JB4413 News Editing II Syllabus

Class

Class meetings: 8:30 to 11:20 a.m. Mondays & Wednesdays, 201 Paul Miller Building

Instructor

Stan Ketterer, assistant professor, 307 Paul Miller Building
Office hours: 10:30 a.m. to noon Tuesdays and Thursdays or by appointment.
Office phone: 744-8096
Home phone: 372-1754
E-mail: kstan@okstate.edu

Required Texts

Newspaper Layout and Design (LD), Daryl Moen.
Working with Words (WW).Brian S. Brooks, James L. Pinson, and Jean Gaddy Wilson.
The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual (AP).

You also will be required to have a calculator and a pica pole, which is available from the university book store. In addition, you must have a 3.5 inch computer diskette.

Recommended Texts

Webster's New World Dictionary, Third Edition.

Recommended reading

The Daily O'Collegian, the Tulsa World, the Daily Oklahoman, and the Stillwater News-Press

Course objectives

The course will cover advanced news editing and design. Students will learn how to edit and design the front page and the main news section of a newspaper, as well as feature, sports and editorial pages. They also will be introduced to the principles of World Wide Web page design.

After exploring the role of editors, students will learn the language and principles of newspaper design and apply them when designing inside and front pages of the main news section. Students will learn to edit specialized stories, including obituaries, crime stories and accident stories. The focus then will shift to editing and designing other sections of the newspaper. Consequently, students will learn how to edit stories in each section, such as features, editorials and sports stories and columns. They also will learn the principles of typography and the advanced principles of feature design.. In addition, they will design specialty pages, such as sports.

Because of changes in the newspaper industry, news and copy editors often must design pages, edit the stories and write headlines, and paginate the page as well. Thus, students will be performing all of these tasks, including by designing pages with paper dummies and paginating them in Quark XPress.

Finally, students will learn the principles of Web page design. Students will learn to apply the designed principles that they learned for newspapers, as well as principles that are unique to the Web.

Course goals

At the completion of the course, students should:

• Understand the role of news editors, copy editors and page designers.
  
• Write clear and accurate headlines, decks and captions.
  
• Edit general news stories, as well as obituaries, crime and court stories, fire stories and accident stories.
  
• Understand the language and principles of design.
  
• Design effective inside and front newspaper pages.
  
• Understand the principles of feature page design.
  
• Edit feature, editorial and sports page stories.
  
• Design effective feature, editorial and sports pages.
  
• Understand the principles of Web page design.

What You'll Do

Class meetings will focus on the principles of editing and design, as well as their application. Consequently, it is imperative that you attend class and read the text so that you can apply what you have learned. The School of Journalism and Broadcasting is a professional school, and you must learn to work and act like a professional journalist, including meeting all deadlines and stressing accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. You must be the eyes of the reader and the guardian of your publication's credibility.

Because editing is central to the course, students will do an editing exercise at the beginning of most classes. The exercises and the ensuing discussions are designed to reinforce what students learned in Editing I and remedy any lingering problems.

After the instructor has explained a topic, students will do editing and design exercises using Quark XPress. Most of these exercises will be done in class. Students also can work on their midterm and final design projects in class.

In addition, students will do an out-of-class editing and design project with a student from the advanced reporting class. News editors, copy editors and page designers must be able to work effectively with reporters and city editors. They must work together to ensure the best presentation of the story for readers. This planning should include text and visual elements, including photos and graphic elements. The designer and reporter teams will be responsible for the story and the finished page. Students from this class will edit, design and paginate the page. Finished pages will be submitted to the editor in chief of the Daily O'Collegian for possible publication.

Attendance policy

Attendance is required to do well in this course. Journalists are required to do their jobs daily and to make deadlines. Editors who are frequently late or miss work will be fired. Consequently, roll will be kept. Roll will be taken when class begins. If you come in late, you will be counted as absent and will not be allowed to take the editing exercise.

Students will take quizzes and do exercises nearly every week. In addition, they will do three editing and design projects. If students miss quizzes and exercises or do not turn in their editing and design projects on time, they will receive a zero for that work unless they have one of three acceptable excuses. If they have an acceptable excuse, students are responsible for finding out what they missed and arranging to make it up with the instructor. Missed work must be made up within two weeks, or students will receive a zero.

The acceptable excuses are the death of a family member, personal illness, and required attendance at an official school function. In all cases, the instructor must be notified BEFORE the student misses class or lab. If the instructor cannot be reached, leave a message with an office assistant at the School of Journalism and Broadcasting. Students who fail to notify the instructor before missing a class will receive a zero.

Illnesses must be serious enough to warrant attention by a medical practitioner. A signed note on official stationary from a doctor or the student health clinic is required. In addition, students must present a signed note before missing class for an official school function. The note must be on school stationary and must be signed by the appropriate university official. Students who do not have a signed note on official stationary will receive a zero.

Grading

At the beginning of most classes, students will take editing quizzes. They also will be doing editing and design exercises during class. Some of the exercises will familiarize students with editing and design techniques and computer programs. They will not be graded. Graded exercises will focus on application of those techniques.

Students will have a midterm design project. The project will consist of editing, designing and paginating a front page of a newspaper. They also will do and an outside editing and design project and a final editing project, which will have a format similar to the midterm.

Here's how your final grade will be determined:

	Editing quizzes	10 percent
	Editing and design exercises	35 percent
	Midterm design project	15 percent
	Outside design project	20 percent
	Final design project	20 percent

The instructor will divide the student's points by the total points possible for that portion of the grade and weight the result. For example, if a student received 45 points out of 50 for editing quizzes, the result would be: 45/50 = .9 x .10 (10 percent weight) = .09. The results of all of the parts would be added to give the final score for the class.

In most cases, the following grades will be given:

	A: 90 percent and above.
	B: 80 percent to less than 90 percent.
	C: 70 percent to less than 80 percent.
	D: 60 percent to less than 70 percent.
	F: Less than 60 percent.

The instructor reserves the right to adjust the grades depending on the scores in the class. For instance, if the highest grade were 91 percent, an 89 might be an A.

Students who have questions about the grading of assignments and tests should talk first with me. If we cannot resolve the matter, you may visit or write Dr. Paul Smeyak, director of the School of Journalism and Broadcasting. Dr. Smeyak can appoint a committee to look into the situation.

Academic honesty

Honesty has a special meaning for journalists because our credibility depends upon truthfulness in communicating with thousands of people each day. Academic honesty also is fundamental to the activities and principles of a university. Members of the university community must be confident that each person's work has been responsibly and honorably acquired, developed and presented. All the work you do in this class must be your own. In journalistic writing, plagiarism is using someone else's material and claiming it is yours, handing in someone else's work as your own, using faked quotes, not giving appropriate attribution or citation of a source where information has been obtained, or any other form of misrepresenting your work.

The academic community regards plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty as an extremely serious matter, with serious consequences. If plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty is suspected, the instructor will follow the procedures and policies governing student behavior as outlined in the Acts of Academic Dishonesty and Misconduct of Oklahoma State University and the Board of Regents.

E-mail

We will be communicating in various ways, including electronic mail. Students should have an e-mail account to participate in this class.