Courses, Writing for Print and Digital Media | Northwestern University School of Professional Studies - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

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Enrollment in journalism courses is limited to 15. Journalism classes may not be audited and do not satisfy distribution requirements.

JRN_WRIT 201-A : Writing for Media

Description

This course helps students improve their basic writing skills. It emphasizes clarity and conciseness in expressing thoughts and facts. Through readings, discussion, writing exercises and rewrites, along with remote-site interactive instruction, students gain confidence and demonstrate improvement in written expression each week. By the end of the term, students can write clear, logical and accurate stories within the assigned deadline. We will practice writing: on assigned topics; on space requirements; on deadlines. While this is not a writing course exclusively for those who wish to pursue journalism, it nonetheless places heavy emphasis on news. Specifically, the course intends to clear up problems with grammar; sharpen word selection and usage; clean up sentence structure; introduce the basic discipline of journalism; increase writing speed; make stories both accurate and appealing to the intended audience. The skills developed in the course provide solid techniques to apply toward future course work at NU in most other disciplines and at work. Several assignments will concentrate on these three primary writing techniques: narration, description, and exposition.