Roamer's Zone

Good points, Leslie.

Yeah, I've gotta agree. I remember being told by another writer my first article didn't have a lead and having no idea what the hell a lead even was. Having these kinds of resources would deffinitely be a good idea.

I do agree with you Leslie. We are newbies,one can think that they can enter a journalism class or join a college newspaper believing that it is a cake walk.Trust me it is not.The style and conventions are different from a basic writing class.

As a freshman entering the Setonian world, I was already informed I missed out on Newswriting. I know that you can write stories and articles for the newspaper, however, it makes the copy editor's job more of a hassle (I've already experienced that as well). Knowing the simple examples of how to write out a number and when is important. Knowing what to capitalize when and where is also essential. If we all mastered these rules, copy editors would cease to exist....and I'm not complaining. :)

I agree with you, Leslie, that there aren't enough diverse leads. On the other hand, though, there are still a few writers on our staff that really need to establish writing a typical, everyday lead first. In some of the articles I've copy edited, I noticed that when people try to get creative, they miss the boat somewhere else.

Another mistake I often see is that they put themselves into the article, ("I witnessed," or "When I asked them..."). I guess if you didn't take News Writing you probably wouldn't know not to do that. So some links on staying transparent would probably be beneficial. I tried to search for some just now, and you saw one of the results and its interesting sidebar...Um...I'll look for some better ones later.

Let's see, let's see... I know last week we discussed having a staff copy editor. Gabby was interested, but I'm afraid I chased her out of the office. :-( (I'm jk, Gabby!) It would be nice to have that kind of person on staff because it would take a LOT of pressure off of the editors.

I really don't know what else to say to you, Leslie. You are right beside me, anyway. In fact, now you're hitting my arm as an example of a story. So yeah. Peace.

This is a great idea! If people can have one source that they go to that has separate links for individual topics that they have questions about, it would make things alot easier. I think that it would make it easier on the writer of the article and also on the editors who may not have the time to explain the conventions of AP style. Plus, I think it is more beneficial for the writer to learn the techniques on their own. I think they will be able to absorb these things more.