The presentations have really helped me come along with my paper. They helped me to know which direction to be looking. Since then, I've been able to make a lot of progress. I've found that writing a paper like this is a process. You can't get one place until you been to another. You start off looking for basically anything you can find, then you use what you do find. You read it, then you find search for something based upon what you've just read. After that, you can do that again until you find everything you need. Before the presentation, I honestly did not know what I was going to do. After seeing the first days, however, I realized what it was I needed to search for, and I found it. Now I'm ready to finish up my paper.
I found the presentations to be very interesting. Everyone in the medical field is basically taking the same approach, but in different ways, or as I've said before, "They're on the same information superhighway, they're just traveling in different directions". I think it's interesting to think on the standpoint of delivering bad news. That would be a very difficult thing to do. Personally, I have a light of experience with that. I had a bone tumor my freshman year in high school, and I thought my doctor handled it very well. She told me all the possibilities it could be, but didn't say she was leaning anyway until she knew for sure. Along with her knowing for sure, she told me that it was benign, and that it probably wasn't even going to take surgery.
The other presentations were very interesting too. I especially liked the hostage negotiation one. I left him a blog comment talking about how that information is good for everyone to know. You can use that kind of language in hardening situations. For example, if you have a friend who's having a hard time and just needs someone to talk to. I'd say that language also would help new parents communicate with their children as they get older (hint hint Mr. Barnette). But seriously, I was really glad that we got the opportunity to do these presentations, they sure helped me out.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Paper 3 so far....
How many people nowadays get their news from a newspaper? Most news is gotten from the web, tv, or the radio. Newspapers are slowly beginning to dwindle down, as they have many disadvantages. What are the newspapers doing to compete with their counterparts? Journalists have to change their writing styles to help keep the idea of newspapers alive.
Traditionally, newspaper journalists have had a specific way of writing. It was their job to find information and give it to everyone. They had to be directly to the point, showing no means of their own opinions. This took away from the ability to be vivid and creative. That wasn’t ever the job of the journalist. Now with the uprising of blogs and web-journalism, competition leads to a journalistic change. In order to stay in business, the newspapers have to be able to do something to capture the attention of the readers. This something involves writing more from a personal prospective than ever. Journalists now have to be narrative.
There is a technique involved in keeping a reader interested. By using a different style in language, journalists are able to paint a picture into the readers’ heads. They have to “dumb” it down, so to speak, to allow a reader to “see” what’s going on. Journalists nowadays have to learn how to use linguistic exposures.
Linguistic exposures are defined as formulation mechanisms used by the writer to present details of a story in a clear and understandable way. The example given by Grunwald and Lauridsen uses the following sentence: The credit-worthiness of the country has deteriorated. Traditionally, this is how a journalist would have stated this particular fact. However, using a linguistic exposure, journalists will change the sentence to: The faces of our creditors look more and more disbelieving. This allows the reader to fully grasp the concept without having to think too hard on what is meant.
According to Russell and Many, journalists use language collectives. Journalists have to use attribution, which means that they have to give credit to whoever their source is. When a journalist says, “he said” or “she said”, the journalist is attributing the quote to someone. Language collectives attribute a whole group for a decision made within the group. For example, if a journalist were to say that Congress passed a law, this would be using a language collective, because Congress didn’t pass the law, the members of Congress did. This happens a lot.
Journalists use these “metaphors”, because it makes the information simple to understand. This is another way language is used in journalism. Even though Congress didn’t actually pass the law, everyone understands what is meant by using that phrase. Besides, it sounds better and is simpler than writing “the members of Congress” every time.
These language connectives are used very frequently. The New York Times uses language connectives on average of about 24 times a week. This can really be a problem. If you say the CIA solved the case, then you aren’t giving credit to the individuals responsible for solving the case. If you say the White House stated something, this doesn’t give credit to the actual individual. Yet, language connectives are still an easier way to get a point across to the reader.
So far this is what my research has lead me to. I’ve learned a lot already about language in journalism. I believe I’ve found about 75% of my research now; I just have to put it all together now, and find a little bit more. I really like the direction it’s going though.
