Tips
Be Concise!
“Brevity is the soul of wit” - Polonius, in William Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Like Polonius said, the wittiest people are those who can say a lot with only a few words. When writing for JSR, aim to keep your language simple and precise.
Writing to be brief and direct can be a big challenge to gifted writers who are used to crafting long, flowing prose. It's a great mental exercise, however, and an art unto itself. The ability to write concisely will help you throughout school and your career, even if you don't become a journalist.
Have an Angle!
An angle is a specific, narrow focus that takes your article beyond mere summary. Instead of re-reporting facts that you read in other sources, you should think of ways you can add a unique perspective to your story.
To the right, you'll see a great example. Instead of just giving the facts about the Olympics, this student chose a narrow focus: the excitement of local Korean-Americans about watching Korean athletes in the games.
To serve her angle, she collected several relevant interviews from sources that fit her specific focus.
You should know what your angle is when you pitch your article ideas to your editor.
Be Timely!
News needs to be current to qualify as "news," right?
It's actually more challenging for JSR students to stay timely than it is for professional journalists. That's because there is such a long gap between when students write articles and when they are printed.
So, for example, if the above student had written a report about the upcoming Olympics as they were happening, they'd already be over by the time we were able to publish it! Of course we couldn't publish an article like that - people would think we were rubes! However, this student planned ahead by writing a preview of the Olympics that is timely.
So plan ahead -- especially if you want to cover a big national or international event that will be well-covered in The Korea Daily and other papers.
Be "Evergreen!"
An "Evergreen" story is one that could be run at any time during the year. The article to the left is evergreen; although it uses a current event as a jumping off point, its true focus is on an ongoing trend.
This is just one type of evergreen story. Doing features on inspiring people, community leaders, and school clubs are also great ways to craft articles that have long shelf lives.
Writing evergreen stories greatly enhances your chances of publication. Time-sensitive stories must be published relatively quickly after they've been written, but evergreen stories can be saved and published later.
Be Your Own Biggest Critic
Proofread and edit your work before you submit it the first time, and be as thorough as you can when you make revisions based on your editor's notes. Once you feel like you are done, put your work aside for at least ten minutes before rereading it one last time. Never submit an article without going through this process.
We will make grammar and spelling changes to your work, although we can't choose articles that take too much work to fix -- but you should not rely on us to rescue w you write. We have a limited amount of time to prepare the page every week.
Ask Questions!
You have two great resources if you get stuck and need help: the program coordinator and your editor. However, you can't get help if you don't reach out! We're always glad to respond to your emails.
If you want some one-on-one advice with the program coordinator, send an email and ask to schedule time to chat online.