Actually physically writing an article is a long process. Throughout my years of journalism, I’ve developed a standard way of how I write news articles or opinion articles. Below you will see how both of these processes differ and how they actually work through a couple selected pieces with extra self-analysis.
How I tend to write my news articles
There are a lot of pieces to put together when writing a piece. Usually, I have quotes to put together, evidence to contextualize, and transitions to put in. Sometimes, it can be difficult on where to start.
For me, I always start with the lede and first I think of what was the main idea of the event/story. It depends on the event/story on what kind of lede I do but I always start with my strongest points first. After this, I put my quotes together and pick which ones are the strongest and give the most important information. At the end of the day, I never use all quotes. However, for the quotes I don’t use, I may use the quotes’ information for filler/transition sentences.
Usually, my structure consists of a quote every other paragraph with two-four transition sentences in between each quote. Sometimes, it goes off of that mark if more transition is needed. Here is an example on my writing structure with an article that I wrote during the middle of my senior year. I will be sharing my thought process for each section of the article.
I went with a straight-to-the-point lede here. These ledes matter for news articles because when I am snappy with I’m writing, it’s easier for the reader to get to the point, which they want because they clicked on the article.
I made sure to add a lot of context before the next quote so the reader can understand the whole picture. I did this because this was a dense topic, so sometimes I have to be the one teaching through my writing. I’m spreading information through my own experience instead of an interviewee’s experience.
Here is where I give the solution to the topic. In this case, it was how to initiate a flex period which I knew could be puzzling for some students. So, I made sure to include a couple of paragraphs covering that (including the quote).
When ending my articles, I make sure to have the reader to look at the future. This could help make room for future follow-up articles. Also, ending the article like this helps the reader think of solutions themselves. I just want to get people thinking.
The rundown on Flex scheduling
Newly inaugurated Flex scheduling aims to provide more equity for students
If there is a test to make up, a career to learn about, or a needed conversation with a particular teacher, don’t be afraid to utilize the new Flex scheduling, also known as “access” periods.
During Life class, a student can participate in a Flex period. For the student, the Flex scheduling process includes receiving attendance from the life class teacher. After that, the student must head to the class they’re scheduled for the remainder of sixth period. Matt Cutler, high school teacher, has been involved with the process of access periods and the creation of Life class in general.
“[For access periods], we had [it] originally slated every time we have a Life class on a Friday which depending on how the calendar shakes out, was looking at like two or three a quarter,” Cutler said. “But we got a lot of feedback that students wanted more time for that. Now it’s looking like it’s going to be at least once every other week. We’ll adjust as necessary.”
For the time being, the newly-instated Flex scheduling is a prototype. Jocelyn McIntire, vice principal, has been working on the technicalities such as StudentVUE, which is the school’s app for students that includes grades, attendance records, transcripts, and schedules.
On StudentVUE, there is a new “Flex Schedule” tab listed below the “Calendar” tab. This tab aims to show if a student is being pulled out of their Life class. For example, on a given Flex schedule day, the “Flex Schedule” tab could read a different teacher and room that’s not the student’s regular Life class room and teacher. This means the student has been pulled out of the class, and should leave to that new room once Life class attendance is taken for the remainder of the period.
If the “Flex Schedule” tab still reads the student’s Life class room and teacher, this means the student hasn’t been pulled out of the class and must stay in their Life class for the remainder of the period.
Synergy, which connects StudentVUE and TeacherVUE, is the main computer system the school districts use to assist communication between students, teachers, and administration.
“[We are trying to get] acquainted with the actual system in Synergy [and] understand how the computer program works to where it makes sense to teachers and to students,” McIntire said. “[This includes] what does it look like on StudentVUE, what does it look like on TeacherVUE because my view is completely different. So, [we’re] really trying to understand all those pieces.”
To combat obstacles like understanding Synergy’s system and handling the newly-instated life class as a whole, school administration has chosen to bring upon flex scheduling slowly.
