Instructor
Instructor: Dr. Bob Bergland
email address: bergland@missouriwestern.edu
Homepage: http://staff.missouriwestern.edu/users/bergland/
Office: EDER 221a Phone: 271-4446
Home phone: 279-1699 (between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.)
Office Hours: M-F 2-3
Required Materials
Email access, WebCT access
Recommended: Flash drive, AP Stylebook
Course Goals
The course is designed to help you:
¥ Learn the process of writing news stories
¥ Learn how to coach other writers and improve their work
¥ Learn, apply, and hone journalistic writing skills
¥ To give you hands-on experience writing various types of articles
¥ To increase your portfolio size, diversity and quality
¥ Develop time management skills to meet deadlines
¥ Develop and use interviewing skills
¥ Actively seek and discuss current news events
¥ Look for news and see newsworthiness from a variety of sources
¥ Understand journalistic ethics and that news affects people's lives
¥ Gain an insight of the connection between the news media, public
relations and other communication fields
Groundrules
¥ Attendance: Regular attendance is required. Much of the work in a writing class happens in the classroom, and whatever you miss cannot be made up. Each absence over four will result in your final course evaluation being lowered one grade. Excessive tardiness or leaving early without prior notice may also be considered an absence. After you miss four classes—for whatever reason--then to have a subsequent absence be excused, you must both call me beforehand and provide documentation for the excuse by the next class period. It is a good idea to inform me of planned absences; at the very least, be sure to talk to a classmate about what you missed.
¥ Assignments. Almost all assignments will need to be turned in electronically and on time. Deadlines are crucial in journalism, public relations and technical writing. Unless announced otherwise, stories and homework assignments are due at the beginning of the class period. Assignments turned in between five minutes and up to one day late will have their scores reduced by 50 percent. After 24 hours, there is 0 credit.
¥ Plagiarism: An act of plagiarism or other academic dishonesty (such as fabricating facts/sources/quotations) usually results in an F for the course.
¥ Disabilities: Students with a disability that may affect their performance in this class should contact me individually as soon as possible.
¥ Policies:
1. Every student has a right to learn in a calm atmosphere and to
share his/her opinion in a calm manner at an appropriate time.
2. When you are interviewing someone for a story: tell the interviewee that you are NOT a Griffon News or Griffon Yearbook reporter but that you may submit the story to the newspaper or yearbook for consideration. You should have them sign a permission form if you want to submit your article for publication.
3. For any story project that requires the entire class attend a single event outside class time, you are expected to attend or to inform me well in advance in case of conflict so that an alternate assignment/schedule may be made. An absence from these events counts toward your absences.
I am always willing to help you improve any documents, whether they are first drafts of documents to be turned in later, already graded documents or documents you produce for other classes or a company or organization.
Stories (625 points) Homework (25 points each)
Convocation preview 50 points ________ Leads _____
Arn Simulation 50 points ________ Feature leads _____
Convocation 100 points _______ Stylebook _____
Sports story 100 points _______ Short Story _____
Meeting story 100 points _______ Crime story _____
Feature story 125 points _______ Press Release _____
Enterprise 100 points _______ Proposal _____
Ethics Essay _____
Test #1 (75 points) _______
Stylebook, leads, reading/lecture, stories
Test #2 (100 points) ________
leads, reading/lecture, stories
A = 900-1,000 B = 800-899 C = 700-799 D = 600-699