Back to resource list About URMA: URMA Member list Member magazines Member news History Resources: URMA annual meeting Membership URMAdigest

Working With Student Writers: 2 | Nancy Marie Brown and Melissa Paugh Background (http://www.research.psu.edu/rps/may98/abnormal.html) Last year at this conference, we talked about the value of having student interns at a research magazine: >>It allows the magazine to have a variety of voices, without the cost of paying freelancers. >>It keeps your own work fresh by having new people to discuss writing with, to question you about your magazine's style, and to clue you in to popular culture. >>It gives you a different way of looking at your University, and silences the "Teaching versus Research" debate. >>And it gives you a better idea of the "average high-school educated person" -- your target audience -- and what he or she really knows about recombinant DNA, particle physics, the immune system, etc. What it takes is a lot of time, a lot of red ink, and a lot of planning. And that's when the interns are only contributing to a magazine mostly written by experienced staff writers. This year, I'm going to tell you what it takes to give your magazine over to the students altogether. And I also hope I'll convince you that it's worth doing. The Idea (http://www.research.psu.edu/rps/undergrad/) In 1996, Dana Bauer, who is now the assistant editor at Research/Penn State, asked if she could "do" an issue of the magazine as her honors thesis. The issue would focus on undergraduate research. She would be the editor. All the writers would be undergraduate students. I said sure. And, if she could raise $20,000, we could print it. Otherwise, we'd put it on our website. Dana wrote a proposal, raised the $20,000, planned out the issue, put together a story list, recruited a staff of six writers, and edited their work. We published the first issue of Undergraduate Research/Penn State as a special fourth issue of the magazine in September 1998. It was only about $5000 over budget and 4 pages longer than planned, and the whole experience nearly killed Dana, who then needed another full year to graduate. It also got her a full-time job at Research/Penn State. The magazine was an incredible hit. Dana won the John W. Oswald Award for Journalism when she graduated and the Office of Undergraduate Education threw a party for her. The President and the Board of Trustees congratulated our Vice President. The magazine was reprinted by Undergraduate Education at their cost. The English Department, which had helped us recruit writers, wanted to know how soon we could do another one. And the Office of Undergraduate Education and the Honors College volunteered to help pay for it if we did. We decided to wait two years and think it through. The Plan Dana and I sat down and decided what was educational about her experience and what was slave labor; what worked and what didn't. We decided that the student editor should learn how to be a magazine editor. That included learning how to: >>put together a story list >>assemble and work with an editorial board >>edit other writers' work >>and work with the designer on art ideas and layout. The student editor would not be responsible for the issue, she would just "shadow" me. She would not have to raise money, work with the printer, compile a mailing list, or stuff envelopes. She also would not write any articles except for the opening editorial and possibly a Notebook column (Dana wrote about half the issue). The student we had in mind was Melissa Paugh (the "Abnormal Being" on the first slide). Melissa had been working as a student intern at Research/Penn State since 1998 and had been the associate student editor on Dana's issue, so we had had a lot of experience working with her. Ê To make the issue simpler to produce, we decided it would have to be a regular issue of the magazine, using the same designer, printer, and mailing list and following our usual schedule. We would ask the Honors College and Undergraduate Education to pay to print and mail additional copies. Ê Finally, we decided we needed more control over the student writers. Dana's volunteer writers had turned in some pretty poor stories that Dana (and I) had to do a lot of editing on, and at times we wondered if the revisions would come in at all. For the new issue, we would recruit twice as many student writers--so each would write less--and arrange for them to get course credit. By the end of Spring 1999 we had the plan ready. Melissa would start in the fall semester putting together the story list and establishing an editorial review board by contacting the offices Dana had worked with two years before. I would set up the class. The Story List (Melissa explained this process). Course Description: (http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/n/m/nmb1/ENGL495.htm) The English Department was enthusiastic about the idea of what they called a "group internship." They arranged a time and room for us to meet, got it listed on the schedule of classes, and gave me the courtesy title of "Affiliate Assistant Professor" so I could use all the University's resources for faculty. Then they advertised it in writing classes and over their