“We wanted to test [flex scheduling] and see does this actually work? Did the process actually land and students were able to see what they were supposed to see? Did teachers see what they were supposed to see? So we’ve been slowly opening up more opportunities for access [periods],” McIntire said. “The very first time there were only three teachers that were allowed to pull kids because it was a practice, and so we’re getting to the place that I think flex time is going to be offered more often.”
To be able to be pulled into a class through the Flex schedule, students or teachers can initiate the schedule. For example, if a student needs to make up a test, the student could email or talk to the teacher to see if there is a Flex schedule option available. If there is a Flex schedule option, the teacher can assign the student down for that schedule. The teacher can also naturally assign the student for the flex schedule.
“Some individual teachers are now able to pull students, and so we are shifting to a place where we’ll have access, which will be more of a larger experience, where bigger groups of kids can be pulled,” McIntire said. “In Life class, we’re going to extend it to where during that study hall time, teachers can give a kid a note and say, ‘Hey, why don’t you come and make up this test for me today?’ So we’re hoping to grow the experience where we really are able to support students to the best of our ability.”
Students can also be flexed into career advice sessions with guest speakers. For example, guest speaker Ryan Smith, a shoe designer for Jordan Brand, spoke about his journey during a Flex period.
“We are trying to bring in some community members who have jobs and careers that students are interested in or folks who have skills that students are interested in,” Cutler said. “Students can sign up [and] instead of going and talking to a teacher, they can go and see this speaker about a career [that can be] a nurse or healthcare provider.”
If we say students can only make up a test, before school or after school, that’s really limiting. Some students are not able to after school or get here early. Having an access period allows all students to have access to their teachers to [get] the support they need.
Jocelyn McIntire
The idea of Flex scheduling began in relation to this year’s new schedule and Life class. During the development of the West Linn-Wilsonville School District’s Life class, the idea of Flex scheduling grew and grew.
“This concept of having a Life class has been in development for quite some time,” McIntire said. “We knew at the start of the year, we would begin to implement [access periods]. We’ve just done it slowly over time. We wanted September to have everybody get used to our new schedule. So we had only a few access periods. We did add an additional one this [November], so we will increase slightly. Also, we still have to implement our college and career curriculum, so every life class cannot be access [periods]. It just can’t.”
For now, administration will continue tinkering with Flex scheduling and gather input on what’s not working to create the best possible Flex scheduling experience.
“A part of that access is trying to be more equitable in our practices,” McIntire said. “If we say students can only make up a test, before school or after school, that’s really limiting. Some students are not able to after school or get here early. Having an access period allows all students to have access to their teachers to [get] the support they need.”
Before introducing my quotes, I always introduce my speaker. This helps the reader know the details of the speaker to get the whole picture.
This is one of my typical transition sentences here. With this sentence, all I aimed was to introduce the “why” that is featured in the next quote. I only did this because I wanted to make the quotes to do the talking.
When writing my articles, I also don’t like to have it all in chronological order. I think calling back to the origin later in the article boosts perspective from the reader. It’s important to not overload this kind information at the front of the article. Instead, I sprinkle in this kind of context throughout the piece.
Writing an opinion piece
After completing “Promoting an proposing ethnic awareness,” I got right to another article, this one about the continuous and dire ref shortage. However, unlike my ethnic studies story, I wanted this piece to be opinionated. My plan was to give factual information and added perspective with a couple interviews. However, with what I gathered, I needed to be direct with my opinion as much as possible. I think this is important because I don’t want my opinion to be twisted just because of vague language. Being direct helps the reader not get distracted on what might or could think. Below, I’ll be going through why I chose to write certain parts like I did so you can understand my opinion-writing thought process.
To start the article, I put in an anecdote for my lede and made sure to use descriptive words. At the end, I clearly addressed an average official-referee confrontation to open up my opinion.
