Category: Suggs’ notes

Audio profiles and notes

So I assume everyone is working away and doing fine, but please don’t hesitate to let me know if you run into problems. To review from the video and class, the key thing that will help you is Working From A Plan:

  1. You’ve all recorded your primary interviews so far. Listen to them a couple of times and write down good quotes and the time signatures from your recording (like 5:40-5:55).
  2. Compose your voiceovers–the sections where you tell your subject’s story to intersperse with their quotes. Record them, ideally in separate files.
  3. Go back to your reporting and export those good quotes (soundbites) to separate files.
    1. (This is my personal hack: name them in the order you want them to appear.)
  4. Open up Audition (or Audacity or something else), create a new multitrack file, and import your files to the timeline.
  5. Make sure the audio levels are comparable (i.e. it doesn’t sound like you’re shouting and your profile subject is whispering.)
  6. Upload to soundcloud and link as instructed in the module!

Thursday is work time for doing interviews for your profile, two of which are due Friday. If you’re having trouble getting hold of your profile subject, you need to switch to your plan B now and contact. Interviews should be done in person or at worst, over the phone. I’ll be in the classroom to answer questions or discuss anything you’d like, but you don’t have to come.

Poynter tests are due Oct. 1. Good luck!

Instructions for Poynter grammar module for this course

We all sometimes need to review (or maybe encounter) the basic elements of grammar and word choice to make our writing as clear and precise as possible. To that end, you will participate in News U’s Language Primer online course and take their tests on punctuation, grammar, and word use.

Please note: it is totally up to you how much of the coursework, review materials, quizzes etc. you actually complete. What I care about is if you can pass ALL THREE of the tests. The passing grade is 80%. This is an all-or-nothing assignment: pass all three and you get full marks; fail one or more and you get nada.

That said, you get three tries at each test. So what I’d recommend is that you take each test once and see how you do. If you don’t get past 80 on any one individual test, then study those elements and go back and try again.

To access the tests, go to the News U URL for this class–https://www.newsu.org/UGA_JOUR5580fall16–and login or create a new Poynter account. The cost is $14.95, although if you’ve taken other Poynter courses you’ll get a discount.

All tests must be complete by Oct. 1.

We will do some practice work in class, but I expect this to be something you can knock out on your own. And first and foremost, don’t let this linger. The tests will be fairly straightforward, but you probably haven’t studied this stuff since high school, so it will take a little while to get those muscles going. If you wait until a few days before to start, I practically guarantee you will fail. Do the first round of tests preferably this weekend.

Here are some more documents that may be helpful:

DashboardLocations

DCP_StudentInstrux

 

Example–class exercise for Thursday, August 18

Here’s the kind of profile I want you to construct in class:

Suggs striving for more challenges

By THE CLASS

Dr. Welch Suggs grew up in Decatur, Ga., long before it became a funky enclave on the east side of Atlanta. He went to Rhodes College in Memphis and studied philosophy to engage with big-picture questions about the universe before going to grad school at Missouri to become a journalist.

One of his favorite authors is Gary Smith, the best profile writer ever. Smith is well-known for interviewing 50 people before interviewing profile subjects, and the depth of information and artistry in his profiles is breathtaking. His favorite book is All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren, which is so intricately constructed that he can go back and reread it once a year and get new things out of it.

During his career he wrote for a number of magazines, and one of his favorite stories was about how the Lady Vols basketball team at Tennessee became one of the few women’s programs to generate more money in revenue than they spent. Coach Pat Summitt was an amazing woman, so this summer brought back a lot of memories.

Early on in his career, an editor told him that the only thing you ever owe your boss is a solid day’s work. It keeps him focused on both doing a good job in the moment and keeping his own career goals in mind. He prefers interviewing with a notebook over working with a recorder. He says it keeps his mind more focused on the interview and requires less work to transcribe afterward.

In 2005, he moved back to Georgia after a career in journalism unsure of his next steps, but a conversation with a source led him to enroll in the Ph.D. program at UGA’s Institute of Higher Education. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to become a professor or an administrator when he started the program, but then-UGA president Michael F. Adams hired him for his staff in 2007. His worst class was a doctoral seminar called “Academic Programs”–to this day he is not sure what it was about.

After five years of teaching in the journalism department and the sports media program, he is thinking about next challenges. They will almost certainly involve writing a book, but he is not sure whether he will continue teaching or move to more of an administrative role. Should he leave UGA, he will miss North Campus and particularly the Abraham Baldwin statue, whose construction he oversaw while in the president’s office.

This summer, Suggs, his wife, and his two children traveled to his wife’s family’s cottage on Pelee Island in Lake Erie. It was incredibly quiet and restful.