comm207fall06

Next-day editorial in The Denver Post on the slaying at suburban Platte Canyon High School. It's brief and, properly I think, doesn't come to any grand conclusions. Nor does it advocate solutions, again, I think properly. Sometimes it's enough to express the community's sense of shock and outrage. Sometimes it's all you can do.

The editorial begins:

Wednesday's sickening events at Platte Canyon High School hit home in so many ways that we literally have to gasp for breath. The more we learn about the gunman who assaulted a group of girls and killed 16-year-old Emily Keyes, the more confounded we are by his horrific crimes.

After recounting Duane Morrison's rampage, the editorial notes:

The scant rap sheet that has emerged for him so far - including possession of marijuana and obstructing a police officer - doesn't hint at the potential to commit much darker crimes. Questions about his motives and choices far outnumber the answers. Why Platte Canyon High School, in a peaceful community like Bailey? What triggered his violent outburst? What did he want?

Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Emily Keyes, as well as to the other students who were terrorized and assaulted by Morrison.

Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener, who has lived in the community for 36 years, knew the victim and her family. On Thursday, he expressed sentiments that likely are shared by many. "I've gone from upset to angry," he said. "Angry that this man has done this to our community. Angry that this man has done this to our children."

Notice how the Post underscores the sense of community by personal condolences to the families involved.

Again, I think that's the most important thing a newspaper editorial can do at a time like this ... enhance the sense of community and common humanity we feel when tragedy strikes. The editorial adds:

The shock waves reverberating through Bailey are shared by all of us - the moments of terror, anger and relief as parents learned of the situation and wept with joy at finding their children unharmed. And of course the shock and grief that accompanied the final classroom scene.

We have to be grateful there weren't more fatalities or injuries, and we hope the process of sifting through the clues left in Morrison's wake will give us some way to understand how this horror came to be.

Editorials aren't as exciting as rushing to the scene of a crime and getting eyewitness reports. But they're important. And this one ably fills an important role at a difficult time.

Here's a bulletin from The Denver Post that is going to embarrass the person who edited it earlier this morning. If you're writing on deadline, this kind of stuff happens. If you're editing people who write on deadline, you have it edit it out. How would you edit this squib from the Post's website?

The man who killed a Park County teen during a hostage seige Wednesday sent a suicide note to a family member in advance of the attack.

At a 7 a.m. press conference this morning, Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said authorities are hoping that the suicide note will shed light on the motive Duane Morrison had for attacking Platte Canyon High School.

Post your answers as comments to this post.

Here's a revised list of the really confusing and important entries in the AP Stylebook I mentioned in class Tuesday, the ones I circled both the alphabetical listing and the page number. Plus a couple I didn't that I should have!

And one that doesn't have a page number to circle. It's the first one. So without further ado, here's the list:

abbreviations. That's the one that doesn't have a page number in my book. But it's important. And tricky. Oops! It goes on to a second page. That's page 4 in my edition. Circle it.

addresses.

capitalization.

cents. See also dollars and percent. They're related. Write it like this: $4 without the zeroes if it's a round number, $4.15 of whatever if it isn't. Cents like this: 15 cents. Percents like this: 30 percent.

composition titles. Basically you put titles in quotes for a newspaper that you would ordinarily underline or put in italics for college papers.

directions and regions. It's all about when to capitalize something like "central Illinois" and when not to.

fewer, less You'll make fewer mistakes if you know this, and you'll be less likely to get it wrong, too.

governmental bodies. Newspapers are full of government news. I know, I know. That's why they're losing readers. But till the last dying newspaper goes out of business, you'll be writing about governmental bodies. This item tells you how.

it's, its It's essential for you to put apostrophe in its proper place.

midnight. Also see noon. The only times of the day you don't use "a.m." or "p.m." with. You don't use numbers, either. The Stylebook explains why.

millions, billions.

more than. Also see over. Use "more than" with numbers of things, "over" with heights.

numerals This is probably the one that's hardest -- and most important -- to learn in the whole book. Keep it in the bathroom so you'll have it whenever you're looking for a few minutes of light reading matter.

plurals. Did I say numerals was the hardest? Maybe it's plurals. What's worse, numerals and plurals come up all the time. You'll never run out of fun stuff to read in the AP Stylebook!

possessives. AP's rules defy logic. So you'd better learn them. More reading for the bathroom.

state names. The tricky part is the abbreviations, which are not the same ones the Postal Service uses. Learn a few you're likely to use, like "Ill." and "Mo." Look up the rest. I guess you could memorize them, but do you really think you'll be writing that much about Casper, Wyo.?

time element, time of dayand times. Picky, picky. But the rules make sense once you get used to them.

titles. Don't try to learn them all. Just know this section is there when you need it. And you'll need it often.

trademark.

1. What are the trade names? (Best way to find out: Consult the AP Stylebook on brand names and trademarks, and Google them.) By the way: Is "Google" a trademark? Tootsie Rolls and Kitty Litter are both trademarks. Google is in fact a trademark also!