I want to point at this paragraph in particular. Saying something “To dissect this problem in our sports system, let’s go down another layer” is crucial because bridging ideas with these sentences helps the reader comprehend what idea exactly the article is on. My goal is to be direct with opinion pieces. Bridge sentences like these are seen all over the article.
Having bridge sentences shorter also creates a punctuative, therefore enticing, opening to the next idea. Things like this help keep the reader engaged and contribute to being direct with my ideas. Paragraphs like this also help introduce the quote. I think this is important as well because I want other information to support my opinion if I’m ever going to be taken seriously.
I made sure to add more context here for the next quote. Classic solution journalism here, was just trying to find any solutions for the problem hand through writing directly (data and a quote).
Parents and athletes perpetuate ref shortage
Limited number of referees is an alarming sign of parent and athlete entitlement
You can hear the swish whisper throughout the gymnasium and the crowd, on their feet, go crazy. Though not all— some are sitting down, sullen, stunned. The buzzer blares. The losing team is sent home, but the starting center’s parents storm onto the court, heading straight for the officials to give them an earful. A call on the court did not sit well with these parents— but why did they need to go out of their way to tell the official the call was wrong?
According to the Oregon Student Activities Association (OSAA) handbook, “All cheers, comments and actions shall be in direct support of one’s team. No cheers, comments or actions shall be directed at one’s opponent or at contest officials.”
Less people have applied to become referees due to the verbal abuse. Additionally, there has been an evident decrease in referees over the years, but a significant decline since the pandemic. This development has repercussions. On Feb. 16, Trevor Menne, principal, sent a statement about sportsmanship, highlighting expectations to respect game officials.
“Please know, that in accordance with OSAA guidance, spectators who fail to meet these expectations could potentially be banned from current and future interscholastic events,” the email read.
Additionally, the ref shortage has had an impact on event planning. Brigham Baker, athletic director, has needed to communicate with referee associations and OSAA regarding referee planning.
“We basically don’t have enough referees to service all of the games in our high school Association, more specifically the Portland metropolitan area,” Baker said. “This year we’ve had to move games off of the traditional days. Traditionally varsity football [is] on Friday, we move those to Thursday. Basketball we’ve played on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Monday. [In] baseball, they play a lot of games throughout the course of the week, but we could have one umpire [for the] game rather than the traditional two.”
To dissect this problem in our sports system, let’s go down another layer. Club sports are an option for student athletes, though expensive, sometimes up to “$10,000 per year,” Baker said. However, a lot of the community has the money as 29.2% of West Linn’s population has an income of $150,000— 10% of Oregon reaches this data point. With the influx of finances, club sports are more accessible.
This creates a dilemma within high school sports. Parents pay their child to be a part of this club team, but the clubs are more inclined in giving praise to the child, because they want the money. Therefore, parents get the idea that their child is better than they actually are.
High school coaches will tell parents their child, who gets praise under a particular club, isn’t that good, because their job is to improve the team and they are not motivated by money. Parents become outraged as they have the idea their child was a starter, not a bench player, according to their club’s assessment.
This outrage can be seen on the court. It’s not uncommon that parents inflict verbal abuse to referees. They feel justified in their actions, because they invested finances into their child’s athletic development.
In most cases, the referees are in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they have absolutely no information about the athlete’s family’s wallet. Karah Highland, senior, referees kindergarten through eighth grade age groups.
“They’ll scream at you. They’ll call you certain things, not in my personal experience, per se, but I’ve talked to other refs who’ve had kids hit them, kick them, strike them which isn’t all that great either.”
-Karah Highland
“A lot of the time, parents will come up across the court during the game,” Highland said. “[They would] tell me that it was a three point instead of a two point or they’ll mistake which team is scoring and they’ll tell you that you need to fix it when there’s really no problem.”