listserv, as well as over the Honors College listserv. Here is the course description I wrote: ENGLISH 495: GROUP INTERNSHIP Writing for Research Magazines This course allows undergraduate students to act as staff writers for Research/Penn State magazine, culminating in the publication of an issue of Undergraduate Research/Penn State (budgeted for four-color, 36 pages, circulation 40,000 copies) in September 2000. Now in its 20th year, Research/Penn State magazine samples the diversity and drama of Penn State's $374-million-a-year research program as a public service to inform, entertain, and inspire the University community. It is not a technical publication, but a general interest magazine that consistently wins writing awards. Undergraduate Research/Penn State, first published in September 1998, is a spin-off publication focusing on the research experiences of undergraduate students. Copies of the September issue 1998 issue are available in 320 Kern or on the web at . Students taking this course will learn such practical writing skills as: how to analyze a magazine for audience, content, and style; how to conduct an effective interview and work collaboratively with sources; how to find the story in an assignment; how to present scientific and technical information to a general audience; and how to work with editors and art directors. Each student will write one to three 750- to 1,000-word articles and/or one 2,500- to 3,000-word article based on assignments made by the undergraduate editor of UR/PS (a former R/PS intern). Each article will be line-edited by Research/Penn State's professional editorial staff, as well as by the undergraduate editor, and revised by the student until it is of publishable quality. Writing critiques will be one-on-one with the editorial staff. Students will be required to research illustrations (including copyright, availability, and cost) and provide the art director with ideas for illustrating each article. Articles will compete for space in the magazine, with the final determination to be made by the undergraduate editor, in consultation with the professional staff and the editorial review board. Entry to the class is restricted. Students must have completed English 15/30 and have some additional writing experience. To apply, submit a portfolio containing: 1) a resume; 2) a cover letter explaining how this course fits into your career plans; and 3) two complete prose pieces of any length, fiction or nonfiction. Portfolios will be due to Liz Jenkins, English Internship Coordinator, by November 1. Final decision on admission will be made by the editorial staff of Research/Penn State. The last part of this is key: All 400-level writing classes at Penn State are restricted, so students are used to the portfolio idea. Liz Jenkins, my contact in the English Department, collected them, checked that they were complete, and forwarded them to me. By mid-November, we had 30 applicants for 12 spots. I read their portfolios and made my list; Melissa then made her list, and we compared them. Melissa and Ali Balmat, a French and geography major who had had a "regular" Research/Penn State internship the semester before, would also be members of the class. Students The top seven students, based on their writing samples, were accepted right away. Ranked in order of how impressed I was, they were: 1. Cory: a senior in English and biology whose cover letter refered to "Grassbugs and colored pickles and even a little-known taped-together book called Pregnant Women on the Moon." She had written a wonderful short story from the point-of-view of deaf girl. 2. Liz: a senior in English, wrote a short story from the point-of-view of a crazy poet; she impressed me with her playful use of language, such as "Sparkles enter her mind while she sleeps." 3. Marleah: another senior in English whose cover letter said the key to writing was "how to catch and hold a reader's attention, no matter what the subject matter." The strength of her short story about a white woman who had a teenage black child was its depth of characterization. 6. Anne: a junior in geography(GIS) and English who said, honestly, that "It seems like exactly the career path I might decide to choose--which is a difficult thing for me to say. . . . I've waffled back and forth between science . . . and writing . . . " Her writing sample showed clear, straightforward reporting, with good quotes from a variety of people. 7. Andrew: a senior in English and classical Greek who had more science writing experience than any of the others. He had taken a science writing class and was contributing to an Animal Science newsletter. His work was simple, clear, and sometimes poetic. Two more applicants were accepted two days later: 8. Anna: a senior in English and psychology who made the mistake in her cover letter of equating R/PS with "research journal articles," but whose references included poet Robin Becker. The short piece she submitted showed a very nice use of a rhythmic technique (snap, snap, snap). My notes say "she breaks rules well." 9. Julie: a senior in film & video, comparative literature, English, and Spanish-- a lot of majors-- who said that "writing and film making [are both] . . . about discovering things about people and places. . . about the creation of images. They both rest largely on the editing process. . . a process of discovering potential and ideas. . . that you didn't see the first time." That impressed me more than her writing sample. So far we hadn't heard from any honors students and we had too many English majors, so I waited another week, then accepted three: 10. Laura: a senior in Biobehavioral Health who had published a scientific research paper. She submitted both the research paper and an essay about spending the summer working in a Hungarian refugee camp. The essay was vivid and provocative; the technical paper was precise, with an effective use of the academic voice and a good feel for language. 