self-teachng exercises temporary

Self-teaching Exercises and Assignments:


Self-teaching Exercises:


Question 1:

Below are the first few paragraphs of three articles. Decide whether each one of them is a news story, a feature story, a narrative, an investigative report, an interview, an editorial, a blog, or a combination of more than one style:

Article 1:
NASA's aging but durable Mars rover Opportunity will make what could be a trip of no return into a deep impact crater as it tries to peer further back than ever into the Red Planet's geologic history.
The descent into Victoria Crater received the go-ahead because the potential scientific returns are worth the risk that the solar-powered, six-wheel rover might not be able to climb out, NASA officials and scientists said Thursday.
The vehicle has been roaming Mars for nearly 3 ½ Earth years. Scientists and engineers want to send it in while it still appears healthy.
"This crater, Victoria, is a window back into the ancient environment of Mars," said Alan Stern, the NASA associate administrator who authorized the move.
"Entering this crater does come with some unknowns," Stern added. "We have analyzed the entry point but we can't be certain about the terrains and the footing down in the crater until we go there. We can't guarantee, although we think we are likely to come back out of the crater."

Article 2:

Avian flu has hit international news headlines again. Nigeria has reported the first human death in sub-Saharan Africa, the United Kingdom is going through its first outbreak among poultry, and in Southeast Asia avian flu continues to simmer, with ongoing outbreaks and human deaths.

The agent responsible — the H5N1 influenza virus — could spark a pandemic to rival those of the last century that killed millions of people.
Africa is where Southeast Asia was three to four years ago. Outbreaks of avian flu in poultry are repeatedly reported in Nigeria and Egypt. Other outbreaks in Niger, Cameroon, and Djibouti have fortunately been contained, but neighbouring countries like Togo, Ghana and Chad are still at high risk.

We must not stand by and let history repeat itself. Every available force must be mustered to limit H5N1's spread across the continent.

Communication holds the key

African countries must urgently make the media a full partner in national preparation plans.
Until recently, the African media has been ill prepared to report effectively on outbreaks of avian flu. The first African H5N1 outbreak, among poultry in Nigeria last year, led to sensational media headlines causing public alarm and panic. The media must be empowered to correctly and authoritatively cover avian flu issues.


Article 3:

While the human population boom in Egypt continues unabated, there is a certain organism that is not so lucky. The croaking of male frogs has always been a familiar sound to the residents of Egypt. In recent years, however, the sound has all but disappeared. The once popular frog population has been steadily on the decrease.

Frogs were once abundant dwellers in the waters of the River Nile. They were so common during the time of the ancient Egyptians that they were called Hefen, the hieroglyphic word for 100,000. The hieroglyphic symbol for Hefen was a tadpole, since frogs gave huge amounts of these offspring. It was such an integral part of the ancient Egyptians' life that they depicted the goddess of fertility as a frog.
Although the Egyptian frog has lived in Egypt since ancient times, it now faces a multiplicity of problems. Once one of the most plentiful life forms in Egypt, it has nearly disappeared. The challenges frogs need to contend with are many, and humans form the bulk of their problems.

Existence Problem

There are seven different types of frogs in Egypt. However, the most common is Bufo regularis, also known as the African common frog or the Egyptian matriculated frog.

Dr. Samy Zalat, a professor of biodiversity and evolutionary biology in Egypt's Ministry of Environment, was the first to acknowledge the problem. "The first thing we need to establish is this: Is there a threat to the frogs?" said Zalat.

He explained that the common frog is facing several challenges. Human expansion has caused extensive habitat damage for the frogs. Destructive pesticides that seep into the sewage system also cause poisoning and even mutation to large numbers of frogs and tadpoles.


Question 2:

Find creative ways to rewrite some of the terms in the following sentences. For your convenience, terms that might be difficult for the general public have been highlighted in bold:

a. “Steve Linscombe still isn’t quite sure how it happened. The director of the Louisiana State University AgCenter for Rice Research knows that he grew a few lines of transgenic rice in field trials between 2001 and 2003. He also knows that one of those lines, LLRICE601, was grown on less than one acre. What he is not clear on is how the line then wended its way into the food supply. That little mystery is now the subject of an official investigation and a class-action lawsuit.”
b. “There are drugs to treat this early chronic stage, but the parasite also causes a process similar to autoimmunity against which the drugs are not effective.”
c. The development of drug resistance in the parasite that causes river blindness could lead to outbreaks in communities where it has been under control, according to research published last week (16 June) in The Lancet.
d. Materials scientists from Oxford and Nottingham universities performed chemical reactions inside nanotubes.

