The final project in JRN 2201 allows you to showcase the writing and reporting skills learned this term in your Reporting class. You will be responsible for enterprising, researching and writing a two-part package of news stories relating to a single theme.

For this project, you will create three items:

1.A main story (800 to 1,000 words, including at least two hyperlinks)

2.A sidebar (400 to 500 words, including at least two hyperlinks)

3.A multimedia element such as a photo gallery, chart, informational graphic, audio file or video.

The topic can be local, state, national or international — but you must talk to people who can provide authoritative information, so be sure to pick a topic for which such sources will be available. Talk to as many sources as are necessary to give you two complete, fair and balanced stories — probably six or more sources for your main story and three or more sources for your sidebar.

Your hypothetical audience for the whole project is the students who read the Tropolitan.

You could have a main story about an issue or a situation and a human-interest sidebar, in which you focus on a particular person or a small group of people deeply affected by the main story. Or the people might be your main story, with the sidebar describing the general situation. (As you collect information, you may find that what you intended to be the sidebar would be better as the main story. That’s usually OK. Just get the professor’s approval.)

Previous successful ideas include:

_Financial aid — how to get it, and one student’s triumph over the system

_Credit cards — why so many solicitations, and one student’s struggle with debt

_Parking — why university officials say you need to just stop whining and walk that hundred yards, and how one student found the rules expensive to ignore.

The multimedia element cannot be something you found on the internet or elsewhere. It must be something you created yourself. A single photograph is not sufficient, although a gallery or PowerPoint presentation of five or six original photos will be fine. You must include captions and/or other text necessary to make your photos, videos, audio or other materials understandable to the reader.

You must consult the professor about the multimedia element and obtain his approval before doing it.

Your final project must be of publishable quality. In fact, publication in a recognized publication will earn you extra credit for this course.

There will be four steps to creating your final project in JRN 2201:

Step 1: Complete the form in Canvas describing your final project proposal and the sources you plan to use (you can just list types of sources if you don’t have actual names yet).

Step 2: Attend one or more mandatory private conferences with the instructor to discuss the progress of your stories and your plans for a multimedia element. Before the first conference, you must have spoken with at least two of your sources.

Step 3: Submit polished drafts of your two stories. These drafts will be returned with feedback. You should use these comments to improve your final stories, paying careful attention to all details.

Step 4: Submit your final project — two stories and the multimedia element — for grading.

Put your name on each item, and label one story as the main story and the other as the sidebar. Indent paragraphs and double-space, using the software settings we have discussed in class.

Grading will be based on criteria including the following:

_Ledes

_Content

_Adequate information

_Adequate sources

_Readability and relevance to readers (no butt-grinder stories allowed!)

_Organization

_Interview development and effective use of quotes

_Appropriateness of topic for target audience

_Suitability for publication

_AP style

_Spelling

_Punctuation

_Grammar/usage/clarity

_Multimedia element

_Lack of errors

_Following directions