Meeting Professional Writing Goals

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3. Meeting Professional Writing Goals

The style, brevity, and nature of journalism articles stands apart from many other forms of academic writing. Whereas literary analysis and critical synthesis celebrate a verbose and fully-supported argumentative structure, and business proposals and science writing emphasize detail, the journalistic writing standard is defined by a minimalist perspective. Emphasizing only the most important aspects of a story serves to refine works in other areas of professional writing.

Journalism operates on a tight schedule. Producing a story every week, even though the stories were modest in length, proved to be a challenge. Another unfamiliar experience was relying on other people to write headlines for your own work. The dynamic of a continuous stream of peer-review editing and pitch meetings for the next immediate story exposed me to a different type of group communication. The momentum of working together as a group to accomplish individual goals and projects provided a realistic introduction to collaborative workplace engagements.

Different members within the group naturally hold differing opinions about which news sources and types of coverage hold the most value within various situations. We learned to accomodate the diverse whims and personalities making up our editing group as we tried to manage our time between editing, pitching new stories, and organizing material for a broadcast. These processes translate to many workplace situations.

Group work was a heavier component of the journalism class than it was in other writing classes in the Professional Writing track. Though peer editing was a component of most UCM writing courses, group dynamics were secondary to individual progress in the other classes within my minor. In Journalism, each student's progress depended on the progress of others.

Moving forward within a group setting ultimately eased the transition into producing assignments adhering to the journalistic style. The first tier of feedback occured through evaluating the relevance of our chosen subjects. Would other students and community members be interested in reading each story? Only an outsider's perspective clarifies the relevance of another reporter's research and perspective on an issue.

Members of this class relied on each other in different ways as well. We practiced the art of the interview, and sometimes engaged in genuine interviews of each other. I asked a classmate about her experience contacting campus services regarding a troubled friend; this exchange clarified several details troubling me about the events surrounding the death of a friend. Another student interviewed me about a scholarship I received and the media coverage that occured regarding that award. The class provided a comfortable environment in which we practiced approaching and interacting with other professionals.

Group members helped keep my journalism assignments within the scope of a typical follower of news reports. The wider audience reading news stories differs from the audiences I addressed in other writing classes. Writing 30 directed communication toward prospective employers and business partners. Writing 100 and 105 wrote to academics, and Writing 116 focused only on scientific communication. Informing the public via journalistic communication required a flexible, open-minded attitude contrasting with viewpoints of other professional writing objectives.

In addition to practicing new forms of interpersonal discourse, I was personally challenged through the process of narrowing down story subjects and ideas. After a friend took his own life this semester, I experienced a strong desire to inform other people about the circumstances surrounding his death, circumstances the local news and UC Merced administration cautiously avoided in their own reports of the tragedy. Despite the personal motivation, my own emotions and biases stemming from my personal connection to the event prevented the timely completion of my op-ed story.

Once I finally found my voice for the op-ed, I was able to produce a story with which I was somewhat satisfied. I learned, however, that writing about sensitive situations can require time and patience of myself so that I can develop the necessary tone for the the conveyed facts within the report. Another piece I found difficult was the sports story. I don't watch sporting events, and my work schedule prevented me from easily attending a campus athletic event. Capitailzing instead on my persona weekend activities, I wrote about a little-known local rock climbing spot and some climbers I encountered in the area. Readers unfamiliar with rock climbing might be uniterested or resistant to stories about this sport. Writing the climbing articled practcied the art of appealing to resistant audiences, another goal I feel needs improvement in my writing.

The personal progress I achieved in Writing 130 is the first step in a long list of my goals for embarking on a professional writing career. Maintaining a blog of consistent social commentary is another vital step in building a positive online presence, and the creation of this electronic clip file initiated the beginnings of my blogging process. Representing myself via the blogosphere gets my voice out to a widespread audience. The writing 130 course exemplified the writing styles necessary for professional writing within the journalistic field as well as that of other areas of business. I enjoyed keeping track of local and globale events. The importance of following the news is often lost in the specific pursuit of a technical degree, and I plan on making a habit of reading news stories from a variety of sources as I learned to do in this class.