Word of the Week #6

Word: Profusion
Source: Findarticles.com
How it was used: -- "BIGWORDS offers students a profusion of benefits such as

convenience, great prices, a prodigious selection of new and

used books and a happy life free of book-related hassles."

Definition: lavish expenditure; great quantity. (n.)

My sentence: Because my sister did well in all of her classes, she received a profusion of praise from my parents for the rest of the month.

Pitch Letter

mm-dd-yyyy

Mr. Joe Smith
Features Editor
Los Angeles Times
City, State, Zip

Dear Mr. Smith,

One fascinating Packard Bell employee is defying the odds, proving that sight is not always needed to be the best at your craft.

Doug Rose, sightless since his childhood, is a self-taught electronics wizard who is one of Packard Bell's leading technicians -- using Braille and voice recognition software to tell him what is on the screen.

Not only does Rose memorize the information -- helping him to identify the issue at hand, he uses his other senses as well. Rose listens for certain sounds that the PC makes, allowing him to diagnose certain problems -- often times correctly.

Rose's desk looks just like all of the other employees, aside from the few pieces of extra equipment which allow him to do his job so well. Visitors are even allowed to hear him in action as he takes calls -- many of whom never knowing Rose is blind.

Doug Rose is an extraordinary human being and employee who has exceeded all odds despite his disability.

I hope to be in touch soon to discuss a possible interview. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Russell Mikols

Finding Features in the News

Cohabitation: Just a Phase?


This story deals with the question of whether or not cohabitation is a way to prepare for marriage, or if it even has to do with marriage at all. This brings up a very interesting topic that I believe could very easily be shaped into a local story.

I think the best way to take a local angle on this story would be to find the most common place and age group that cohabitation occurs -- amongst college students. I think it would be a great idea to find the percentages of students at SJSU who are 1. involved in relationships and 2. how many of those relationships involve living together. After I have figured this out, I would then see how many of those couples living together had ever discussed the possibility of marriage and if cohabitation was the leading cause of their preparing for marriage.

The people that I would interview for this story would simply be the college students at SJSU who had been living together for a steady amount of time. I would ask them various questions such as, have they considered marriage before? Was moving in together a step in preparing for marriage? Did money and paying the rent play into their decision to move in together? And various questions similar to those to find out the real reason for cohabitation amongst college students.

N.C. Jury Trial Exercise

Hard news lead

Local resident, 40-year-old Susie Jones, was awarded $1 million dollars earlier this morning after winning a civil suit for alienation of affection against 39-year-old Mary Smith.

Witnesses claimed that Susie Jones' ex-husband and father of their three children, 43-year-old Joseph Jones, began going on business trips with his secretary, Smith, while the couple was still married. Joseph Jones and Smith are now married.

Feature-style lead

It was a bittersweet, yet gratifying day for a woman who felt that the only way she could stand up for her family was to file a law suit against her ex-husband's mistress for alienation of affection.

It took just three hours for a jury of seven women and three men to come to a decision that would end up paying 40-year-old Susie Jones $1 million -- one of the biggest cash awards ever given out for an alienation lawsuit.

Library Scavenger Hunt

1. They use the Dewey Decimal System. As in most libraries, the Dewey Decimal System is a system that uses numbers to classify books.

2. There are various CD's and movies and different types of casual readings available such as magazines and things of that nature.

3. Academic Earth, Academic Search Premier, Humanities, and Music.

4. By going on sjsu.edu and going to the King Library link. From there, you click on electronic databases.

5. There are 27. 1. San Jose Mercury 2. San Francisco Chronicle 3. New York Times 4. Spartan Daily 5. LA Times 6. Financial Times 7. Wallstreet 8. Investors Business Daily 9. Napa Valley Register 10. The Bakersfield Californian

6. Video: Baby good sports, call number: J DVD 641.3 Baby
DVD: Jimmy and Percy Heath, call number: XD1300
CD: The complete Bang sessions, call number: CD ROCK Morrison

7. The World Book M 13 (Ready Ref AE 5) An encyclopedia on things beginning with M

8. Federal Regulatory Directory (Ready Ref JK 610) Go to on federal regulations

9. CD: Haiti Cherie Meringue (CD WORLD Meringue)
Book: El cumpleanos de Bob (JSPA Picture Book Bob)
DVD: El amor y el espanto (SPA DVD Amor)
Newspaper: Carriere Della Sera (no call number on newspapers)

10. Sports Illustrated, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Martha Stewart Living, Consumer Reports, and Bird Talk

11. The Steinbeck review. /
v. : ill. ;
Call Number(s): PS3557.T3234 Z4585

12. John Steinbeck : a twentieth-century life / by Milton Meltzer.
237 p. : ill. ;
Call Number(s): YA 813.52 STEINBEC Meltzer

13. Mexican Workers and Ammerican Dreams: immigration, repartriation, and Califrona farm Labor. Guerin. Ref CAL 331. 544 Guerin, HD1527 C2 G84 1994

14. History of San Jose. Arbuckle. CALIF 979.474

15. Minorities in California History. Solberg, Curtis. Ref CAL 301.4509

16. Different pieces of art and collections from different cultures such as the Africans, Chicanos and Asians.

17. Lock of Beethoven's hair, replica of clavichord pianos from Beethovens era, and original manuscript of his music

18. Child Psychology: contemprary point. Park, Ross. D. BF721.P279 2009

19. New Boundaries and Political Science. PN3433.6N49 2008

20. American Military History. Blewett, David. E181.B64X 2009

21. Magazines are usually on a vast number of topics -- it could be anything from sports to cooking and usually staff writers write for most magazines. In scholarly journals, there are collections of articles that are reviewed by their peers and most of them deal with academic issues.

22. Ad Age, Adweek, Journalism Quarterly, Journalism Practice, Public Relations Journal

23. 33 Installations

Journal #2 Media Audiences

News Story: Pittsburgh Steelers Win Super Bowl XLIII-- all stories from Feb. 1, 2009

Newspaper: I found a newspaper article out of the Seattle Times about the Pittsburgh Steelers winning Super Bowl XLIII. The article was just over 1,100 words. There were six sources used in the article-- all of them were either players or coaches. The story was accompanied by four pictures which emphasized some of the major plays that occured in the game.
Television News: I found a television newscast from KCRG-TV sports. The story was a little over two minutes long. There were three sources quoted-- all three were players who played in the game. The way the newscast covered the game was much different than the newspaper. The newscast provided a present tense, descripton of the highlights that were being shown on the screen. There was more detail in the sense that the viewer was able to see more of the plays that happened. The newspaper covered more of the big plays in the game.
Web: The web article I found was from ESPN.com as was about 2,000 words. This article was most similar to the one I found in the newspaper but it was much longer and went into much greater detail. There were four sources quoted in the article-- three from players and one from the owner of the Steelers. This story, overall, was very similar to the print story that I read.