11. Jeffrey: a senior in astrophysics, math and physics, who had worked as a research assistant in astronomy analyzing Hubble and Chandra observatory data. He was also a percussionist for an African dance troupe and wrote an evocative description of a drumming performance. 12. Dan: a junior in Pre-Medicine and English who had done research in both biology and chemistry and wanted to be a pediatrician. He wrote: "the role of physician will be expanded to include interpreter." His writing sample was the script for a dramatic comedy--offbeat but well done. I've given you so much description so you can tell how carefully I made my decisions. I took notes as I read their portfolios. In spite of that, my impressions were wrong. The best article was the one on the slide, by #9, Julie. The writer who responded best to criticism and was most fun to work with was Laura, #10. Organization (http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/n/m/nmb1/syllabus.htm) So, how did we begin? First I set up a listserv and sent the students their syllabus and reading list before Christmas break. Both were also posted on a website. Since I would be missing the first day of classes because of the URMA retreat, they would have nearly a month (if they got started) to read. Some of the readings I posted on the web: http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/n/m/nmb1/syllabus.htm#readings Excerpts on theory from Writing: A Habit of Mind by my mentor S. Leonard Rubinstein Excerpts on Working with Sources from Janet Malcolm, The Journalist and the Murderer Jock Lauterer, Community Journalism D. Patrick Miller, "Notes Toward a Journalism of Consciousness," from The Sun William L. Howarth's Introduction to The John McPhee Reader and my notes from a speech by Richard Preston called "Reporting on Science: Inside the Hot Zone" Then there were things they had to "find and read." First, three stories on the same subject from vastly different publications: "Cosmic Strings" by Alexander Vilenkin, Scientific American (Dec. 1987) "The Gospel of String" by Crease and Mann, The Atlantic Monthly (April 1986) "A High-Strung Theory" by D. E. Thomsen, Science News (Sept. 13, 1986) Then three stories chosen for their vastly different styles: "Release" by John McPhee, from Irons in the Fire (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997; pp. 59-70); first published in The New Yorker (Sept. 28, 1987) "Bats" by Diane Ackerman, from The New Yorker (Feb. 2, 1988) "Crisis in the Hot Zone" by Richard Preston, from The New Yorker (Oct. 26, 1992) Finally, a story chosen for its writer's antagonistic attitude toward his subject: "The New Age of Man" by Malcolm Gladwell, from The New Yorker (Sept. 30, 1996) This is basically the reading list for the regular Research/Penn State internships. Other than the Malcolm Gladwell piece, which Dave put on the list a few years ago, they're all pretty old and I've been discussing them with interns, one-on-one, for years. They break down into 5 lessons: Theory, Sources, Audience, Style, and Content. Still, it was a little traumatic the first class meeting, with 12 new faces around the table. It was an evening class, scheduled from 6:30-9:30. I talked for three hours, they listened, and every now and then Melissa interupted with a much-needed question to get me back on track. We got through about half of it the first night and half the second. During the second class they also had to analyze two issues of the magazine: Questions: 1. Who is the publisher of R/PS. What does it mean to be the publisher? Why does he/she/it publish the magazine? 2. Who is the audience of R/PS? Why does the publisher want them to read the magazine? Why do the editors and writers want them to? Why do the readers want to? 3. What is the overall impression R/PS creates? How is that impression created? 4. Diagram the "skeleton" or "architecture" of R/PS: What kinds of articles appear? Where? How are they organized? Describe how the magazine "flows." 5. Which articles in these two issues of R/PS were the best? Why? 6. Which articles in these two issues of R/PS were the worst? Why? Why did the editors print them anyway? 