Welcome to Manship’s Media Writing course, where we will practice writing for a variety of platforms. Your first assignment is to use Twitter to introduce yourself. Here’s the assignment:

• Set up a Twitter account if you don’t already have one. Here’s a link to get you started: https://twitter.com/ If you are Twitter-averse, then set up a professional site and use it to brand yourself as a media professional.
• Your assignment for 11:59 p.m. Friday is to tweet a photo to introduce yourself. Include one fun fact to demonstrate how you are unique. Use #manship2010 in your first Tweet. (I KNOW you are unique — just tell us why. Keep it G rated, please.)
• Tweets are 140 characters, which also includes some characters that represent your photo. Avoid weird abbreviations. Just speak clearly and succinctly.
• NOTE: ALWAYS use either #manship2010 in your tweets for our class. This is how we follow one another and keep track of our class tweets. We will practice using Twitter as media professionals. A hashtag is a way to categorize a group of tweets and make them available to others.
• If Twitter is new to you, then you can spend the next few days figuring it out. Follow some great writers, advertisers and journalists and other professionals you want to emulate.  Follow @manshipschool, @lsu, and @mikethetiger
• Check your LSU email address every day. This is one of the most important ways I communicate with you.
• Follow me @roxdill and keep up with our class hashtag to follow your classmates.

Inverted Pyramid Writing Checklist

LEAD
Who does what? When? Where? Why/How? You should attempt to answer the pertinent information. The why/how take longer to explain, but your lead should at least begin to answer this question.

Keep in mind that your audience doesn’t know the story. For example, don’t tell us the Ellashoo City Council introduced the KitKat Program without briefly explaining the program to us in the lead.

The lead needs to be able to stand alone, apart from the rest of the story. Also, the lead is the only part of the story many people read, so we need to provide them with important information. Finally, the headline is written from information provided in the lead. If the lead is inaccurate, the headline will be, too.

LEAD NON-NEGOTIABLES

• One paragraph, one sentence (no semicolons)
• 30-35 words
• Active voice (unless you have a better reason for using passive)
• No intro phrases/clauses
• Don’t start with the when/where
• Avoid long interrupters in your lead
• Delay ID? Or Immediate ID?
• Use past tense for past events
• Use the day of the week unless the event occurs outside of the week (past or future) and we need the date for clarification.
• Use full names or proper nouns on the first reference: Houma City Council, Baton Rouge School Board, LSU Board of Supervisors…

SECOND GRAF

• Use this graf as a “spill-over” place for important information you couldn’t include in the lead.
• Continue to explain important information, particularly the how/why.
• Fully ID the subjects you delay ID’d in the lead.
• Four typed lines, max (for second and subsequent grafs)

THIRD GRAF

• This is a good place for a direct quote/indirect quote because we have already met our main subject. Earlier than this, and the quotes don’t always have the context they need.

It was great to see you tonight at the AP and Grammar Quiz Bowl. Here’s the PowerPoint we used for our competition.

You will take two exams this week: one on AP Style facts and the other on grammar, punctuation and word use problems. The AP exam covers every term on the front of your study guide. The grammar exam covers every grammar, word problem and punctuation term in that study guide.

Each exam is 100 points and multiple choice, with each question worth one point. If you have any questions about the PowerPoint or the exams, send me an email: rdill1@lsu.edu.

T-shirt, tweet, turboprop.
UFOs, ukelele, Ulaanbaatar.
Leaning Tower of Pisa, Levi’s, liabilities.

We start reviewing AP Style this week so that you’ll be ready for our AP exam in a few weeks. Most of the terms are easy to learn. You’ll have to expend some effort on about one-fourth of these. (And yes, no fractions in AP style. Write them out.)

BTW: I was wrong. “Donut” is “doughnut” in AP Style. As I told you, the only people who know all of this are the ones with no social lives.

This is the final week for taking the Manship Pre-Assessment in the testing center (Himes Hall). If you show up and take the assessment, you get an A. If you don’t take it, bad things happen to you. Really. Bad. Things.

Click here to sign up.

You aren’t expected to know much on the exam, that’s why this is an easy A. How often do you get to take an assessment, not know anything, and still get a good grade? Never. I thought so.

You will take a similar assessment the semester you graduate from the Manship School the test is designed to measure what you learn along the way. It covers 12 major categories that mass communication schools across the country use in their teaching. Some of the categories include grammar, AP Style, media law, diversity and design.