Self-reflect: Writing Style
Of all the things I have learned in college, the last stage of my career has been the most entertaining. This semester I have seen, learned, and heard things that will forever change my perspective as a professional. On this class, I was introduced to the AP Style writing. With these techniques, I learned how to write numbers in the appropriate format and to develop writing skills needed in my career. One of the things I mastered during this semester is to write leads for a story.
The image on the left for example, shows a delayed or immediate lead assignment. By asking for assistance and corrections, I was able to write an appropriate lead and learn to distinguish a good from a bad lead.
Nevertheless, it has not always been flawless. Although I push myself to perform well in every class, there was an assignment that showed all my weakness. It had been a difficult week for my family and I, and even thought we had opportunities to edit before submitting it, I could not focus myself while battling coronavirus. One of my worst mistakes have been grammar and spelling and this assignment showed the worst of me. Whenever I make a mistake on an assignment I study it and correct it even after it has been graded. By doing this I memorize my flaws and try to correct them the next time.
The important thing about our mistakes is learning from them and correcting them. If I made a mistake of doing so well all semester, but poorly on the last assignment was mainly for lack of focus and letting my personal life affect me. This shows to what extent focus and proofreading differentiates a good from a bad paper. It is so important to write well in journalism. Everything that is for press must be well written because it shows our knowledge, our ethics, and professionalism. And not only in journalism, but on anything we do, we must show our ethics through writing. While these are some of my visual mistakes, I need to work on learning the English language better, practice, and read more. Evidently, some of the things that I need to work more on are grammar, spelling and remember to refer to the AP Stylebook for the appropriate abbreviations and styles of writing in press.
Prior to this class I had no experience with the language or writing style. Everything was new and interesting to learn. I did not know what an inverted pyramid was or how it was structured. I learned how a press release was used and how to write it properly after a failed assignment. I did not know how to structure a story or write a lead for a news article, but I became familiarized with the terminology and writing style after the first weeks. Now I know I will continue to hear about this throughout my career. Another thing that I did not know, but enjoyed, was to write captions. In other journalism classes, we were instructed to write captions properly for our images and because of this class, I was able to incorporate captions in them.
The concepts that were introduced in this class are important for my career as a journalist. I will be able to use these skills when writing for press, newspapers, other activities, or internships. To develop these skills and continue to learn more about them, I need to get an internship in the field. I need to read the AP Stylebook and practice more. Reading the newspaper and following news social media pages is the best way to learn how to efficiently write news stories.
While learning about leads, story structure, and writing skills, I enjoyed doing the interview assignment most. I had done similar activities before when working for Alegria Musical and Domingo Familiar, which are small television shows in the Monterey County. I think that I enjoyed doing the interview because is something I was more familiar with. Even though I made minor mistakes when writing the story, I did good on it, but I could have done better if I proofread and focused on the basic mistakes.
Even after learning the different styles and correct format of writing, I have some difficulties trying to figure out the difference between the story structures, such as narrative, chronological, and summary. In this image, it shows the inverted pyramid assignment, for which I did fairly well. Yet, there are some grammatical mistakes; small mistakes that can improve with practice and dedication. Despite that, I understand how the pyramid structure looks like, but sometimes it takes me longer to identify these characteristics still. With time and repetition and through the following semester, I will be able to correct and improve these flaws.
Learning new techniques is not easy, much less if everything we are learning has its own structure like the AP style of writing. Before coming to this class, I had never heard of AP style. I did not know reporting required a different type of writing and execution. The language and writing style in journalism is so different from what we have learned in previous English classes. Knowing that reporting needs a special language and writing was so fascinating and interesting to me. I can not say that I have mastered how to use the AP style yet. It has been such a short time since I was introduced to it, that it does not seem like a lot of experience in the field. Nevertheless, there is so much to learn. With the help of other classes, instructors, and repetition of the style, I will be able to master these techniques. If I can review what I have learned in this class, I can do well when facing a real-life situation, whether at work, school, or internship opportunities.
Our mistakes are the best lessons in life. If we don’t learn from our mistakes, we are living in-vain and that is just a waste of time, effort, and space. Reflecting in our work is the best way to become better at what we do. No one was born knowing how to do something, we are learning every day and every day is an opportunity to improve our wrong doings. In this class, I learned that my mistakes are simple, they are so small that they seem so big because they shouldn’t be there in the first place. Every time we go back and think about our mistakes, we have a way to correct them. By looking at our mistakes we are learning the proper way to do it. Self-reflecting helps us analyze how we write, what we write, and what we can do to change it. There is a saying that our mistakes are only a punishment not a life sentence and that we should take criticism as a tool for improvement.