Question 3:

Read the following sentences and think of ways to bring the numbers closer to home for your readers:

a. Patients who inhaled radioactive ultrafine carbon particles displayed traces of it in their bloodstream not long afterwards. These very small pieces of matter are called nanoparticles, defined as anything smaller than 100 nanometres in size.
b. Chajnantor has been chosen as the site for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (Alma), a major telescope array that aims to illuminate one half of the Universe that has hitherto been shrouded in darkness. It lies at an altitude of 5,300m.
c. An ongoing survey of the heavens has spotted the most distant, and therefore earliest, giant black hole in the universe. The object, a quasar given the catchy name CFHQS J2329-0301, was found with three other extremely distant quasars in the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey. CFHQS J2329-0301 is about 13 billion light-years away, say the scientists.


Question 4:

With each of the following three news stories, determine what type of a news story each is, list which elements of newsworthiness they have, and what categories of news sources were used.

News story Type of news story Elements of newsworthiness Categories of news sources
'Better and cheaper' typhoid treatment found

Science journalists 'need code of ethics'


Apple's iPhone makes it to stores



Question 5:

What kinds of leads were used in the following three articles?

Article Type of lead
Beauty With a Purpose

Fish Farming Saves Kenya's Wetlands

Sorting Out the Junk: E-mail in a Data-Congested World



Assignments:

Assignment 1:

Take a look at some of the following English-language science publications and discuss with your mentor how their audiences might vary and as a result how your own writing might vary for each of them:

a. New Scientist magazine
b. Nature magazine
c. Science magazine
d. Scientific American
e. Nature news http://www.nature.com/news/index.html
f. National Geographic
g. SciDev.Net www.scidev.net
h. BBC News’ Science/Nature section http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/default.stm
i. Science in Africa http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/
j. The Smithsonian Magazine
k. ABC Science: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Science section http://www.abc.net.au/science/


Assignment 2:

Take a look at the following articles. What do you think their story pitches were like? Practice writing a story pitch for each of the following articles and discuss them with your mentor:

a. Cutting China's carbon cost
b. Antarctic glaciers picking up speed
c. Beauty with a Purpose
d. Autism symptoms reversed in lab

Assignment 3:

Take one of your more exciting articles, write a 1000 word blog related to the topic and share it with your mentor. Is it written well enough that it deserves publication?

Experiment with setting up your own blog at www.blogger.com, http://wordpress.com/, http://int.blog.com/, or countless other websites that provide this free service. Encourage friends and colleagues to post their own comments to your blog posts.


Assignment 4:

Take your latest news story and practice writing it as a feature story or vice versa. Discuss with your mentor.

Attend a conference session or a press conference in your city on some science or health-related issue. Practice writing one advance news story and one people-talking news story about the event you attended. Share with your mentor.

Visit the university or scientific institution nearest to you. Find an interesting research study that was just published by one of its researchers and write about it in spot news format then write about it as a feature story. Remember to do enough background research and interviews to manage both!

Assignment 5:

Before you start writing your next feature article, write its nut graf and discuss it with your mentor. Is your idea focused enough? Is the nut graf compelling enough?

temporary link to chapter four

Online Course Chapter 4: Writing about Science
Section 8:
Writing for the Internet


Although the basic format of a news or feature story is similar for either print or the Internet, there are some particular considerations when writing for the Internet:

• Internet readers SURF and SCAN rather than read. As we’re all aware, reading long text from a computer screen is tiring for the eyes. Most people leave long text articles for when they are reclining in a chair or sipping tea at the breakfast table. So although the Internet does have the advantage of limitless space, people will only read your article if you keep it short and sweet.
• Structure your article so that a reader can get your main gist simply by scanning through the paragraphs while scrolling. Group ideas together and provide clear and indicative subtitles.
• Break up your article with small side-bars containing quotes or ideas from your article..
• Keep sentences and paragraphs shorter than they normally would be for print publications.
If you want to boost your status in the freelance market, it’s a good idea to provide your editor with additional material. Is there a complex scientific procedure that can be explained using graphics? It would be great if you could design your own graphics, but if the web team includes a graphic designer then you could suggest captions and a description and useful images for guiding the creation of an explanatory graphic. Alternatively you may find images that are freely available from elsewhere that the website could download and use. A picture file with accompanying captions or even some audio and video will really dress up your article. You can also hyperlink terms or names to other websites that provide additional information, or list resources at the end of your article to which readers can refer. Most websites won’t pay for the extra work, but the editor will certainly appreciate your efforts and may keep you on his or her priority list of writers. Your readers will benefit too.

Lesson highlight: When writing for the Internet, spice up your writing with hyperlinks, additional resources, and graphics. Write for scanners, not intense readers.