7. What is an R/PS article? Compare the R/PS articles to the ones on this reading list. Between classes, Melissa had sent them the story list she had put together. Each student was to pick five story ideas from the list and send us their choices over email. We had then assigned each student one of the five to check out before the third class, when the student had to "pitch" the story idea to us: how long it would be, what the approach would be, and where it would fit in the magazine. We decided as a group (though my opinion carried more weight) whose stories would be features and whose would be Encyclopedia stories or columns. Some stories we decided not to write at all; others were vastly changed based on this discussion. At the end of class, each student had a complete assignment--topic, list of sources, word count, and placement in the magazine. Then they had two weeks to do interviews and background research and write in their first drafts. The Rough Draft That's when things started to get interesting. These were all very good students. They had done the readings. They had asked intelligent questions. They had analyzed the magazine without any trouble. And their rough drafts were miserable. It didn't look like we had any chance of putting together a decent issue. I was so disgusted, I sent the following letters over the listserv: Dear class, (Notice you've been demoted: You're no longer "Dear staff.") If you were the staff of a real magazine, you would all be fired. If you were working as freelance writers, your stories would have been killed.Ê If you were applying for a job, you wouldn't get interviews. Why? Not one of you followed "house style," in spite of having been given a style sheet. Being able to deduce "house style" and to follow it EXACTLY is the first mark of a professional writer. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Following house style is the easy part. Get a copy of R/PS and find out the following: 1. How do we handle courtesy titles? How do we refer to a source on second reference? How and where do we designate a source's status (professor, Dr., Ph.D., etc.)? 2. Do we capitalize department or college names? 3. Where do the semicolons go in the credit block? 4. How do we designate percentages? fractions? temperatures? 5. Where and how do we introduce Penn State? In addition to the particulars of R/PS manuscript style (where to put the title and byline, what font and type size to use, how to do page numbers), standard manuscript format is one side of the page, no staples. Use paperclips. Your next draft must follow house style exactly. If it doesn't, I won't edit it. More comments to come... Letter number two: Dear class, In the world of a professional writer, spelling counts. Punctuation counts. Grammar counts too. And then there's style. Some of you need some remedial work. (Read E.B. White, The Elements of Style.) Some common mistakes: 1. "Hopefully" means "in a hopeful state of mind." Don't use it, as you will invariably use it incorrectly. 2. "This is" is not a grammatical construction. This what? This idea, this experiment, this something. 3. "This is because" is even worse. "Is because" is not a grammatical construction. 4. "Their" is not a singular pronoun. You cannot say, "Each student chose their favorite." Find a graceful way of saying "his or her" or make the whole sentence plural. Proofread your work. Have a friend proofread it. Ask one of the student editors (Melissa or Ali) to proofread it. Do not depend on your computer's spell-check or grammar-check programs (sometimes they're wrong). Take pride in your work. And letter number three: Dear class, You can come pick up your edited rough drafts in 320 Kern tomorrow (9-5). Melissa, unfortunately, has the flu, so you won't have the advantage of seeing her comments too, but I think you'll have enough red ink anyway. After you've read through my comments, you're welcome to make an appointment with me (or Melissa, if she's better) to discuss them. *****The next drafts are due March 2, the Thursday before Spring Break, by 5:00 in 320 Kern.***** Note that this is a change to the syllabus. You're not nearly as far along as I had hoped you'd be by this point. Dave and Dana were also signed up for the student listserv, just so they'd know what was going on. After these letters came over the wire, Dave came into my office. He said, "You know, I think if somebody had said that to me as an undergraduate, I would have given up writing altogether." Melissa, bless her heart, took some of the sting out of it. As soon as she received my letter--before she'd even talked to me about her criticisms of the rough drafts--she sent this letter: hello writers, I am finally recovering from the flu. I have finished editing your drafts as well. If you are interested in the comments I have made, you may pick them up in 320 Kern starting Wed. morning. If anyone would like to talk to me about drafts, I will be in the office from 11-1 on Wed. or you can make an appointment with me. I think it would be helpful for many of you to bring revised drafts to me so I can check them for house style and other simple errors before Nancy reads them. Don't get discouraged. This is a learning process. I think everyone hopes his or her first submitted draft will come back w/out a red mark (except for the "WOW" written across the top by an editor struck by your genius). I have never heard of this happening. Be reassured that you are getting a real "professional" experience, not a watered down version for college students. So, take a deep breath