Workshop Experience:
After having my piece workshopped in class, I have a concrete idea of where to go next. Obviously, I did remark at the bottom of my article that I will be interviewing a student who wants to be a writer or has taken one of Professor McHugh’s classes. That’s my first next step. I also might be holding a follow-up interview just to gain some more information. I need to make sure I add in her part at the university, considering it is a profile on someone working at the university. I also will be including a list of classes that she teaches, which I’m hoping will be helpful for the article. On top of all this, I just need to go through and clean up some things, even define a couple of words maybe. Overall, I’m proud of my first draft for this piece and the workshop has helped me immensely. I think that based on the comments compared to my first workshop and this one, I can see a huge difference in aspects that need a little bit of help, but I can confidently say that I am growing as a reporter in my opinion. Even though it wasn’t mentioned in class, someone did say that I used first person in my article, so I need to go back and re-read and revise just to be safe on that aspect.
Editorial Team Reflection:
Workshopping has started to get better as the semester has kept playing out. For example, I think our revisions and suggestions as a team are becoming more thoughtful for the article itself. Of course, the usual took place, such as making sure things are capitalized, quotes are necessary and consistent, and that the structure of the piece makes overall sense. One thing I have seen all of us improve on throughout the semester that the profile piece has made evident is the use of quotes. A lot of comments were made about using more than just your interviewee as your quotes throughout your article. I think a lot of comments made were well thought out in terms of who else to add into the article. It’s become more than just making sure you add someone in and become more of how about this person. On top of that, another topic that I think has become more talked about this project is the use of titles. That was a topic mentioned a lot in person more than through the journal process. It was cool to see us give advice and bounce ideas off of each other to help the writer form their own. We broke down the importance of the article and then helped pinpoint ideas from that. It was really unique to see us all set that up and become an actual editorial board to better each other’s pieces. I have never seen that in a class before which sets it aside from all other classes I have taken with a workshop before. Little things were also helpful, but I also think that a lot more praise was given this time around in the workshop field. Yes, there were some nit-picky copy editor things in this round, but I think it was evident to see the evolution of us all as writers and reporters.
Profile Story Reflection:
This project this time around was a lot easier to write I believe. Through the help of the workshop and the class as a whole, I feel like my first draft was much better for my profile then compared to my first draft of my feature story. As a writer I can see that I have grown and that has made me happy personally. I know there is still more growth that I need to reach but at least I have sprouted a little more. I know that my articles still aren’t perfect, I don’t even think that word should exist, but I can see that I am improving on understanding the key elements of a good news article. I think implementing quotes has become easier as well as interviewing, which is probably why I talk about it so much. In terms of editing, it might be my favorite, just because that is a field that I am looking at. I think that once I started understanding the overall content more, that I became more confident in raising my hand with comments or suggestions even if they were just little things. I think some people fail to realize that the little praises add up to the writer’s confidence and I think that that is important to remember when in a school setting and anywhere quite frankly. I know that I mentioned this before as well in my previous reflection, but the workshop experience is also evolving. I can see the class as a whole starting to participate more even if some days it didn’t feel like it. That says more than I think people realize. I can see us all growing as writers, reporters, and editors which is super interesting to think about when reflecting on the beginning of the semester.
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