Exam Review sheet
For Thursday, May 2
- Working With Words, “Punctuation,” chapter 9
- Coaching Writers, chapters 16 and 17, “How To Get Coached,” and “Copy Editors as Partners”
- Writing Tools 46, 48, 49
Final exam: Tuesday, May 8, 2-3:50 p.m.
Final Midwest Living layout due Friday, May 11. Turn in both an electronic copy and a printout. Make sure the InDesign file has your name on it somewhere on the opening spread.Put the electronic copy in the class folder, named lastname_final_cincy. Put the printout in my mailbox in Mer. 117 or slide it under my door, Mer. 114.
For Thursday, April 26
- Chapter 6, Working With Words, “Modifiers and Connectors”
- Passive voice do-over
- Midwest Living editing project: Heds/captions/liftouts etc. in layout due Tuesday, May 1
For tuesday, April 24
- Your microedit of the Cincinnati story is due. Bring a hard copy and an electronic copy.
- Tricky word quiz 7
- Writing tools 41, 43, 45.
For Thursday, April 5
Coaching Writers, chapter 13, “A Vocabulary for Coaching and Writing”
Looking ahead: Exam 2, April 10
For tuesday, April 3
- Tricky word quiz No. 6
- Read “Working With Words,” chapter 11, “Writing as a Journalist”
- Read “44 Tips for Greater Accuracy” and “Fact-Checking Essentials“
- Read “What Happened in Vegas.” This is an excerpt, published in Harper’s Magazine, of a new book “The Lifespan of a Fact.” The book is correspondence between a writer and fact-checker over a non-fiction magazine essay. Here’s the publisher’s description of the book, to give you context:
How negotiable is a fact in nonfiction? In 2003, an essay by John D’Agata was rejected by the magazine that commissioned it due to factual inaccuracies. That essay – which eventually became the foundation of D’Agata’s critically acclaimed “About a Mountain” – was accepted by another magazine, “The Believer,” but not before they handed it to their own fact-checker, Jim Fingal. What resulted from that assignment was seven years of arguments, negotiations, and revisions as D’Agata and Fingal struggled to navigate the boundaries of literary nonfiction.
This book reproduces D’Agata’s essay, along with D’Agata and Fingal’s extensive correspondence. What emerges is a brilliant and eye-opening meditation on the relationship between “truth” and “accuracy” and a penetrating conversation about whether it is appropriate for a writer to substitute one for the other.
For Thursday, march 29
- Working With Words, Active Voice Versus Passive Voice, pages 69-73
- Working With Words, Quotation Marks and Other Problems of Quoting, pages 177-183. Come ready to discuss these questions on handling quotes.
- Writing Tools 32, 33, 35
Looking ahead: Exam 2, April 10
For Tuesday, March 27
- Sleep.
- Then sleep some more.
- When you are done with that – and only when you are done with that– go back to sleep.
For Tuesday, March 13
- “Working With Words,” chapter 5, “Making the Parts Agree”
- Writing Tools 27, 28, 29
- Tricky word quiz No. 5
For Thursday, March 8
- Working With Words, pages 45-52: pronoun cases, relative pronouns, pronouns ending in -self or -selves, gerunds and infinitives
- Read part 1 and part 2 of “A Baffling Illness,” a Milwaukee J0urnal Sentinel series that won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism. (Pages may take a while to load.) Throughout the article, identify where and how the writers use deliberate techniques to enhance clarity. If links to the Journal Sentinel are glitchy, alternative links are here: part 1 and part 2
- Keep tweeting and reading/commenting on classmates’ blogs.
For Tuesday, March 6
- Tricky Word quiz 4
- Coaching Writers chapter 10, “Coaching for Clarity”
- Zinsser articles “Simplicity” and “Clutter”
- Tweet at least three j70-related items, using #j70 hashtag
- Keep reading/commenting on classmates’ blog posts.
For Thursday, March 1:
- Working With Words, chapter 12, Conciseness
- Writing Tools 24, 25, 26
- Keep reading and commenting on your classmates’ blog posts.
- Bring your AP Stylebooks please.
Tuesday, Feb. 28: Class canceled
I’ll post an assignment here for Thursday soon… — jvw
For Tuesday, Feb. 21
- Updated 2/20: Please bring your AP Stylebook to class Tuesday
- Writing Tools 20, 21, 23
- Know the proofreading symbols (copy-editing marks). They are on page 392 in Working With Words and also in the back of the AP Stylebook.
- Tweet at least four j70-related items; include the #j70 hashtag. Comb the hashtag to see what classmates are posting.
- Read/comment on classmates’ blogs. If you’ve posted already, return to your post to respond to any comments. Keep the conversation going.
- Looking ahead: Exam 1 Feb. 23. Here is the exam review sheet for you to get started studying. There may be a few changes or additions, depending on how far we get in class Tuesday.
For Thursday, Feb. 16
- Read “Alternative Story Forms” by Andy Bechtel. Some of the formatting is wonky, but I think it’s readable.
