for this example – PT&T
What to avoid:
a. Editorializing ex. RP going to dogs – Cruz says RP going to dogs
b. Libel ex. Cruz a forger
c. Repetition
d. “NOT” instead ‘refuses’
Layering Information
a. Headline
b. Abstract/Summary – written in present tense
c. Lead
Subheads: use to break the mob, signifies a new section, a change of angle, guide readers to what’s coming up
Workshop Guidelines:
a. Go back to the news story you wrote yesterday and write a headline, a subhead(s)
b. Time permitting, write the following a summary if your news story is long
c. Write texts for related news stories based on the list of stories you listed
Session 4: Photojournalism
Photojournalism Session
a. Telling stories with pictures
b. Editing pictures
c. Writing captions
Types of Pictures:
a. Informational – little more than a visual record of a person, place or event, offers nothing more than identification value, has no redeeming story-telling qualities
b. Passive – show people in little action with no caption
c. Active – show real people involved in real action, in real events, in real time, brings the photographer’s emotion with caption
The best images contain ELEMENTS that help them tell a story
1. GRAPHIC
a. Relationship between lines, shapes and forms
b. Element of design
2. THE QUALITY OF LIGHT
3. EMOTION
4. JUXTAPOSITION
5. MOOD
6. SENSE OF PLACE – allows the reader to quickly comprehend the setting of the image
7. POINT OF ENTRY – immediately draws the reader into the image, the lightest part of the photo
8.THE RULE OF THIRD – three visible images
9. PERSPECTIVE – unique visual approach, seeing something not usually visible to the reader
10. LAYERING
11. MOMENT – time showing action
12. PERSONALITY PORTRAIT –
Multiple Elements
PHOTO EDITING
a. enhancing the picture
b. Avoid ethical pitfalls when editing photos
Editing means cropping, rotating, correcting the exposure, resizing, putting necessary caption, file formats
Captions should also answers the questions WHO are the people involved, WHAT are they doing, WHAT is going on, WHEN did it happen, WHERE did it happen, HOW did this happen.
Caption – title
Cutlines – description of the title
When writing captions and cutlines, reflect the picture but do not state the obvious, explain what cannot be seen, be factual, provide complete info (5W & 1H)
Wild Art – photos that stand alone, do not accompany any story, their caption serve as a story line
Workshop 2: Taking Pictures, choosing and editing pictures, writing captions
Guidelines for the workshop:
A.
1. Open photoshop program
2. Select a photo from your file relative to your iSchool Project
3. Edit your photo – crop or resize if you want, Put captions and keywords.
B.
1. Take as many pictures that tells a story as you can
2. Choose one that you think is the best
3. Fill out the form in the file information
4. Submit photo and caption/cutlines
How to upload photos in flickr
Log on to this website: http://www.flickr.com/
Then
Session 5: Feature Writing
What we’ll look at:
a. What’s a feature
b. Ideas for a feature
c. Range of feature stories
d. Writing the feature
Feature is not a fiction
Features are fact-driven and must be factually accurate.
You cannot make up characters, rearrange the order of events, alter the settings of real-life dramas.
Feature story is a factual story, has more depth, length than news, offers fresh and unusual perspective on an event: Why and How, provides arresting options and choices, examines the personal dimension of an event, examines the personal dimension of an event, has more flexibility and artistic creativity than news stories: CONTENT DETERMINES FORM
Writing features for newspaper:
a. Prefer not to have features express opinion openly
b. Prefer opinion in the Op-Ed pages
c. Rarely use the pronoun “I” unless…
Writing features for magazines:
a. Like points of view, voice of authority on issues
Writing features for online:
Elements of a Feature:
a. People (human face)
b. Details – description, color, anecdotes, examples
c. Quotes (realistic dialogue, where possible)
d. Statistics, if necessary
Example: Filipinos smoke half a billion sticks a year; u can divide into no. days a year until u reach seconds
Building Blocks: 5Ws, 1H
At a different point of view:
Who – character
What – action
Where – scene
When – sequence
Why – cause or motive
How – process
Feature story does not necessarily contain all the building blocks, it depends on your writing purpose.
Ideas for feature articles:
A. Personal observation
B. Research – library, newspaper, online, radio, TV
Gathering the information:
a. Interviews
b. Observation
c. Use of five senses: smell, taste, hear, sight, touch
d. Can turn a news into feature story
Narratives: recount experience maybe on chronological form, stories of action – what’s going to happen next?,
Color stories: stories of location,
Profile: personality of people
Backgrounders: experiences
Brights: factual sense of humor
How-tos: process, info graphic
Travel stories: destination articles
Lifestyle stories: how people live, work, class, situations
Holidays, anniversaries, seasons: launching, signing of MOA,
Writing Tips:
a. Planning a strategy – who are your audience, what are their interest?; language, level of formality, point of view, focus, unity
b. Structure – strong beginning, strong middle, strong end
c. Pattern – lead, details, chronological order
Feature lead: draw readers into stories typically longer tan news leads (one or two paragraph), must be proportional, can be sentence fragments, informational, conversational, may be slang, jargon, often use the present tense rather than past tense.