2. How would you revise this recipe to run in a newspaper that follows AP style? I would replace the words "kitty litter" with "cat box filler", and I would substitute "chewy chocolate candies" for "Tootsie Rolls". When referring to Google, a better choice would be internet search engine.

3. Would you want to run this particular recipe in a newspaper? Why, or why not? no, i wouldn't run this recipe in the newspaper because you would have to change the title of the recipe in order to aviod using tradenames, and then the recipe just isn't as effective.

i think the opening to this story is a good one, if you don't know about "lonlygirl" it tells you where to find it, youtube, and makes you really wonder if it was real, or made up.

"its about getting people intrigued with something that isn't just advertising and selling something," Mr. Benson said. For a tease to work, it's got to really get the audience to ask questions."

this is something we do without even thinking about, we see tons of commercials, billboards, magazine ads, flyers, etc, everyday and we think why is this better than the other, or why would i want this? The better the ad the more you like the product even without seeing it.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0609190160sep19,1,4931259.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

"More than 300,000 Americans each year die of cardiac arrest. Without help, death occurs within 10 minutes, before an ambulance can arrive." With this doll being available so you can learn the true value of saving someone's life. Then when you feel comfortable you can go and registure for a 4 hour CPR class so you can be certified.

Just checking ... not nagging ...

At least not yet.

There are a couple of assignments posted to the blog:

1. The most recent is headed "Next week's assignment." It was posted last week, but now it's this week and so far I see one response posted (thanks, Terah). But "next week" is still this week, right? So there's still time.

Time flies when you're having fun. Scary, huh?

2. The other assignment I posted Monday, Sept. 11, under the heading "Trade names -- AP Stylebook." So far we've had one post in response to it, too. (Thanks, Mitch. Good eye! I think I agree with you on the editorial decisions involved, although I guess it's arguable either way whether you'd want the picture on the coffee table or not.) There's still time for the rest of you to post, too, by the way.

And I'm counting how often you post in reply to the assignments.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2006/09/13/shots-dawson.html

This is a well- written hard news story. It is a story about shots being fired at a college in Canada this afternoon (Wednesday). The story is fairly short, but states the facts that the public would like to know about the situation. Two important quotes I noticed right away are from a student who was in the college when the shots were fired. Michel Boyer said, "I thought this was fake, and it was just an excuse to get out of class," he told CBC Newsworld. "I did run away as soon as I did see that it was real." Boyer also reported, "I'm only 19 and to have flashes of your life and the people that you love going by you, it should not be allowed. It was highly traumatizing." I think that these emotional quotes are important in a story such as this, because they open the eyes of the public to see and somewhat understand the severity of the situation. This hard news story got my attention because it was well-written, and contained only quotes that were to the point, and easy to follow.

Here, for convenient reference, is your assignment for next week's class ... along with some "monkey-see-monkey-do" tips on beginning to use HTML tags when you post your stories to the blog.

First, here's the assignment again:

Find a well-written story on a newspaper website. Post a link to the blog, together with your analysis of why you like it. Be sure to quote from the story to give examples of good writing in it. (That's important, because newspapers don't archive their websites forever, and the links will probably go dead in a few days.) Blogging for COMM 207 is just like any other writing -- a generalization that's unsupported by evidence, quotes in this case, is sudden death.

HTML, monkey-see-monkey-do style

If you don't feel comfortable yet with the basics of HTML, just click on the tab that says "Compose" at the upper right of this field. You can just paste in the links, and we can copy them and paste them into the address field on our browsers.

But if you're feeling adventurous, click on the tab that says "Edit Html" just to the left of the "Compose" tab. Type what you want to say in the same field. It'll look like a typewriter instead of a printed text, but the big difference is you can type in HTML tags. I'm going to link here to a good HTML summary at North Carolina State. Read it through a time or two, and it'll get you started. Especially at first, you can also copy the tags and paste them into the blog writing field.

One big thing you want to know about 99 percent of HTML tags: They're enclosed in angle brackets, and they come in pairs. So the HTML for a link looks like this:

<a href="URL of the website you're linking to ">words you want underlined to activate the link </a>

An example: If I want to link to the SCI/Benedictine homepage,, like I just did here, I write the opening tag like this.

<a href="http://www.sci.edu/">

Then I type in the words I want in the link, and I end with the closing tag:

</a>

Put it together, and it looks like this:

<a href="http://www.sci.edu/">the SCI/Benedictine homepage,</a>

Clear? If it is, give it a try. After blundering around for a while (which is part of the learning process, right?), you'll get it. If it isn't, don't worry. You'll get it in them.

the answer is E, and West Coast should be capitalized due to the fact it is refering to a specific area of the country

Two questions. Well, three, really:
1. What are the trade names? (Best way to find out: Consult the AP Stylebook on brand names and trademarks, and Google them.) By the way: Is "Google" a trademark?
The trade names are Tootsie Rolls and kitty litter. And yes, "Google" is a trademark. A better term would be "internet search".