- View “Time-Saving Story Forms” by Nathan Groepper and Jon Benedict
- Writing Tools 16, 18, 19
- Tweet three #j70-related tweets. Make sure you’re combing the hashtag to find good stuff your classmates are posting.
- Keep reading and commenting on your classmates’ blog posts.
For Tuesday, Feb. 14
- Read “The Seven Stages of Committing a Social Media Sin” from AdAge, February 2011
- Read “What Journalists Need to Know About Libelous Tweets,” from Poynter, August 2011.
- Read Working With Words, pages 89-90, “Making Pronouns and Antecedents Agree”
- Respond to this blog post question, “Where Do You Get Hung Up?” by 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 13. Return Monday evening to comment further on the conversation. As always, your responses must evidence a thorough understanding of the reading.
- Tweet at least four J70-related tweets, using #j70 hashtag. Make sure you’re combing the #j70 feed to see what classmates are tweeting about.
- Read and comment on classmates’ blog posts.
For Thursday, Feb. 9
- Coaching Writers chapters 8 & 9
- Working With Words, chapter 3, pages 44-53
- Writing Tools 13, 14, 15
- Tweet at least two #j70-related tweets. Include the #j70 hashtag.
- Read and comment on your classmates’ blog posts
For Tuesday, Feb. 7
- Tricky word quiz No. 2
- Read and respond to the blog post “Writers’ Idiosyncrasies.” Post your response by 6 p.m. Sunday, then return to read and respond to your classmates’ comments.
- “Bird By Bird” chapter, “Sh***y First Drafts”
- Read and comment on your classmates’ blog posts
- Tweet j70-related links or comments. Include #j70 hashtag.
For Thursday, Feb. 2
- Working With Words, Chapter 3, Subjects and Objects, pages 37-45 (up to “Pronoun Cases” subhead)
- Writing Tools 10, 11, 12
- Read “This Photograph Is Not Free“
- Read “Copyright and Using Images in Blog Posts“
For Tuesday, Jan. 31
- Tricky Word quiz 1
- Coaching Writers: Read chapters 4 and 5. Then via our blog, discuss the question posed in the post “Habits of Good Writers.” Post your initial comment by 6 p.m. Sunday, then return after that to read and respond to what your classmates posted. As always, your answers should evidence a thorough reading and understanding of the text.
- Twitter: Follow the #j70 hashtag. Tweet at least two j70-related links or thoughts. Make sure you include the hashtag or we won’t see it. Feel free to retweet anything you find particularly valuable.
- Writing Tools 7, 8, 9
For Thursday, Jan. 26
Working With Words:
- chapter 1, focus on section titled “Key Principles of Grammar”
- chapter 2, “Phrases, Clauses and Sentences”
- the difference between a phrase, clause and sentence
- what is a restrictive/nonrestrictive phrase or clause (or essential and nonessential); how to punctuate them
- what is a compound sentence and how to punctuate it
- what is a fragment, comma-splice and run-on sentence
Writing Tools: 4, 5 and 6
Read “Three Key Moments to Identify when Coaching Writers” by Tom Huang of the Poynter Institute. h/t @baileybergs
Tweet one j70-related tweet. Make sure you use the #j70 hashtag. Check the hashtag and see what classmates have tweeted.
For Tuesday, Jan. 24
1. “Coaching Writers”
- chapter 3, “How To Consult With Reporters.” Then comment on the blog post “How does this coaching stuff work?” Respond by midday Monday, then return to read and comment on your classmates’ comments. Make sure your responses evidence a thorough reading and understanding of the text.
2. “Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer”
- Tools 1, 2 and 3. Bring one example of published writing that either uses one of these tools well – or doesn’t and should.
3. Twitter
- Tweet at least one J70-related item, using the #j70 hashtag. Check out what your classmates are posting. Retweet if you are so compelled.
For Thursday, Jan. 19
- read “Coaching Writers”
- Introduction, pages 1-3;
- chapters 1 & 2;
- post your response to “Coaching vs. Fixing” on the blog by Wednesday at 6 p.m. Two questions are posed there; answer at least one. Before class meets again Thursday, return to the post and read and comment on your classmates’ responses. Make sure your responses evidence a thorough reading and understanding of the text.
- read the course syllabus carefully
- take this quick survey
- Create a Twitter account. If you’re new to Twitter, find help in Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book.
- Fill out your bio and upload an image to your profile. It doesn’t have to be a picture of you, if you’re not comfortable with that. It can be a stylized image, a logo, an image of something that represents you.
- Follow @jillvanwyke, @DrakeJMC, @APStylebook, @GrammarGirl, @RoyPeterClark, @donaldkfry, @guardianstyle and @grammarmonkeys. If you don’t mind coarse language and bad taste, follow @FakeAPStylebook and @OHnewsroom. @GRAMMARHULK is also fun.
- Search the #j70 hashtag and see what’s happening. Check your feed. Lurk. Snoop. Stalk.
- Tweet at least one thing class-related using the #j70 hashtag. A link to a news story, a funny typo, a well-written story, a nugget of good editing advice.