and keep working on it. Revisions Surprisingly, it worked. All but one or two of them seemed to suddenly wake up. They started taking their writing much more seriously. They made appointments and discussed ideas with me and Melissa. They did more interviews and checked more background information. They tried different ways of saying things and sent me paragraphs to check. Some of them--like Liz--made real pains of themselves, showing up with a draft every week. Others, like Julie and Andy, suddenly seemed to understand the process and turned in a second draft that was terrific. No one missed the March 2 deadline, and all the drafts followed house style--or were at least pretty close. At this point, except for one or two outliers, they really considered themselves the staff of a magazine. That was the key to making this work: we were producing a real magazine. Since then, I've had the experience of teaching a "real" journalism class--a regularly scheduled 400-level class for journalism majors. I was appalled at the quality of the work these students turned in. They were extremely poorly prepared. They didn't know how to conduct an interview, or how to edit one to find a good quote. They didn't know how to look carefully at a person or a situation and find the "telling detail." They couldn't spell or punctuate, and they didn't even meet their deadlines. I found myself constantly lowering my standards. With Undergraduate Research/Penn State, I couldn't lower my standards. My professional reputation was on the line. So instead, Melissa and I hauled the students up to meet those standards--and most of them got there. In addition to writing their articles, they had to do the other jobs of Research/Penn State staff members. They had to explain their stories to the art director and come up with ideas for art. Some of them worked with student or professional photographers or illustrators to illustrate their stories. Others collected things from their faculty and student sources, or searched the Internet. They got their stories reviewed by their sources and a few of them took on and completed additional assignments. Everyone had to attend the Undergraduate Research Fair and submit a news story; Melissa picked which of these to print on the news page. By the beginning of April, we had a complete, reviewed manuscript and much of the artwork in hand. The art director--who had just sent the May issue to press--was able to flow text into a rough layout. We held two more classes during the last two weeks of the semester, during which the students proofread and edited each others' stories. A few stories had to be cut drastically to fit the assigned space. One of those was Liz's magnum opus on the Gypsies. It was scheduled to be a two-page profile. It barely fit in three pages, and she had good art. We cut it down, and Liz sulked. Then she had a suggestion: why don't we take the 3-page "Bee Girl" article and make it a profile, letting "Gypsies" run in the features well. "Bee Girl" did have some profile traits. It wasn't so farfetched an idea. Then Liz proved she had been listening all semester. "There's another feature article about bugs--ÔBug Camp.' That's too much on one subject for one section. But if you have a bug story in the profile section in the front and run "Bug Camp" as the last article, they'll act like bookends." That idea--"bookends"--was something I had talked about in the very beginning of the semester. It's something I always look for when I'm organizing a magazine, and this time I'd missed it. Liz won the point. We cut "Bee Girl" instead. Of course, it didn't hurt that the author of "Bee Girl," Ali Balmat, had already published several stories in Research/Penn State and was in line to be the next student editor, if we do an issue of Undergraduate Research/Penn State in 2002. The final product (http://www.research.psu.edu/rps/0009/) So here's the final product, an excellent issue of the magazine--particularly because of the cover art. The student artist was chosen by a member of our Editorial Review Board, and when we saw how good her stuff was, we reorganized the magazine to have room for an Encyclopedia story about her. Melissa wrote it in about two days just before deadline. The best part of the project, from an organizational standpoint, was that we got the September issue almost completely finished and ready to go to press by the middle of May--when Melissa graduated. We hired her for two weeks part time to finish up the last few things, then the art director and I took two months vacation. The only thing I might do different next time is we didn't put any notice on the cover--nor did we put out a press release saying this was an "Undergraduate" issue. This time no one threw us a party. In fact, I don't think most of the faculty even noticed that all the writers were students. One important one did notice, however: Leonard Rubinstein sent us a nice letter saying, "Nothing in the magazine indicates less than professionals at work. The President of the University should be happy at this counteractant to cynicism about undergraduate abilities." Presented at the University Research Magazine Association Conference, Arizona State University,January 9-12, 2001