Discusses the unique role of a yearbook. Contends that yearbooks deserve the same quality consideration and respected status as newspapers and that both can serve journalism education objectives. (MS)

It is suggested that a title provides the key component in a reader's ability to interpret a text. Experiments conducted with short news texts demonstrate that a title that is too vague, general, or inadequate to the main idea of the text entails a longer reading time or deficiencies in comprehension. (eight references) (LB)

Describes how an English class is organized to collaborate in preparing a weekly news column about their high school's activities for the local newspaper. (MG)

Analysis of 150 years of accident news writing in the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald is presented, with the aim of uncovering the genesis of the "hard" news story and locating the practice of news writing in a historical context. Parallels are suggested between the nature of accident stories and the role and concerns of print media in…

Notes that disasters are not simply large accidents but different kinds of events. Reviews journalism textbooks, finding that the authors who dealt with disaster coverage often state as fact what social scientists have shown to be inaccurate: most texts confuse accidents with disasters, are unaware panic is not a problem, and assume that complete…

Examines newspaper statements about a politician, describing their rhetorical work in the political context and suggesting that the three segments of the articles were conceptually distant texts due to the degree of ambiguity that made an insider reading difficult for foreigners. The paper discusses the double exposure needed to arrive at a…

Presents an activity for secondary students in which they investigate the most famous trials of the 20th century. Explains that students learn the structure of a newspaper report when writing articles on their chosen trial. Includes a poster, a handout, and a list of famous trials. (CMK)

Outlines what feature writers for their school's media can learn from the winning entries in last year's Quill & Scroll International Writing and Photography contest. Discusses seven ingredients of winning stories, and outlines seven general weaknesses found among the 503 stories evaluated for the competition. (SR)

Notes that with evidence suggesting self-efficacy is correlated with writing performance, this study focuses on identifying other variables related to self-efficacy. Concludes that such information proves useful because it may help instructors gain a better understanding of their students' performance throughout the semester and may better explain…

A study aimed to examine how reading assessment information is understood and used by two powerful groups: federal legislators and members of the news media. Attempts were made to contact federal legislators on educational subcommittees to discuss how they used reading assessment information to make legislative policy decisions and to vote on…

A study investigated college students' reactions to a news story written in the traditional "inverted pyramid" format and the same story rearranged into a "mapped" format (where similar information is gathered under heads and subheads). Seventy students were given the story in either the "mapped" or the traditional…

News writing students at two universities were surveyed concerning their perceptions of freshman composition and its usefulness for other academic writing, journalistic writing, and the work world. The survey was also designed to determine whether students believed freshman composition and journalism emphasized the same writing skills and whether…

A videotape program was designed for use in news writing classes to provide journalism students with exposure to and experience in covering press conferences. The mock press conference format was selected because an analysis of journalism textbooks revealed little attention to this topic, and it was decided that an elected public official from the…

Investigative reporting won new attention in the wake of the Watergate exposures of the 1970s, but few focused on the role of teamwork. Given the historiographical tendency to declare the Muckraking Era of the early 1900s the dawn of investigative reporting, this limitation of the popular reaction to Watergate was not surprising. In the twentieth…

News and editorial coverage of the Ponca controversy of 1879 was investigated in an effort to discover why and how this particular Indian story became a national crusade. The Ponca campaign helped promote reform-minded legislation which conferred new rights on the Indians and promised to speed their assimilation into mainstream society. The Dawes…