Introduction
This site was created to compile assignment and blog entries from my ENGL 280 The Journalistic Essay class with Professor Nicole Williams. This class was designed to delve into the art of writing creative non-fiction, learning how to use facts and truthful information combine with narrative based craft.
Now that the semester has come to end, I have realized that my non fiction writing has improved. While interview people for my last two assigments, I found myself asking more specific questions which naturally led me to form my essays more completely. It seemed to come more naturally to me, because of my practice throughout this class. I also enjoyed being able to pick my own topics for the last two feature pieces. It allowed me to think about what was truely interesting to me and form a reason around this interest into something news worthy. I really enjoyed writing both features and I hope that comes through in my prose.
The revisions that I made for both pieces involved mainly spelling mistakes and elaborating on facts that I had already given. For example, in my newspaper feature about college radio, I was advised to include more information on past musical artists whose fame had increased due to college radio stations. Although I had touched on it, I looked up more information and included more. Hopefully, this will give more of a context for readers to tie back to my main point.
I choose the blog entries that are included on this sight because I enjoyed both prompts and I found that my writing was better. Staying up to date on current events, especially those that effects everyone like the Fergueson riots, is important for college students. I liked that Porfessor Williams advised us to discuss this issue in our blog because sometimes it is easier to turn off the tv or not read the news and ignore world issues. This assignment made all of us be up to date on the Ferguson issues in order to write about it. My other blog entry about undergradute literary journals was something that pertained directly to my life. I am a writer and hope to some day be published. I had to do some digging online to find places to submit to for this assignment, but it also informed me personally.
Finally, my in class writings for this class weren't as plentiful as in the first half of the semester. However, I did find two that I would like to talk about. The first one talks about getting the clutter out of non fiction. I need to constantly be reminded of this because sometimes I can get long winded or include too many words in my sentences. Journalism is all about keeping it to the point and full of the facts. As I am primarily a fiction writer, I sometimes forget this. The second writing talks about my ideas for my newspaper feature. I chose this because it shows the progression of my idea. I started off thinking that I wanted to focus on a specific genre when it came to radio stations, and it later evolved into a more BSU and college student friendly piece, revelant to my own life and hopefully others.
I really enjoyed this class and I know there are many things I wil be taking with me in the future!
Midterm Introduction:
So far this semester, I have already seen improvements in my non fiction writing. Now that this class has become engrained into my weekly schedule, I am getting more and more use to writing this way. Both the Profile and the Talk of the Town essays required me to interview a person, something that has become some what new to me this past year. I found that through this interview process, I am not only learning about people from their own experiences which is something I find great interest in, but I am also learning how to figure out what is really important to include in my writing. When I sit down with someone and ask them questions about their lives, they are usually going to talk a lot, giving me both useful and trivial details. It is my job to filter through what they are saying and find the critical pieces of information that will make my work strong and meaningful. I think learning this skill will be useful no matter what I do after college, because my writing all comes down to how efficiently and effectively I can say something. When going back and revising both papers, I kept questions in mind that a reader might have and looked though my notes and information to see if it was something I missed that I could include.
For my in class writings, I picked one that would touch on the profiling process and one that showed how I was trying to incorporate parts of my own life into class. The first page are my notes from when we discussed writing profiles. This helped me stay focused when choosing and eventually interviewing the person I wanted to write my paper on. I made sure to keep in mind that this piece was a story helping the reader get to know someone. I also made sure to look for something that my subject was saying that people could cling to. I hope that this came though in my complete draft of this essay.
The second page is from an in class assignment where we had to pick a topic from the categories of "art" science and technology" or travel" to write an informative piece about. I didn't get to finish it, however, but I am including it because it shows how I am thinking of aspect of my own life that I can turn into a piece of informative non fiction. I had just watched the first installment of the "Friday the 13th" movies from 1980 and starting writing a review of the film. I wanted to play around with a film that not many people would be writing about, since it is such an old movie. As I said, I didn't get to finish it, but it was fun to think about what I would say and how I would get my point across.
The two blog posts I chose talk about my switch from creative to non fiction writing and also the research process that goes into a novel of non fiction. I chose the first blog post because I want to show how I am now aware of how important setting the scenes are in non fiction as well as fiction. As I say in the post, non fiction scenes might be forgotten because the writer is so focused on getting all the facts correct. However, for the reader to really be present, they need to see what you are telling them, not just in the words but in the scene.
The second blog post discussed the research process of Lauren Hillenbrand, author of "Unbroken" my book club book. This was important for me to read because all writers need to see how much research and fact checking goes into creating a work like this. It was both interesting and infomrative to see how many people Hillenbrand interviewed and how where she thought to look for clues and facts.