Though, parents aren’t the only ones causing conflict with referees. When clubs give the indication that the athlete is progressing well, they will believe that but when they meet strife in the high school system, they will still have the idea that they are better. Like the parents, athletes can become angry and make some excuses for their “underperforming” play, which leads to more pointing at referees.
“A lot of the players will get upset with certain calls or lack thereof calls,” Highland said. “They’ll scream at you. They’ll call you certain things, not in my personal experience, per se, but I’ve talked to other refs who’ve had kids hit them, kick them, strike them which isn’t all that great either.”
Now, let’s consider some options to improve referees’ conditions. Officially Human, a website that aims to give officials more respect, has provided data on the nationwide shortage of referees. In a survey conducted by this website, which consists of 15 states, 60% of officials left because of verbal abuse from the fans, and 50% because of coach abuse. The officials were given two options to choose from. Officially Human is providing data to spread awareness about the seriousness of this issue.
On a more local level, work can be done to lessen the impact of club sports. Families could try solely personal trainers since most have the money as 49.9% of West Linn’s population has an income of $100,000.
“Personal trainers in my opinion, are really good [since they] motivate the people to do those workouts that they have in front of them,” Baker said. “I’d say probably 75% of their job is actually motivating that person to get up and do it, so [I like] personal trainers. I don’t think they’re required for everybody, but if kids want to take things to that next level, they’re certainly not a bad idea.”
Overall, the situation is this: club sports are creating an illusion that an athlete is better than they are, and while these athletes seemingly underperform on the high school stage, underlying outrage goes towards referees. Above all else, if you make that choice to verbally abuse the referee, eventually, your child–or yourself–may not get to play the sport.
Went to straight facts for the next five straight paragraphs. I did this because I wanted to create more context for my eventual stance. I think it’s important to cover all the aspects of the context so the reader knows I’m not moving the goalposts. I want to make sure to have professional integrity.
Using data is also extremely important to create a direct opinion piece. When being direct, it generally means I’m avoiding editorializing. That’s why I made a big effort to research for some points.
Here is where my opinion comes in. When writing this part, I based my opinions on partly what Brigham Baker thought and I gave my overall assessment. I made sure to be direct with this part because it could easily be convoluted with all the moving parts. This is also a section I went over with my English teacher Kaleb Pace for extra help. Since there were so many ideas to bridge together, this part needed a lot more revisions than other sections.
With this paragraph, I introduced more data into the equation to help with the direct-ness of my piece. Again, using a bridge sentence was valuable here because this paragraph has vastly different ideas than the previous paragraph. Being direct with my ideas helps the reader comprehend my opinion.
Tied it all up with a conclusion about all the ideas I have laid out just in case the reader forgot my overall ideas and opinions. Then, that’s it! That is the end of this opinion piece.
Avoiding editorializing
In our writing unit during my sophomore year, I wrote a preview for the Bengals-Rams Super Bowl. This piece stood out to me because this is when I first learned how important it was the avoid editorializing. This is something that is harder to define due to all the nuance of it. To avoid editorializing, I learned I have to feel it out more because it is different from situation to situation. At first, I had difficulty writing this piece without editorializing because I had just so many opinions to put down because I do really love writing about football. However, I quickly learned that my opinions should be brought to reality. Also, this wasn’t even an opinion piece. When going through the editing process, I learned that data is the key to success to avoid editorializing. However, there are also other strategies I use to help myself avoid editorializing.
- Avoid vague wording. Using “a ton” or “small” leaves it up to the reader too much. I have learned to use specific numbers to signify what “a ton” could mean.
- Tell, don’t show. When writing, I’ve always learned to “show, don’t tell” to create sensory details and “set the scene”. However, this was in English class and journalism isn’t English class. More often than not, I find it better to write in a more “telling” manner to avoid leaving it up to my opinion to describe the situation.
- Avoid answering the “why” questions. In the typical news article, I leave it up to the interviewees to provide the answers to my “why” questions. This helps me avoid creating my own answers for those “why” questions, which can often be editorializing.
