A few tips....

For those of you who know Professor Broadwater, she worked at the Baltimore Sun for many, many years and picked up quite a vault of tips and "tricks of the trade" along the way. As her students, we are fortunate enough to hear these pointers and should always apply them to our writing.

1. Omit "on" before a day of the week and before a month and date.

Bad: The party will take place on Wednesday, January 15.

Correct: The party will take place Wednesday, January 15.

2. Don't report opinions and accusations as fact.
One careless word can give the wrong impression and/or lead to a libel case.

Bad: The university's inferior science program is the main reason Acme State has failed to gain approval, the student body president said today.

Correct: Acme University has failed to gain approval to start a medical school because of it's "inferior science program," the student body president said today.

3. Maintain Parallel Construction

• consistent structure w/ subjects and adjectives

Correct: I have been sleeping later, eating later and going to bed later.
Not: I have been sleeping later, eating later and go to bed later.

4. Quickly identify the person being quoted. When attribution is given in the first sentence of a direct quote, none is needed in the second.

Example: "I like pastries," said Colin. "I enjoy all types of sweets really," he continued.



In addition to these, Strunk and White's The Elements of Style is a handy, compact little book with many tips like these. Small enough to fit in a pocket or purse, a journalism student should never be without it.

First post!!!!! Omg lol!!!!!!

Hey guys...I really hope some of you out there are reading. Welcome to my blog. This is my first school-related blog so it's going to be somewhat hard to keep it simple. My personal blog has a lot of poetry and "deep stuff".... Things that I don't think the girl who sits across from me in lab is particularly interested in. So this will just be a blog to aim at addressing some issues in news writing today.

It's funny to think that 10 years ago a journalism class in college would never entail using the internet to connect with other students in the class. Today, we are past the point of bantering about whether the internet is useful; we are required to learn how to use it (and use it effectively) as a means of communication if we choose to pursue a career in this field.

There are a ton of blogs out there, but I don't read many on a daily basis. That's because people don't follow these few simple guidelines that make a great blog:

1-If you have an opinion on something people are interested in, state it at the beginning...don't build to it or people will stop reading before you make your point
2-Keep it short
3-Include pictures
4-Write that ideas in your head that you feel to shy to talk about. Honesty is what makes a good blog great

Not that I'm a pro...but I read a lot of different blogs and it's pretty clear off the bat whether or not it's an interesting one... I hope this blog will be interesting for the Towson and Baltimore area and that this semester will be a great learning experience for me in newswriting!