I joined the OHS Press during my sophomore year of high school. Writing had always been something i enjoyed and wanted to do more of, so i decided to take both lit/comp 10 and journalism. The first article I wrote was a review of the restaurant Ozzy’s Kabobs. Converting the way I wrote to match journalistic style was not easy and definitely took some time for me to fully grasp.
The most difficult changes I had to implement into my writing were remembering that in journalism you do not indent paragraphs and contractions are not allowed. It was frustrating when I would get my stories back from the editors and they were covered in red ink, but it just motivated me to work harder.
Another thing about journalism is that when you are writing a straight news piece you can not include your opinion. This is different than most academic pieces I was used to writing, where my opinion was a major part of whatever I was working on. I am now in my second year of journalism and I believe that even though journalistic style is much different than academic, my participation in the paper has made me a stronger writer.
The way I learned about journalistic style most was simply to do the best I could and then fix whatever I had done wrong. It seems like an excruciating process, but it felt good after I started to learn the ways of journalism. The AP Style book was and continues to be a helpful resource when I do not know a certain rule of journalism.
I have attached a link to a specialty page on the Purdue OWL where they talk about journalistic style. Check it out and see how much different the guidelines are compared to something you would write for our American Literature class.
owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/735/01/
-liz
The most difficult changes I had to implement into my writing were remembering that in journalism you do not indent paragraphs and contractions are not allowed. It was frustrating when I would get my stories back from the editors and they were covered in red ink, but it just motivated me to work harder.
Another thing about journalism is that when you are writing a straight news piece you can not include your opinion. This is different than most academic pieces I was used to writing, where my opinion was a major part of whatever I was working on. I am now in my second year of journalism and I believe that even though journalistic style is much different than academic, my participation in the paper has made me a stronger writer.
The way I learned about journalistic style most was simply to do the best I could and then fix whatever I had done wrong. It seems like an excruciating process, but it felt good after I started to learn the ways of journalism. The AP Style book was and continues to be a helpful resource when I do not know a certain rule of journalism.
I have attached a link to a specialty page on the Purdue OWL where they talk about journalistic style. Check it out and see how much different the guidelines are compared to something you would write for our American Literature class.
owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/735/01/
-liz