As I read through the stories you submitted for last week's class, it is obvious I haven't done a good job of giving you guidelines on formatting a news story.
1. Stories should be double-spaced, with paragraphs indented. Don't add additional spaces between the paragraphs.
2. Each story should have a headline (with subject and verb) and a byline that identifies you as author. You don't need a date, my name, or any other information.
3. At the end of the story, include one of the standard endmarks to tell the editor that the story has ended. Typical would be -30- or ###
4. If the story goes more than one page, put (more) at the bottom right of the first page and put a slugline at the top of page two (Davidson - Cafeteria - 2)
5. Three more observations:
a. NEVER EVER start a story with a date. Until the reader knows what the story is about, he/she has no interest in hearing WHEN it happened
b. News stories must be cleansed of personal opinion, both overt and implied. I'm finding unquoted, unsubstantiated opinion wording all through the submitted work
c. All news stories are to be in third person. No use of "I," "we," "our," "us," etc.
I give this feedback now, so you have time to correct some of these issues before handing in Monday's assignment.
Call, e-mail, or stop in to my office if you have questions.
-tw
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