Comments for The Start of Comprehensive Journalism

Comment on Sexual Violence: No Excuse by Janna

Janna — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:33:27 +0000

I’m reviewing such a massive amount of content that I’m not going to give a lot of specific feedback on your work, but I did want to make special mention that you have a lot of thoughtful reporting in this piece and it is definitely one of the best ones you have ever done.

Comment on Welcome by delightedscribbler

delightedscribbler — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:29:57 +0000

I started a blog for translators working Spanish<>English to talk about style: punctuation, capitalization, and all other little pieces that sometimes result in a question mark. As a journalism student minoring in Spanish, your participation would be great. I hope you’ll visit often.

Mark it Right: http://delightedscribbler.blogspot.com

Comment on Elon students’ reaction to Obama’s victory by notedscholar

notedscholar — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:15:03 +0000

I wonder what they actually expect him to do? How will his presidency different from any other Democrat, in terms of policy?

Comment on Elon students’ reaction to Obama’s victory by Paul Parsons

Paul Parsons — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:01:40 +0000

Emily, thanks for letting me see what happened on campus immediately after the declaration of the presidential election. I enjoyed watching the videos and reading what students said. Way to go!

Comment on Elon students’ reaction to Obama’s victory by Janna

Janna — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:00:03 +0000

It’s nice to see the journalist’s reaction here – that you didn’t merely watch television or join your friends and be a celebrant but you instead recognized the moment’s value and recorded one of the most memorable events of your lifetime in the role of a journalist, making a difference for those who weren’t there and those who were and assisting in the formation of a historic documentation of your time, place and people.

Comment on History in the Making: Obama speaks at UNC-C the day before the election by Janna

Janna — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:22:07 +0000

AWESOME REPORTING! Wow. You talked to a lot of people. You wove a tapestry that puts me there and let’s me feel the emotion. Multiple storytelling direct quotations make the work compelling. And you can see how vital it is to get the strong visuals to go with the excellent reporting, because having photos with your words makes this so much more approachable and compelling than if you hadn’t had any at all. So definitely buy Bryce a coffee sometime, because you owe him!

Comment on Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin speaks at Elon University’s Latham Park by Janna

Janna — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:46:21 +0000

Once again you prove you are a natural at this type of reporting. There are mostly technical editing items in need of repair. It would have been optimal for you to do your own multimedia work instead of relying on Kinsey, but it was excellent that you credited her for the assistance.

Use the second paragraph as your lead and just modify it, including some of the stuff you have in the first paragraph. Start instead with:
Sun-scorched Republicans and Democrats …and incorporate the other info from the first two graphs.

AP STYLE on things like 9 a.m. (instead of 9 o’clock this morning). Capitalize Republicans and Democrats.

Watch your punctuation when you use in-quote attribution in the middle of a sentence – don’t put a period after the attribution (use a comma) and don’t capitalize the first letter in the first word of the remaining part of the sentence.

I may give more feedback later, but this is a start.

Comment on Michael Clemente advises future journalists at Elon by Janna

Janna — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:29:12 +0000

Nice rhythm to the writing here. You have a natural feel for this, and it’s starting to show up more in your work. You are lacking some specific details – he made a number of key points and you don’t outline them. But you did some good storytelling and informing here.

BlackBerry has a capital “B” in the middle.

You need to add the word “Most” at the beginning of this sentence:
Anchors today have only been anchors; they haven’t had actual experience in the field.

Comment on Crime and Courts by Mascotte murder scene cleanup

Mascotte murder scene cleanup — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:33:51 +0000

An interesting arena to write about. It must be a somewhat surreal job to work with murderers daily.

Comment on Keren Rivas speaks at Elon University by Janna

Janna — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:12:00 +0000

You have excellent specific details in this – good storytelling quoting that capture the pertinent content! It’s really great to see the sites listed at the end of the story, but they would be even better if you put them in an info box that you drop into the body of the story up higher where you first refer to the scanner being important in the reporting. Once again you need to go back through and make the attribution professional. You have punctuation problems sometimes, and you should not put attribution before the direct quote; it should come in-quote or after-quote. Another way you could improve is to write an interesting lead; this is a pretty boring hard-news lead.