A Reflection on Spring 2021

By Sarah Dills

Published May 14, 2021

The spring semester of 2021 was the first semester I was pursuing the Journalism and Media Communications major. Previously, I had been an English major for all three of my college semesters. However, I desired a major that was more applicable to the real world and had a bigger variety of career opportunities. After declaring my new major in December 2020, I took my first two courses in this concentration, one of them being Newswriting. The contrast between academic writing and newswriting was a bit of a shock to me and has taken a lot of practice to begin to get the hang of. The accommodations I needed to make to write in a different format than the way I had been writing for 10-plus years were difficult but have given me insight on how to be a better writer and overall student.

One of the biggest changes I had to make in order to be successful in Newswriting was my time management skills. I have been a frequent procrastinator and as an English major, I had gotten good at starting and finishing essays in one sitting, usually a few hours before it was due. I knew I was practicing bad writing habits, but I continued to get positive feedback, so I didn’t see a need to change. While working on the articles for this class, I quickly discovered that though the assignments are shorter in length than a typical academic paper, newswriting has so many factors playing into it. It requires research, writing in a specific format, checking to make sure it is written in AP Style, taking photographs, making infographics and lots of editing and reviewing.

Especially with interviews, it isn’t simply talking to a person, but involves scheduling conflicts, follow-up interviews, reviewing their answers and finding appropriate quotes. Newswriting, I learned, really isn’t something that can be left for the last minute. I hated to feel the stress of racing the clock to not only finish an article but to submit good writing. After feeling that stress a few times, I began to give myself more time than I thought I needed to finish a story. And more often than not, I still worked up until the deadline. I’ve learned that I do not enjoy the feelings that accompany procrastinating and I have made it a goal of mine in future classes and in my career to give myself more time on assignments than I think is necessary.

As I mentioned, learning to write in new formats was new for me. Prior to this class, I had only written academic essays and stories with linear narratives. This class taught me that there are many other ways to tell the same story and each format can bring a different feel to the story. Especially writing in the Wall Street Journal format, I learned how stories can be nonlinear and still get the same meaning across, maybe even in a more interesting way. I felt a sense of pride as I read back the stories I wrote for this class. I’ve always enjoyed writing and have been told I am a talented writer, but the academic essays I’ve written were never exciting to reread. This class, being my first journalism class, taught me that writing doesn’t have to be dry and academic. There are countless ways to write stories that don’t involve an introduction, conclusion and body paragraphs. I am looking forward to continuing to improve writing in different formats and to being able to enjoy rereading my work.

This class also taught me how important checking the AP Stylebook is. Writing in AP style is something that I hadn’t done before this class, so I was learning all of the rules as I wrote. AP style has a lot of rules that are different from other styles I had previously written in. After taking the first few quizzes, I discovered that I still need to check the Stylebook for a lot of the rules before I know them by heart. In the past, I have struggled with thinking that asking for help is a sign of weakness. In the past, I’ve been a person who would rather work for hours trying to figure out an issue than ask someone for help. By needing to check the Stylebook to get a good grade, I realized that it is not a weakness to utilize the tools provided, but it is smart and helps me achieve success. This will be a helpful lesson to have learned, not just for AP style and newswriting, but for myself in the future to be able to ask my peers and superiors for help when I need it.

Another applicable skill this class taught me is how to listen “correctly.” I am an avid talker and though I like to think I am a good listener, there is room for improvement. Though the skills taught in this class were focused on listening in a professional setting, specifically interviews, I applied many of the suggestions to my personal life as well. By working on things such as eye contact, good posture and verbal and physical indicators, I have seen immediate improvements in my conversations. Knowing that the people I am speaking with are feeling more heard and acknowledged makes me feel good and like I am being supportive. I know how much I appreciate being listened to and the listening skills I learned in this class will continue to help me reciprocate the gesture.

The listening skills that I learned were a great foundation for what I learned about interviewing. This class gave me the first experience of being the interviewer instead of the interviewee. I have always been nervous going into interviews and those nerves didn’t go away when I was facilitating. In class, I learned a lot about how to research, write questions and connect to the interviewee. One of the tricky parts about interviewing is that no matter how much you prepare, there is no way to completely plan how an interview will go. For example, I can write a question that could prompt a response that would fit perfectly in my writing, but I can’t plan for the interviewee to not have much to say on that topic. For that reason, I felt nervous as I interviewed because there is a big element of thinking on your feet for new or follow-up questions, all while staying professional. Something that helped me stay calm was remembering that everyone I interviewed is a person, too. They also experience bad days and feel flustered or unprepared. This reminder helped me stay grounded while I interviewed and helped clear my mind of anxieties. Remembering that everyone I speak with, professionally or personally, is a human with their own emotions and not just a subject will continue to give me empathy and humility in the future.

As I reflect on the things I learned this semester in Newswriting, I see that this class provided me with much more than how to write news articles. Of course, it did teach me how to write a well-formatted, interesting and professional article in the correct AP style about various topics. Yet the class also taught me that procrastination and always working up to the last second is not an enjoyable way to work. I would much rather work a little bit every day for a week than to work for five-plus hours straight on the day of the deadline. I also feel much more prepared for interactions I will have in my future professional and personal life. Listening is one of the most important parts of a discussion and without actively listening, I will miss important details, in both interviews and conversations. Additionally, the people I interact with are just that; human beings who experience all of the same emotions that I do. As I mentioned, I switched majors to learn skills that are more applicable to my life and my desired career path. The many things I learned in the Newswriting course have proven to me that I am working towards a major that will continue to teach me how to grow as a journalist and as a person.