November Blog II

For the most part, the process of writing my Spirit Week/Pep Rally article went well. I got in touch with Ms. Deluca early in the week which was beneficial, because we had conflicting schedules, and it took a few days to find a time to meet that worked for both of us. I wrote this article before class which eliminated stress and helped get me home in me to finish other work. I received a lot of usable information from my interviews, but because of my article’s word count limit, I was not able to use it all. However, this acted as an obstacle anyway, and because of the double topic aspect of my article, I wound up writing too much and had to cut some of what I had written. A more general obstacle for me was writing headline options. Headlines are one of my points of weakness, and have been a reoccurring difficulty and annoyance. To produce a more productive piece, I could have interviewed Ms. Porcaro to get a better angle on the pep rally. I also could have planned out my article before writing it, which may have eliminated the need to cut it down.

November Blog I

From gloucestertimes.com, I found the article Manchester-Essex a capella group performs tonight. The headline, stating the main point, is what first caught my eye. I was immediately drawn to this article because I saw the headline and realized it is about something I am involved in it. This article has an affect on me and my friends and family, because I am mentioned in it. As a SoundWave, I was intrigued when I saw my name in an article I did not know existed. However, reading the article was horrifying. It is littered with errors and clearly was not proofread. Kendra Noyes needs to learn to use her first draft checklist. The problems begin with the headline. Noyes spells a cappella wrong, dropping the second “p” and continues to misspell it throughout the article. Noyes also states that the group will perform tonight. The article was posted today, November 19th, but the performance is actually tomorrow, the 20th. The article goes on to misspell the name of our group, adding an unnecessary space in between SoundWaves. It also claims that the SoundWaves are “one of 16 singing groups performing.” This information is plain wrong, as we are actually one of 8 groups performing. On a positive note, the article includes important details of the performance such as time and cost. It also ends with a strong quote from assistant principal Paul Murphy, but overall, it is painful to read.

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/local/x117337735/Manchester-Essex-a-capella-group-performs-tonight