"-:...##Punctuation##...:-" (Readings 2)

I looked over the AP Stylebook today on a number of puntiation topics that can help you on your writing skills. Many of them are self-explanitory, but some are a little out there. First of all, the semi-colon. Or semicolon. ; <- that thing. I rarely if ever use it and when I do, either MicroSoft Word or my teachers tell me its wrong. I'll probably never use it as a normal part of my articles, but for lists and comparrisons it's good to have the stylebook handy. Colons in lists are a little odd to me as well, but now that analogies are off the SAT people probably won't worry about this sort of thing as much. Ok, enough punctuation. Most of the stuff I know, it's just the things that don't have their own poster in elementary school that get a little confusing now and then.

My other reading came from the News Reporting & Writing book, namely the first three chapters. Whereas my first reading was a general refresher on how writing the inverted pyramid was, this reading was an all-around Journalism refresher. Almost made me feel like a freshman again, but considering you lose a lot of information during the summer it was good to look over again.

Relevance, usefulness, and interest are cited by the book as the most important things to consider in a written piece. You want the work to be current enough that it still matters in the world (don't annouce the invention of the lightbulb), useful enough so that after reading the audience will walk away with new knowledge (don't explain in 3 pages how to button a shirt), and finally interesting enough that a person will actually read the article and not just flip the page to the comics section. Other factors such as impact, conflict, novelty, prominence, proximity, and timeliness also help guide the writer to a good story.

I work at ICTV and although all of these tips aren't directly taught, the experience we get there is very helpful to both my classes and my future careers. Working there also exposes me to two other key points in the treading: technology and interviewing. Although unrelated in nature, these two factors greatly improve my abilities to gather news and also greatly improve the quality of the show (NewsWatch 16). The book shows that technology is an ever-changing process and that journalists need to be fluent in all mediums to be able to work effectively and effeciently in the "real world." Interviewing is also essential because it not only adds a character to your news story, it also gives you opinions and perspectives not often found in simple research books or press releases.

All in all these chapters were a simple reminder of key journalism techniques that I may have laready known, but aren't to be taken too lightly.