Activity:
a. First, recall am memorable scene, a person, an action
Workshop 3: Writing a Feature Story
Guidelines:
a. Write a short feature story that can accompany your news story
b. A headline or a title
c. A summary, if needed
d. Write the subheads, if needed
Problems for the headline output:
a. head is not based on lead
b. Overuse of colons
c. Word usage
d. Long heads
e. And: replace with a comma
f. Capitalization usage
g. Proper and common nouns
h. Unfamiliar abbreviations
i. Spelling: Internet
Session 6: Opinion Writing
What opinion writing can do?
a. Provide the interpretation the public needs to make sense of complex events.
b. Educate the public on the public that concern them over the long term.
c. Develop the informed public crucial to the making of a democracy
Write an opinion writer can do?
1. Explain complex issues
2. Provide background to enhance readers’/listeners’/viewers’ understanding of the issues
3. Evaluate policy issues
4. Persuade his audience
5. Even predict what can happen
Types of opinion writing:
1. Editorial: presents the media organizations’s views; not bylined
2. Column: presents the author’s views, not necessarily that of the media organization
3. Commentary: usually written by contributors
4. Analysis: special form focused on explaining the meaning of events, providing background, and even predicting what can happen. (Expertise in a specific area)
Online opinions:
Demands of Opinion Writing:
a. Good thinking: opinions must make sense, provide insight and be convincing and done in an engaging way.
b. Shaping powerful arguments: requires practice, breadth and depth f knowledge, ability to critically analyze an issue. Facts are the best
c. Writing with conviction and passion
Preparing to be an opinion writer:
a. Keep well informed
b. Undertake research and even to that of further education
c. Read/listen to other opinion writers, preferably those regarded as leaders in the field
d. Study role models
e. Hone your writing skills with writing practice
f. Master the language you want to write in
3 basic parts:
1. Introduction: remind the readers of the event/ issue/ subject you are commenting on
2. Arguments/ Analysis: examine the implications of the event/ issue/ subject
3. Conclusion: state your stance on the issue at hand.
Stages in writing:
a. Choose the topic
b. Research
c. Evaluate the information thus for gathered
d. Decide what the main point will be
e. Organize the material to support that point
f. Draft or outline the presentation
g. Write
h. Revise
Choosing the topic
a. What is timely or currently in the news
b. Possible future developments suggested by current events
c. The commemoration of annual events
d. Information you recently acquired
Who chooses the topic
a. Editorial: the subject of an editorial may be assigned
Audience:
a. Geography: local, national audience
b. Demography: youth, children, professionals
c. Psychography: is your audience unified by a common set of beliefs?
Research:
a. Gather for facts, details
b. What you’re after: evidence, statements from sources or authorities
c. Comparisons
d. Pictures or images as supporting information
READ A LOT
a. Facts from reputable source
b. Clear and accurate details
c. Quotes
d. Analogies
e. Local examples
Session 7: Blogging
Blog: personal online journal, a placed to express yourself to the world, shortened version of the web blog, collaborative space, a political soapbox, a breaking news outlet, a collection of links, your own private thoughts, memos to the world
Steps:
a. Go to http://ding-inkblots.blogspot.com/
b. Scroll down to the section entitled “inkblots recommends”
c. Click on “an offering for the gloritts 2 victims and their families”
d. In the post “an offering for Gloritta 2 victims…” scroll down and click to “Pinoy Kodakero”
Types:
News, Music, Video, Podcast, Personal blogs, Institutional blogs
Components of a blog
Title, Date, Post title, Text, Pictures, Music, Video, Announcement, Advertisement, Comments, Archives, Blog roll- list of other blogs, Links, Calendar, RSS –
Settings: tags, format, etc.
How?
1. define your niche: what do you want to say, whom do you want to reach, what is your them, what subject , matter
2. Give your blog a name: memorable, short, easy to spell, check its availability
3. Choose a host: Hosted, stand alone,
4. Create your blog
Steps for blog:
1. http://www.blogger.com – take a quick tour
2. http://www.wordpress.com – see our free features
Write your first entries – welcome entry
Write your profile –
Upload news stories
Upload pictures
Workshop 4: Technical Session, Creating a Blog, Uploading multimedia files
Guidelines:
1. Go to wordpress.com or bloger and create your blog
2. upload materials
3. Conceptualize your blog
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