Traditionally, newspaper journalists have had a specific way of writing. It was their job to find information and give it to everyone. They had to be directly to the point, showing no means of their own opinions. This took away from the ability to be vivid and creative. That wasn’t ever the job of the journalist. Now with the uprising of blogs and web-journalism, competition leads to a journalistic change. In order to stay in business, the newspapers have to be able to do something to capture the attention of the readers. This something involves writing more from a personal prospective than ever. Journalists now have to be narrative.
There is a technique involved in keeping a reader interested. By using a different style in language, journalists are able to paint a picture into the readers’ heads. They have to “dumb” it down, so to speak, to allow a reader to “see” what’s going on. Journalists nowadays have to learn how to use linguistic exposures.
Linguistic exposures are defined as formulation mechanisms used by the writer to present details of a story in a clear and understandable way. The example given by Grunwald and Lauridsen uses the following sentence: The credit-worthiness of the country has deteriorated. Traditionally, this is how a journalist would have stated this particular fact. However, using a linguistic exposure, journalists will change the sentence to: The faces of our creditors look more and more disbelieving. This allows the reader to fully grasp the concept without having to think too hard on what is meant.
According to Russell and Many, journalists use language collectives. Journalists have to use attribution, which means that they have to give credit to whoever their source is. When a journalist says, “he said” or “she said”, the journalist is attributing the quote to someone. Language collectives attribute a whole group for a decision made within the group. For example, if a journalist were to say that Congress passed a law, this would be using a language collective, because Congress didn’t pass the law, the members of Congress did. This happens a lot.
Journalists use these “metaphors”, because it makes the information simple to understand. This is another way language is used in journalism. Even though Congress didn’t actually pass the law, everyone understands what is meant by using that phrase. Besides, it sounds better and is simpler than writing “the members of Congress” every time.
These language connectives are used very frequently. The New York Times uses language connectives on average of about 24 times a week. This can really be a problem. If you say the CIA solved the case, then you aren’t giving credit to the individuals responsible for solving the case. If you say the White House stated something, this doesn’t give credit to the actual individual. Yet, language connectives are still an easier way to get a point across to the reader.
So far this is what my research has lead me to. I’ve learned a lot already about language in journalism. I believe I’ve found about 75% of my research now; I just have to put it all together now, and find a little bit more. I really like the direction it’s going though.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
My research thus far
Having my third paper being on how language effects journalism has been difficult for me. I have been looking up journal entries and researching the rules of language. I have also been researching how journalists deal with having to research news that may be in a different language. The most important thing I have found are that there are several rules to remember for journalists. Not only do American journalists have to know the rules of the English language, but that have to follow an Associated Press style.
Most every form of news requires their employees to know the rules of the Associated Press Stylebook. I actually own one of these stylebooks, so I can somewhat relate to the difficulties of learning a new way to write. A lot of the rules are similar, but are just slightly different, which makes it difficult to learn.
Research has shown that language accents also make it hard for journalists. If there is a heavy accent, the journalist might have a problem reporting what is said. Journalists have to deal with all the different accents of the world. This is due to all the immigrants from different parts of the world. A journalist has to be able to understand each of these accents.
Journalists might also find it a problem to communicate with foreigners because of their lack of knowledge of the English language. So if a journalist wants to conduct an interview, they would have to make sure they asked their questions in a way the interviewee would understand it. I had the personal experience in working with a Polish guy last summer, and I learned this lesson myself. I said many things that were natural for me, that he didn't understand. Words that may be common synonyms for us may mean nothing to someone who uses English as a second language. And this is all my research has shown so far.
Most every form of news requires their employees to know the rules of the Associated Press Stylebook. I actually own one of these stylebooks, so I can somewhat relate to the difficulties of learning a new way to write. A lot of the rules are similar, but are just slightly different, which makes it difficult to learn.
Research has shown that language accents also make it hard for journalists. If there is a heavy accent, the journalist might have a problem reporting what is said. Journalists have to deal with all the different accents of the world. This is due to all the immigrants from different parts of the world. A journalist has to be able to understand each of these accents.
Journalists might also find it a problem to communicate with foreigners because of their lack of knowledge of the English language. So if a journalist wants to conduct an interview, they would have to make sure they asked their questions in a way the interviewee would understand it. I had the personal experience in working with a Polish guy last summer, and I learned this lesson myself. I said many things that were natural for me, that he didn't understand. Words that may be common synonyms for us may mean nothing to someone who uses English as a second language. And this is all my research has shown so far.
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