Reflective Writing Assignment

Identify at least one aspect of each article and explain why you think it was successful.

1. I believe the most successful part of my obituary was the structure of the article. I believe it flowed very nicely and gave my readers a detailed and complete summary of my dad’s life. I included all of the important aspects of what makes my dad who he is. This piece is very important to me.
I think that the most successful part of my police beat was the way I incorporated the quotes from the alleged perpetrator. I think that his words make the story. He gave the article some personality.
My article on Mike Cowling is the one I am least proud of. Time was limited, and I felt some pressure. I would have to say the most successful part of this a story was the amount of information I gathered. I gave a thorough account of Cowling’s speech and concluded with his background information. Although this story was not bursting with excitement, I thought I did a good job of highlighting the important topics.

Identify two areas of your reporting/writing that represent improvement opportunities.

2. The two areas of my reporting/writing that need improvement are the putting together the lead and becoming more comfortable with asking for information from sources. I believe that my leads need to be more specific and really get at the newsworthy aspects of the story. I believe breaking the story down and identifying each element of newsworthiness (as we did in class) would help me improve my leads.
I think becoming comfortable with sources with come with time. I believe the only thing that will help me improve in this area is experience and practice. The instructor is doing just dandy thus far. The written comments on returned articles and individual meetings help a lot.

Rewrite and improve one lead that you have written so far. Explain why the second lead is better.

3. Old Version: In a speech describing his experiences at The New York Times, Professor Mike Cowling explained the downward direction the paper has been headed toward and several defenses it has built in efforts to stop it.
New version: A UW-Oshkosh professor who also edits parts of The New York Times website five nights a week spoke Wednesday about the newspaper’s recent troubles, including the Jayson Blair scandal.
I believe the second version is better because it specifies in more detail what Cowling talked about (Jayson Blair scandal.) It is also more of a delayed lead assuming that Cowling’s name will be mentioned in the next paragraph. The new version is also timely because it states that the event occurred Wednesday.

Identify two characteristics of good writing that represent improvement opportunities for you.

4. I believe that two characteristics identified in chapter 8 that I need to improve on are being precise and being clear. After reading the section on being precise, I realized how words that may appear to be synonyms are erroneously written in a place that they should not be. I believe that becoming more familiar with words, as well as making an effort to learn new words, will help with this problem.
Being clear has always been difficult for me. It is so easy for me to just write down exactly what comes to my mind instead of taking the time to find a simpler way to convey my ideas. Grammar and punctuation have always, and probably will always, be things that I need to pay special attention to while writing. I do not know if I will ever master these areas, but I believe that practice will enable me to recognize and use these tools in ways that will improve my writing.