- No assumptions. Making assumptions in the article is editorializing in a more quiet way. By assuming, I would actually be thinking a hypothetical is true, a hypothetical that my brain made up. Above all else, it is super important to stay grounded when doing journalism and make sure I have the right amount of facts I need.
From what I have learned, editorializing ultimately depends on context. For example, deciphering whether I am writing an opinion or news article is super important. The piece below is a news article and this is when I first started learning more and more about editorializing. This piece was in the middle of my sophomore year, so I was just starting out as a journalist.
Preview: Super Bowl LVI
Last year’s Super Bowl averaged 91.63 million viewers across the U.S. To put that in perspective, the 2021 Summer Olympics’ opening ceremony averaged 16.7 millions U.S viewers. Super Bowl Sunday has been a marquee date on the American calendar, whether you’re an NFL fan or not.
Nine Super Bowls from the last decade rank in the top 10 most watched broadcasts in all of U.S television history. In 2015, Super Bowl XLIX set U.S television records by averaging 144.44 U.S viewers. To say the least, the Super Bowl is a major event for Americans. This years’ Super Bowl is set in Inglewood, Calif., which premieres on Feb. 13 and is the richest and possibly the most gratifying yet.
Key points to the matchup of Bengals-Rams
In a season where each team had a decent shot at the postseason. The season’s finale is an unexpected matchup, which was expected. In a postseason where there were eight games decided by one possession, the big game has yet another expectation— a close game. Both teams have playmakers.
The secondary receivers
Both teams have clearcut number one receivers, Ja’marr Chase of Cincinnati and Cooper Kupp of Los Angeles. Kupp has amassed 385 receiving yards in the postseason while Chase has grabbed 279 receiving yards on 20 catches. However, both players are likely going to be double-teamed throughout the game. This means that the passing game will have more weight on the secondary receivers like Los Angeles’ Odell Beckham Jr. and Cincinnati’s Tee Higgins. Both Higgins and Beckham got at least 100 yards in the championship round when Chase and Kupp were consistently getting shadowed by another safety.
The pass rush
After dominating Tampa Bay’s offensive line in the second round, Los Angeles’ pass rush sputtered against San Francisco in the championship game with only seven total pressures from Ram standouts Aaron Donald and Von Miller. Cincinnati also has a pass rushing dynamo in Trey Hendrickson, who gave the Chiefs offense some trouble with a 33.3% pass rush win rate according to the PFF. Cincinnati defensive end Sam Hubbard also was clutch down the stretch, coming up with two sacks in the closing minutes of regulation in the AFC championship. However, both quarterbacks, Bengals’ Joe Burrow and Rams’ Matthew Stafford, have done incredibly well eluding the pressure. Against the Chiefs, Burrow took one sack and escaped two would-be Chris Jones sacks. Stafford has done well against the blitz and has only been sacked five times this postseason. The question fans are asking is: can the pass rush on either side hit home this week?
Underlying factor: Joe Mixon
This Cincinnati running back has been a major player most of their 13 victories this postseason and regular season. While averaging at least four yards per attempt in the game, the Bengals have gone eight and one. With Joe Mixon failing to hit this mark, the Bengals have a record of five and five. Some fans say that Zac Taylor relied too much on Mixon instead of the passing game, but Mixon was able to run for a few first downs. If Mixon and the running game can get it going consistently, that should open up Burrow’s passing game.
The Rams and Bengals have had their fair share of Super Bowl disappointment, with both teams combining for a Super Bowl record of 1-5. Which team will pull through? The Bengals, who finished 2-14 on the season just two years ago? The Rams, who are led by previously playoff-winless Stafford? Will there be a double-overtime? Anything can happen in the Super Bowl, from upsets, to flat out blowouts, to incredible performances on the stage or on the field. What will Super Bowl LVI provide? Check out on NBC to find out on Super Bowl Sunday.
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