Thursday, December 8, 2011

Hindsight, or Tips for future Journalism 120 Honors Students


This is blog #16. I will complete my 20th blog entry, as per my honors assignment, on Monday, December 12. The assignment stated that the 20 posts had to be completed by the end of the semester. Therefore, even though regular classes end tomorrow, I am hoping that Monday still makes the deadline.

What I want to do with this post is to state what I wished I had done differently with this blog assignment, and perhaps a Journalism 120 student next year will be able to benefit from my hindsight and general tips..
            
The first thing is the most obvious: do not procrastinate. Here I am late in the semester, trying to prepare for my finals, and I still have to worry about figuring out what I am going to write about every night…and then I have to write it. It is not as if I dislike writing, I actually love it, but I find myself grasping at straws on which topic to cover as the time ticks away. This makes my posts seem rushed and at times incoherent.
           
 If I just kept a schedule of one blog post per week, with two or three weeks with two posts, I would not be writing this “How To” post right now. In addition, there is always one big media-related news story in every given week to write about. If it is a big story, with opinions on it flying on both sides—writing your blog post will be simple. However, if you wait until the end, it is hard to come up with a quality post.
           
 My final tip is this, when searching for journalism-related topics to blog about, just go to Poynter for actual stories and tips from journalists, or go to the Huffington Post’s Media Page for more controversial and sensational topics to write about.
            
Anyway, my plans are to keep this blog going long after this class ends, so I hope you will all see my writing develop over time…for the better I hope.

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