Consider: You are a freelance journalist who works in electronic publishing.
The school’s (ACS’s) online Student Magazine needs more articles, but at the same time, the school wants to gain better control over quality and quantity of submissions.
You have been employed (hypothetically), to help develop writer guidelines and a style guide for contributors, and then to prepare an article which adheres to those guidelines for the next edition.
Your task now is:
1.1 Look at the existing online magazine
1.2 Compare past articles, identifying any undesirable or potentially undesirable variations in style and content
1.3 Postulate rules that might be set for contributors to ensure consistency in submission style, format and content
1.4 Draft contributor guidelines
1.5 Draft a 2000 word feature article that adheres to your drafted submission specifications.
Team Structure and Mode of Interaction
Your team will consist of yourself and your tutor:
- You are in the hypothetical role of journalist.
- Your tutor is in the hypothetical role of the ezine owner/publisher. You should approach your tutor in the same way that you would approach an employer in this situation
You must contact your tutor two times via phone, fax or email during the project, before attempting to commence the final submission. At each point of contact, you should ask your tutor three questions, and submit a brief progress report.
You should be mindful that the hypothetical publisher (tutor) is an expert who is very busy, and is engaging your services in order to save time. They (like any real world publisher) will not be impressed if you demand a lot of assistance. They will also expect you to do the necessary research to become familiar with the nature of their publication, and its needs. Hence: questions you put to your tutor should be meaningful, designed to contribute toward achieving the stated project aim, and, above all, should not be repetitive. Contact should be concise and time efficient.
You may also seek support from other interested parties within the school community by submitting relevant questions to students you find in the student directory (in the online student room). Seek meaningful feedback.
Note: It is not your publisher’s (tutor’s) role to solve problems.
Discussion Questions
- What things need to be defined in a contributors guide for an online magazine?
- What categories/types of articles do you consider relevant to the Student Magazine, and how would you define each type?
- What are industry-accepted norms regarding contributors guides (submission specifications)?
- What are some appropriate subjects for 2000 word articles that would interest and attract readers in the school’s student population?
- Which of the conceived articles would be most attractive to the perceived readership?
These are issues or questions that may be considered, whether or not you can find answers.
Resources
These are the resources you can or must utilise for this project.
Human resources (optional) – You may draw on the skills, knowledge and assistance of others – other students, experts whom you consult, friends. All assistance must be formally acknowledged.
Other resources (compulsory ) – You are expected to use some resources, but the choice of which ones are yours) You may gather the information required to solve this problem from course readings, books, journals, news programs, the internet, etc. All sources must be acknowledged.
Duration
This project should take up to 33 hours (including communications with a tutor or others) and must be completed within 3 weeks from the date of commencement. When 25 hours of work has been completed, you should be moving onto the final report; and when 33 hours is completed, submit what you have, no matter what stage it is in. You may be penalised for exceeding this time limit.
Final Report
You may use any of a variety of means to present your project but should not spend more than a quarter of the total time involved in the project, on preparing the presentation.
See the following table for presentation requirements:
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Presentation Component
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Minimum Required
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Maximum Allowed
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Mission statement for the Ezine
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One Sentence
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Three sentences
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Report Aim
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One sentence-ten words.
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One sentence –twenty words.
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Explanation of why contributor specifications are needed
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1/4 page summary
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1/2 page summary
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Contributor Specifications
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1 page presentation
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2 pages
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Plan for Draft Article
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Half page
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1 page
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Draft article
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1750 words
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2000 words
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Note: This presentation should be submitted as your assignment for this lesson.
You are expected to work within the specifications, and you may be asked to repeat the presentation if you are even slightly outside of the specifications.
