Example Articles

I am still trying to select a topic. I have been drawn to journalism lately because it is sports season and fall semester; I don't have much free time to read but when I do I find myself reading something on sports. I read a lot of articles on ESPN and NHL.com. Reading these sports articles made me realize that maybe I should attempt to write a digital article for a website. I do not necessarily have to write a sports article. I hope to have a revelation shrinking my watermelon of an idea into a seed. This post is a list of the articles I have been studying. I need you as a commenter to tell me which of these articles you feel are most effective. Hopefully, I can select a topic in the next couple days, but these articles are here for you to see the direction I envision going in for each of my topics.

Fighting in Hockey

Hockey 1

Hockey 2


Trash Talk 

Trash talk 1

Trash Talk 2


Motivation 

Motivation 1

Motivation 2



After studying these articles, I realize how much more work motivation would be compared to the other two topics. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Fighting in hockey and trash talk already have a lot of articles written that are similar to mine, so why would I want to re-write something someone has already published? The ridiculous amounts of research and the number of possibilities for this project makes me curious to find a topic involving motivation. I probably am going to move forward with a topic involving motivation. Please let me know if you disagree. The other links for trash talk and fighting in hockey are there for you to see the direction I may go in. Let me know your thoughts.

New Proposals. Please Comment!

After my meeting with Professor Branch, we decided to change my topic. Now on my Google Drive I'v posted 3 possible proposals for my project. It will help me very much if you leave comments. I don't necessarily need you to tell me which proposal you think is best. I need you to read the questions section of each proposal. Please use those questions as a starting point. You don't need to comment on every proposal, just which ever one you feel compelled to. Please leave your comments as comments on this post. I plan to make a decision on my topic early in the week.

GoogleDrive

I added a paper... Please Help

Check out my google docs page. I put up my internship final paper for revising. I think this piece is a little boring, so at first I tried to write the paper from the point of view of a manuscript. Does this work? Also, I want to change this into a magazine article. Because of this I need to cut the word count in half, approximately. Lastly, does anyone have a suggestion on a magazine that this piece would fit?

Google drive link #2

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9xpIQpYFe0WT3doT0tzQ3hGR1U&usp=sharing


Here is the link to Google Drive, I don't know why the last link didn't work.

Other Articles...

First I want to clear up that I am turning my focus away from law. I will be moving into the publication process and how to get a manuscript published.

I decided to do my project on the publishing process because of my experiences this summer working for a literary agency. During my internship, I was in charge of opening and viewing new submissions from new authors. I would probably get 30-50 submissions a week but many people would send their whole manuscript instead of a proposal, or they would mix up writing a query instead of a proposal, etc… My instructions were to immediately flag and reject most new submissions that did not come up to the standard of the company. I felt as if many good authors may have lost their opportunities because they had no idea about the publishing process. Also through out the publishing process a writer has to write queries, cover letters, and proposals. There are many tips and tricks that I know currently, and can further obtain through my relationship with this literary agency. This information will help  new authors. These tips relate to formatting, grammar, language, diction, and verbal communication. While these tips will be helpful to know, my project will mostly focus on how to get you manuscript from the author’s hands and onto the bookshelf.

Article 1

Article 2

I think that these are two very good articles for me to start out with for my project. I think this because they are set up similarly to my idea. Instead of me going through each topic as a headline, like the articles I have provided, I want to go through each persons/entity responsibilities in the publishing process: book, author, editor, agent, and publisher. I do see myself using a similar format as these articles. I think having a heading for each entity will be helpful.

Both of these articles seem very vague and not entertaining. I think that these can be two great examples of how not to introduce my paper. I think that bringing in my personal experience would be helpful in the introduction of my paper but then I think it would be better to switch to 2^nd person as I explain the publishing process. These articles give me examples of 2^nd person.

In the USA Today article there are some question directed toward the reader. I believe this is a technique that I should not use in my paper because I am telling my readers how to do something.  

I think it is very helpful to me, if I find a magazine article where I can follow the submission guidelines. I want to follow the submission guidelines for a magazine because both of these articles seem too small for me to fit my information into. I think that writing a piece about submission guidelines under the submission guidelines of a magazine is a very interesting dynamic that can challenge me as a writer. I am currently looking for the perfect magazine for this piece. I am currently very interested in Readers Digest but I would love any suggestions. I would do Readers Digest but I want it to be more directed at college graduating English majors or recently graduated English majors.