News Story

Definition

            In a News Story, you learn as much as you can about a subject and present your findings in a way that makes sense and holds your reader attention.  Your story can be a report of an event, an interview, or a compiled report on an issue.

Gathering Information

You can consult a variety of sources about a timely, interesting topic.  Your sources may include books, articles, internet sources, interviews, etc.  Your goal is to bring together this information into a unified report that informs and/or entertains your readers.

Two steps:

• Collecting – Consult a number of sources, taking careful notes about your subject.  Be careful to be accurate with facts, figures, and quotations.
• Assessing – Come to some conclusion about the significance of the information you collected.  Let that conclusions be the thesis of your paper.  Then plan your report, selecting and arranging the facts to support this focus. 

Thesis Development

            Your thesis will be the ideas you’ve formed after collecting material.  The thesis may be about the value of the subject, the impact it has on society, the causes and effects related to it, the significance to others, etc. 

Organization

            A News Story can be organized in a number of ways.  If it is of an event, a chronological format can be used.  If this plan is used, the writer should continue to draw the reader’s attention not only to the progression of events, but also to the manner in which they support the thesis.  Sometimes a News Story is about various people, and separate paragraphs can be devoted to each person.  If an issue is discussed, the writer will need to break it into its primary components.   

Essay Guidelines

– Due dates:  Pre-Write due March 26; Rough Draft due April 2;  Final Draft due April 23

– Essay length:  500 – 700 words (between 2 and 4 pages)

– Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

– Final draft format:

– Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

– 1 inch margins

– Name and date on the upper right hand corner

– Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

– Title centered above the text of the essay

– Note:  You may print the final draft in a more newspaper-like format.