2. How would you revise this recipe to run in a newspaper that follows AP style?
You would need to change "kitty litter" to "cat box filler", or something or that sort, whereas "Tootsie Roll" could be changed to "chocolate candy rolls."

3. Would you want to run this particular recipe in a newspaper? Why, or why not?
I wouldn't for two reasons: because you would have to change the name of the recipe itself, and because that recipe looks absolutely disgusting. The readership probably wouldn't appriciate looking at that whilst drinking their morning coffee.

The answer to your question is (e). As for the extra credit, West Coast should remain capitalized because it dictates a region which, according to the AP Stylebook, warrants capitalization.

Here is a link to a recipe for a cake that you may or may not want to try yourself. As you may notice, there are some brand names or registered trademarks mentioned in the recipe.

Two questions. Well, three, really:

1. What are the trade names? (Best way to find out: Consult the AP Stylebook on brand names and trademarks, and Google them.) By the way: Is "Google" a trademark?

2. How would you revise this recipe to run in a newspaper that follows AP style?

3. Would you want to run this particular recipe in a newspaper? Why, or why not?

Here's your question. (I tried to make it easy enough that you won't be too embarrassed by posting wrong answers.) OK, here goes:
In what large West Coast city is The Los Angeles Times located?
a. Pawnee

b. New Berlin

c. Williamsville

d. Athens

e. Los Angeles

Choose one of above.

For extra credit: Should I have capitalized "West Coast" above? What does the "AP Stylebook" say about that? Post your answers to the blog. E.

West Coast I think it is ok because you are talking about the West Coast with Los Angeles.

The answer is e. Los Angeles
E.C.
West Coast should remain capitalized. The AP Style book says these words should be capitalized when they designate regions as West Coast does.

Here's your question. (I tried to make it easy enough that you won't be too embarrassed by posting wrong answers.) OK, here goes:

In what large West Coast city is The Los Angeles Times located?

a. Pawnee

b. New Berlin

c. Williamsville

d. Athens

e. Los Angeles

Choose one of above.

For extra credit: Should I have capitalized "West Coast" above? What does the "AP Stylebook" say about that?

Post your answers to the blog.

This is the first written (and last read, I guess, once we get them all together) of a series of posts summarizing some of the key points in The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. I'm starting with "XYZ" for two reasons: (1) Since weblogs put the most recent posts on top, once I'm done they'll be in alphabetical order; and (2) under the letter "A" I'll have to tackle the entry on abbreviations, which will be humongeous.

Two entries under "XYZ" I think you ought to know:

Xerox The stylebook says: "A trademark for a brand of photocopy machine. Never a verb." The verb, by the way, is photocopy. I'd add: Steer clear of trademarks and brand names in general. You don't want to give them free advertising, and they don't want you to use their name so often it's no longer recognized as a trademark.

yesterday AP says: "Use only in direct quotes or in phrases that do not reference a specific day." Why not? It's a relative term, so it changes every day. What's yesterday today is day-before-yesterday tomorrow, and what's tomorrow today is today tomorrow. Clear enough?

Welcome to our class weblog for Communications 207, Editing for Publication, at Benedictine University's Springfield campus. It's frankly an experiment, and I don't know how well it'll work out. But after getting to know the people in the class a little during our first two meetings, I think we'll do a good job with it. I'm impressed with your attitude, and I can tell you'll make that extra effort we need to ensure the experiment will succeed.

Here's how it will work. In the syllabus for our class ... which you can review by following this link to my faculty page ... I mention in Section V that one of my teaching methods is "whole classroom discussion (including participation in discussion on the Message Board linked to my faculty webpage)," and in Section VI, Subsection C under Written Assignments I say, "You are required to post to the class message board both in and out of class. I will post assignments to the board." Basically, we will post to the blog instead of the message board.

Grades: Your overall final grade is weighted like this: (A) class participation and in-class editing exercises to be assigned without notice, worth 50 percent of the total grade; (B) out-of-class written and editing exercises, including the midterm, worth 25 percent of the total; and (C) quizzes and tests including the midterm and the final exam, worth 25 percent. The blog will count toward the 50 percent (Part A) that is based on class participation.

Here's what I hope you gain by contributing to the class blog: If you can already use hypertext markup language, you'll get more practice with it. And you don't know HTML already, you can learn it as you go along.

One last thing. And this is important! I will be summarizing some of the more important parts of The Associated Press Stylebook and posting them to the blog as we go along. These will be the tricky parts that professional journalists look for when they're deciding which job applications or press releases in File No. 13. I can't decide whether to start with "A" or "Z," but pretty quick I'm going to flip a coin. And when I do and start posting, you're responsible for knowing them ... or knowing which ones they are and being able to find them quickly.