Chatroulette Comments

This story was about Chatroulette. It had several purposes, but the main focus was about how the site has become a haven for sexual predators, and how children at the site are being subjected to objectionable material. To flesh out the story I talked to several experts from across the country. I first explained how the site works, then I gave evidence suggesting that perverts were on the site, then I gave evidence suggesting that children were on the site. From that point, I described how the children could be adversely affected by what they were seeing, and I described the reasons that perverts were using the site for perverse purposes—even though the site was not intended to be used in that way.

Most of my interviews were located on Profnet.com, which actually worked quite well. I posted my query on the site and had several experts contact me, so I chose the ones that seemed the most qualified. Everyone was helpful and willing to talk.

The hard part was focusing my story after I got all of my information. There was a lot about this site that I found interesting: a 17-year-old made it, it exploded in popularity more quickly than Twitter and Facebook, and many users quickly exposed it.

I decided to focus on the fact that perverts and children were using it. Though I had to explain quickly how the site was used, I then geared my story to illuminating the harm caused by the perverts and the psychological reasons for such lewd acts. The rest of the interesting stuff I tried to work in on the fringes to add description and so forth.

5 more tips from Roy Peter Clark

Tool 20: Choose the number of elements with purpose in mind. This tool teaches you how to utilize numbers when listing adjectives or descriptions. It points out that one element is power. It is meant to make the reader feel that what is listed is powerfully true. Two elements is for comparison and contrast. Three elements is for completeness, wholeness, roundness. Four or more elements is for a descriptive list, inventory, compilation and expansion.

Tool 13: Play with words, even in serious stories. This tool says that writers should be playful or poetic with their words. Clark says the reading vocabulary of the average citizen is greater than the writing vocabulary of the average writer. Basically, he says not to be afraid to get creative with your language and word choice. Try to use unique and descriptive words.

Tool 16: Seek Original Images. This tool tells authors to avoid cliches. Clark says cliches are just phrases strung together that have become common, so they are easy and help writers to avert thinking. Rather than cliches we must always strive to be crafty with our images.

Tool 17: Riff on the language of others. This tool means that you should use other language that writers use to build up your own writing. The tool does not advocate plagiarizing, but says you should create your own variation of what other people in the media have used.

Tool 31: Build your work around a key questioin. This tool basically tells you to develop a good focus. Keep readers questioning, and do so by creating an engine to drive the story. The engine is the question that readers will continually be asking throughout the story.

Writing Tools 5 Entries

Entry 8: Use parallel structure then give it a twist. The tool says to build a pattern in your writing, but break the pattern to give a nice little twist, which will lend more emphasis to what the sentence is about.

Entry 9: Punctuation is meant to be used as tools not as rules. This chapter goes over the uses of punctuation--specifically the use of the comma, semi-colon, colon, dash and period.

Entry 10: Cut Big, then small. This tool teaches you to write concisely. It gives you guides on how to trim the fat from your work. It says to start wordy, but always plan for rewrites, which are used to cut. It says to cut adverbs that intensify rather than modify, prepositional phrases that repeat the obvious, phrases that grow on words, abstract nouns that hid active verbs, and restatements.

Tool 11: Prefer the Simple over the Technical. This tool teaches you to turn hard facts into simplified prose. It says that this can make complicated subjects artistic and easier for your readers to read. It says simplicity is a craft that a writer must develop as a craft.

Tool 12: Give Key Words their Space. This rule says writers should be mindful of the words they are using. They should try to avoid using key words repetitively. Clark says key words deserve their territory, and using key words too frequently dilutes the meaning of them.

Story Ideas From Palko

1) The education building hosts workshops every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 to 5:30. These workshops cover a wide range of academic subjects and are simply to help students perform better as students. I talked to a couple of people who say they come at least once a week.

2) There is a center within the field of education called the Center for Urban Education. This center focuses on recruiting and preparing teachers for working in urban schools, helps to improve teaching methods in urban settings, and helps conduct research regarding best practices at schools. One of the programs works with high school students in an attempt to get them excited for college and to recruit them as future educators.

