MASC 352 Journalism Skills(E)

Male Students:      Sun, Tue: 9:40-11:20, 48/010

Female Students:  Sat, Mon, 5:00-6:20, 71/B01

Academic Year 2002-2003

Dr. Abderrahmane Azzi

Office Hours: Sat-M 12:00-1:30

 

Course Description:

The course discusses techniques of reporting and editing. The course covers  different components of news writing: styles, news leads, straight news, feature stories, broadcast news, etc.  The course is based on practical examples and exercises that enable students to develop and enhance their news writings in English.

      

Course Objectives:

• To help students appreciate the writing style of news as a distinctive form of mass communication content.
• To enable students to understand and master the different techniques and styles in news writing.
• To make students able to write and edit news stories based on given facts.
• To provide students with the necessary journalistic skills that will further enhance their ability to report and edit in English.

Topics:

 

1^st  & 2^nd  Week:                         Basics of English Grammar: subject, predicate,

                                                      type of sentence, verb tense, noun, pronoun,

                                                      adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, type of

                                                      clause, punctuation, ….

3^rd Week:                                     News Translation: words, syntaxes, meanings….

4^th Week:                                     The Newspaper: Contents & Concepts: structure,

                                                      hierarchy, newsroom, gatekeeper, news policy,

                                                      editorial, column, advertisement, ….

5^th Week:                                     News Definitions & Sources: news criteria, news

                                                      values, press releases, news agencies,

                                                      correspondents,….

6^th & 7^th Week:                            Newswriting Styles: accuracy, clarity, objectivity,

                                                      balance, conciseness, abbreviation,

                                                      capitalization,….   

8^th Week:                                      News Leads: the five Ws and H, type of lead, ….                              

9^th & 11^th and 12^th Week:           The Straight News Story: the inverted pyramid,

                                                       chronological order, quotation, type of headline, ….

13^th & 14^th Week:                        The Feature Story: type of human interest story, ..

15^th Week:                                    The News Interviews: type of news interview,

                                                       conducting the interview, question format, ….

16^th Week:                                    Reporting the News: type of reporting, events,

                                                       speeches, meetings, news conferences, accidents,

                                                       public events, ….

 

17^th Week:                                    Broadcast News: broadcast style, script writing,

                                                        ….

18^th Week:                                    Review

 

Evaluation:                                 A student is evaluated on the followings:

                                                      35%:   Quiz & Class assignments

                                                      25%:   Mid-term examination

                                                      40%:   Final examination

Reference:

Muhammad Ayish, Journalism Skills in English, Shukayr & Akasheh (Kitabuhum), 1992.