Overall, I am definitely learning more about this genre of writing and I look forward to further assignments and what I might learn from them. As someone who will actively be seeking a job in writing after graduation this fall, I am happy to gain as much knowledge as I can on the subject.
Now that the semester has come to end, I have realized that my non fiction writing has improved. While interview people for my last two assigments, I found myself asking more specific questions which naturally led me to form my essays more completely. It seemed to come more naturally to me, because of my practice throughout this class. I also enjoyed being able to pick my own topics for the last two feature pieces. It allowed me to think about what was truely interesting to me and form a reason around this interest into something news worthy. I really enjoyed writing both features and I hope that comes through in my prose.
The revisions that I made for both pieces involved mainly spelling mistakes and elaborating on facts that I had already given. For example, in my newspaper feature about college radio, I was advised to include more information on past musical artists whose fame had increased due to college radio stations. Although I had touched on it, I looked up more information and included more. Hopefully, this will give more of a context for readers to tie back to my main point.
I choose the blog entries that are included on this sight because I enjoyed both prompts and I found that my writing was better. Staying up to date on current events, especially those that effects everyone like the Fergueson riots, is important for college students. I liked that Porfessor Williams advised us to discuss this issue in our blog because sometimes it is easier to turn off the tv or not read the news and ignore world issues. This assignment made all of us be up to date on the Ferguson issues in order to write about it. My other blog entry about undergradute literary journals was something that pertained directly to my life. I am a writer and hope to some day be published. I had to do some digging online to find places to submit to for this assignment, but it also informed me personally.
Finally, my in class writings for this class weren't as plentiful as in the first half of the semester. However, I did find two that I would like to talk about. The first one talks about getting the clutter out of non fiction. I need to constantly be reminded of this because sometimes I can get long winded or include too many words in my sentences. Journalism is all about keeping it to the point and full of the facts. As I am primarily a fiction writer, I sometimes forget this. The second writing talks about my ideas for my newspaper feature. I chose this because it shows the progression of my idea. I started off thinking that I wanted to focus on a specific genre when it came to radio stations, and it later evolved into a more BSU and college student friendly piece, revelant to my own life and hopefully others.
I really enjoyed this class and I know there are many things I wil be taking with me in the future!
Midterm Introduction:
So far this semester, I have already seen improvements in my non fiction writing. Now that this class has become engrained into my weekly schedule, I am getting more and more use to writing this way. Both the Profile and the Talk of the Town essays required me to interview a person, something that has become some what new to me this past year. I found that through this interview process, I am not only learning about people from their own experiences which is something I find great interest in, but I am also learning how to figure out what is really important to include in my writing. When I sit down with someone and ask them questions about their lives, they are usually going to talk a lot, giving me both useful and trivial details. It is my job to filter through what they are saying and find the critical pieces of information that will make my work strong and meaningful. I think learning this skill will be useful no matter what I do after college, because my writing all comes down to how efficiently and effectively I can say something. When going back and revising both papers, I kept questions in mind that a reader might have and looked though my notes and information to see if it was something I missed that I could include.
For my in class writings, I picked one that would touch on the profiling process and one that showed how I was trying to incorporate parts of my own life into class. The first page are my notes from when we discussed writing profiles. This helped me stay focused when choosing and eventually interviewing the person I wanted to write my paper on. I made sure to keep in mind that this piece was a story helping the reader get to know someone. I also made sure to look for something that my subject was saying that people could cling to. I hope that this came though in my complete draft of this essay.
The second page is from an in class assignment where we had to pick a topic from the categories of "art" science and technology" or travel" to write an informative piece about. I didn't get to finish it, however, but I am including it because it shows how I am thinking of aspect of my own life that I can turn into a piece of informative non fiction. I had just watched the first installment of the "Friday the 13th" movies from 1980 and starting writing a review of the film. I wanted to play around with a film that not many people would be writing about, since it is such an old movie. As I said, I didn't get to finish it, but it was fun to think about what I would say and how I would get my point across.
The two blog posts I chose talk about my switch from creative to non fiction writing and also the research process that goes into a novel of non fiction. I chose the first blog post because I want to show how I am now aware of how important setting the scenes are in non fiction as well as fiction. As I say in the post, non fiction scenes might be forgotten because the writer is so focused on getting all the facts correct. However, for the reader to really be present, they need to see what you are telling them, not just in the words but in the scene.
The second blog post discussed the research process of Lauren Hillenbrand, author of "Unbroken" my book club book. This was important for me to read because all writers need to see how much research and fact checking goes into creating a work like this. It was both interesting and infomrative to see how many people Hillenbrand interviewed and how where she thought to look for clues and facts.
Overall, I am definitely learning more about this genre of writing and I look forward to further assignments and what I might learn from them. As someone who will actively be seeking a job in writing after graduation this fall, I am happy to gain as much knowledge as I can on the subject.