What I learned from story 2

My second story was about a biologist and his extensive work on freshwater ecosystems. Since the article dealt with subjects of scientific nature, it was both complicated and informative. I was overwhelmed by the amount of information I needed to condense into the story. Dr. Drenner has done a ton of things in his life, and there were several different angles I could have put on the story. I decided that I wanted to focus on the amount of research he has done, what research he has done, and what he has done as an educator and Department Chair. I used the other things I learned about him as anecdotes to draw up the image of the man. I was challenged by the scientific jargon, since I learned in my previous piece the hard way, I wanted to make it as simple for readers as possible. I tried to keep scientific terms out as much as I could, and I tried to explain in laymen's terms.

Book Store Field Trip

10 Helpful Books for a Writer
1) On Writing--Steven King
2) Line by Line: How to edit your own Writing--Claire Cook
3) How to Write and Sell Your Novel
4) The Elements of Nonfiction--Peter Rubie
5) Putting your Passion into Print: Get your book published successfully
7) How to get a Literary Agent--Michael Larsen
8)How I got Published: Famous Authors tell you in their own words--Ray White and Diane Lindsay
9) Thinking Like your Editor--Alfred Fortunado
10) The Elements of Style--E.b. Strunk and White

Magazines with Feature Stories

1) Esquire had a profile on Blake Lively
2) Men's Health is full of stories on how to get stronger, how to cook, how to pick up attractive women
3) GQ had an interview with Rihanna and it was listed in Q and A format
4) Adventure Magazine had a section on how to survive in a post-apocolyptic world
5) CNN Traveller had articles such as: Istandbul: What to do in a day; India: Trekking in Darjeeling; Okinawa: Secrets of a Long Life; Utah: Finding the Old West

Writers Market

I actually purchased the Writers Market immediately. What a world of opportunity contained within this book! I've never know how much magazines pay, nor that there were so many different magazines and journals and such looking for people's work. I like writing fiction in my spare time, and have actually built up a portfolio of short stories. I never really even thought about selling them, but now that I have this book, I may give it a shot. There are several literary magazines that I went through and highlighted that may be interested in some of my work.

I also think it would be fun to write for a travel magazine, and though I am sure many people try to do this, maybe the next time I go backpacking through South America or Europe I will try to think of some entries to send off to a travel mag such as CNN traveller or Coast to Coast Magazine.

Another genre I find interesting is thePolitics and World Affairs genre. I could see myself writing some pieces about happenings in various places. I grew up in El Paso, right next door to Juarez, Mexico one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and I have thought recently about doing some reporting on the situation that is unfolding with the drug cartels and all of the violence. Perhaps, work such as this could fit in in one of these political or world affairs magazines.

Writing The Profile Piece

This was the first feature story I have ever done, and I've got to say that from the get-go I was a little more excited than I had ever been on my dining services beat during reporting. I was excited that I was finally able to unleash a little literary fervor that had been long-repressed since writing only hard-news stories.

My story was on an artist and the artist's aesthetic is, of course, visual. Therefore, I knew that I wanted to try and capture all of the visually stimulating aspects of his work; I wanted to mirror his work in my story and to try using words to encapsulate not only the actual art itself but the artist's style and methodology. For that reason, I knew that I would have to spend some time just observing him work. This is the first story for which I have scheduled multiple interviews with my subject, but I decided I would have a primary interview session and then follow up with an observation/interview session. The first one I used to get all the logistics: his inspiration, his life-story, his goals, a foundation upon which to gear my story. The second one, where I observed, I used to actually ask him about his technique; while he was painting I would ask what he was doing and why. I felt that in this way I had a real feel for what his style was. I got to catch a glimpse of what it took to create these paintings. I also got to go to his actual studio, and that was what gave me the inspiration for my lead. Had I not seen his place of work with all its colorful chaos, crammed with canvasses finished and unfinished, paint on the floors and walls, I would have never fathomed much of the lead or my story. It allowed me to see the shear volume of his work, which led me to inquire about his work ethic, which led me to realize how much of himself he actually put into the painting. The dude works incessantly!

Afterwards, I wanted to talk to one of his professors to get a feel of how he measured up in comparison to other painters in Moudy. I also wanted to get a professional opinion of his work, and to just dig around and see what further commentary I could acquire.

Finally, I spoke with one of the artist's patrons. I thought this would be a good way to show the audience that the artist was generating some response within the community around him. This person I talked with had purchased three of DJ's paintings, so it was good to get a patrons point of view. She told me why she liked the paintings and gave a little emotional appeal to the story.

The only challenge I had was in trying to explain the sometimes abstract and technical descriptions artists use to describe their work. The professor I interviewed especially used strange and obscure references that I would have to decode so that the typical reader could understand.