Final Exam Review

The final exam will have two parts. Part one will be a traditional multiple choice exam. There will be some matching, true/false, and fill in the blank. These questions will be generated from the list below.

The second part of the exam will involve writing. You will use provided information to write 2 short news stories, and you will be asked to take a stance on an a small group of topics and write either a personal column or an editorial.

I will expect you to write the short news stories in the correct quote-transition news style as a hard news story. Your lead should be traditional style with 5 W's and 1 H.

 The opinions piece can be written in 1st person if you write a personal column. Make sure you state your opinion in the first couple of paragraphs and that you are not wishy-washy. If you write an editorial, you must stay in third person, and you should follow one of the three correct styles.

There will be an extra credit based on Current Events items.

Here are the terms you need to know for the final exam. Please create a new blog and title it "Final Exam Review" - type in or copy and past the terms below and in your own words, try to describe what the word (s) mean from a journalistic perspective. This should help you the most on the test.

1. Timeliness 

When the story is close or past a few days ago from when it is published

2. Proximity

Location wise this story/event happened close

3. Human Interest

When people are interested in this specific topic. This topic coincides with a specific audience.

-appealing

4. Prominence

-how important that person is

5. Conflict

a problem that is happening 

2 sides fighting about something

6. Interviews

where you talk to someone who is relevant to the story and you pull quotes from them

get info from source

7. Research

To look for background information to better understand to topic of the story 

preparation for interview

8. Quotations

What the person in the interview said that helps tell the story

get from source

9. Yes-no question

These are close ended questions and they are not good for quotations

10. follow-up question

Questions you might have after the interview that would help you better understand/tell the story

gets the source to elaborate and add additional info 

11. Objective writing

writing that has no opinions in it

LEAST AMOUNT OF OPINION 

12. Transition paragraph

Hard facts and no opinions

between quotations (links quotations together)

13. Hard news story

timely and BREAKING news

14. Soft news story

could happen a week ago...happens in a week

15. Inverted Pyramid

Most important to least important 

(For hard news story)

16. Third-person point of view

I us we: First

Everyone in the same group: Second 

He She They: Third

17. 5 Ws and H lead

WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, and HOW!

For hard news story

18. editing

Going back in the story and changing things to make it better

19. attribution

your source identifying them from a quote they said CREDIT for it

20. paraphrase

indirect quote!

summarize what they said (not word for word, but close)  Giving them credit for it still!

21. fragmentary quotation

WRONG

22. direct quotation

A quote right from the person and not changed (word for word)

23. partial quotation

(a single word/short phrase used by a source)

24. Uses of quotations 

It is a way to tell the story while the transitions give us hard facts about the event.

-quotes are for feelings and emotions

25. When to use quotations

You use quotations after a transition to help better tell a story. 

26. When quotations are unnecessary or not desired

Quotations shouldn't state facts it should tell the story and show the emotions of the person who was interviewed. NO FACTS!

27. Editorial

-opinion of the newspaper as a WHOLE!

decided by editorial board (team of editors) (Always written in third person!)

28. editorial page

Where all the opinions in a paper appear

columns, editorials, political cartoons (Staff box too)

29. columns

written by one person

their point of view on a particular topic

30. editorial that criticizes 

Criticizes a topic 

31. editorial that explains

A story that explains what happened at a certain point of time. 

32. editorial that persuades

A story that informs you about a side of an argument and it tries to get you to agree with their side. 

33. letter to the editor

audience writing a letter to the newspaper staff

general staff

Soon you will be taking your semester final in my class. Remember that this is worth 1/4 of your overall grade. I will share with you your cumulative grades before you take the final so you know exactly what you need to pass the class. If you don't remember how it works, here is a simple way to remember:

Add up the first 3 6-weeks and get a total.

Each six weeks plus the final are worth 100 points each, for a total of 400 points.

400 x .90 = 360 points (A)
400 x .80 = 320 points (B)
400 x .70 = 280 points (C)

Now take you total from above and subtract what you want your grade to be and that will tell you how many points you need to get an A, B or C in my class.

Here is an example:

Student Melissa has the following grades in my class
1st 6 weeks - 83
2nd 6 weeks - 93
3rd 6 weeks - 90
Total - 266 points

To get a C in my class, Melissa needs a 14 on the final
To get a B in my class Melissa needs a 54 on the final
To get an A in my class Melissa needs a 94 on the final