Top 25 words:
The first skill to learn this week was to give a sum up of an article in 25 words. This is because the first 25 words should captivate the reader to want to read the entire article. We put this to use by using a headline of our choice, I chose “painting found by tree” which I then wrote a 25 word sum of the article:
The famous ‘scream’ painting was found in the village of Goatham, after the belief it had been stolen from the National Art Gallery in London.
I found a professional piece from an article on the BBC about:
“Junior doctors are waiting to hear whether England’s High Court will agree to stop the government imposing a new contract”
I was inspired by the piece from the BBC because it was able to express a vast amount information through 25 words and yet still want the reader to want to read more.
Overall the piece I wrote had the needed 25 words and was able to express the articles plot within the word amounts giving. However I feel like I could have used a better choice of vocabulary that would have allowed the idea to be clearer and also shorter through the different use of words.
During the week we also learnt how we should use the correct words to make an article sound and express the right information in a more straight forward structure. Such as some headlines use the wrong words in the wrong order meaning the article can come of in the wrong idea. Also we looked at examples of articles that use the wrong words, for example they use quite a few adjectives which makes the article seem somewhat confusing and more of a writing style for a book rather than an article. We put the skill of using the correct word choice by re-writing an article that had poor word choice causing it to be misleading in some areas.
A brother and sister survived with minor injures after a Lorry drove on to the pavement the pair were walking on. It was later discovered that the lorry driver had made an attempt to move out-of-the-way for a police car coming towards him. A spokesmen from the hospital gave a public statement towards the children’s health “they were examined in A&E and allowed to go home, with only shock and a few scratches.”
This was based of the original piece we were giving to improve:
Joseph Foster and his sibling Kate were advancing cheerfully along Wesley Street when they were in minor collision with a HGV which unexpectedly mounted the pavement. It transpired later, when the multi-coloured Volvo truck driver who was transporting a container containing motor parts to Oxford was being interviewed by a local radio reporter, that the lorry veered to avoid a police car speeding towards him on the wrong side of the road. The spokesman at police headquarters told a different story.
You can see that the original piece we based ours on uses of variety of words that don’t need to be used in this context. The word choice in the original piece tells the reader every detail to how the children felt before the incident to how the lorry avoid the police car. With the use of the non necessary words it makes the article quite hard to read and fully understand because it’s not straight forward. I felt like my piece was straight to the point meaning the reader could understand it straight away due to the fact I didn’t use many adjectives and adverbs. However I do feel like I could have made my piece less vague to what happened so the reader could get a bigger image of what really happened.
This is a professional example of a newspaper using a bad choice of words for their article. With creates the idea that it’s trying to be a pun however it comes across as a foolish article and headline.
Passive and active sentence structure
An active sentence is one the action is taken place within the sentences whereas a passive sentence is when the action has already taken place. We learnt this skill so when we write we know when to use a passive or active and also many articles are written in passive because you are written about an event that has already taken place.
I put this skill to use by written a series of sentences based on the sentence “she walked slowly across the room”.
She wandered across the room.
She passed across the room.
She had strolled across the room.
She roamed across the room.
She had marched across the room.
These show the differences between passive and active because you can see words make it seem as if it had just happened whilst others makes it seem to look it took place in the past. We were giving a sheet which showed examples of sentences using passive and active structure.
Harry ate six shrimp at dinner. (active)
At dinner, six shrimp were eaten by Harry. (passive)
The forest fire destroyed the whole suburb. (active)
The whole suburb was destroyed by the forest fire. (passive)
Tom painted the entire house. (active)
The entire house was painted by Tom. (passive)
You can see that these are similar to my own use of the skill. However mine use less of a wide range of vocabulary and also I feel as if I could have made my sentences have a better organisation so they were clearer.
Use of information
Use of information is when you research a topic and then use that to write a piece. The information could be from a newspaper to over hearing a discussing on the street and using that to write to a story or any other writing style. I put this to use by finding an article from The New York Times which I then used to write an article based on the same topic. I wrote a shorter version based on this article about the justice for the abused women.
I prefer the article written in the New York Times because they had much wider coverage to my own. Also if I had added to mine I would have explained more and maybe followed the same structure as the Times, so they’re would be smaller paragraphs but a lot more information. Plus I would have explained more of the points in a more depth way rather than focusing on one specific topic throughout my article.
- Top 25 Words choice example: Nick Triggle, (2016), Junior doctors lose High Court case, available at: , 28th September 2016
- Word Choice example:
- Use of information: Azam Ahmed, (2016), Police Sex Abuse Case Is Bad News for Mexico’s Leader, available at: =1, 26th September 2016