Writing Courses
NEWS WRITING
Two day course
Maximum number of students: 15
A practical course covering news sense, the art of writing simple sentences and how to structure a hard news story. Soft news, colour and feature writing are also briefly covered, but the emphasis is on hard news.. Course members do extensive work on examples, and sit an exam that tests news sense and writing skills. Course members are awarded a Distinction, High Credit, Credit, High Pass, Pass or Fail.
NEWS WRITING COURSE – OPTIONAL FOLLOW-UP COMPONENT
Designed for circumstances in which reporters need more feedback and support than is available in the deadline pressure of the newsroom. Course participants follow up on the lessons taught in the main course by e-mailing un-subbed versions of their stories to the course tutor at the rate of one story per week for four weeks after the course. The tutor provides detailed feedback and comments by e-mail. Editors can liaise with the tutor if there are any areas of concern they particularly wish to have addressed.
FEATURE WRITING
Two day course
Maximum number of students: 15
This is a practice and example based course teaching how to write features and human interest stories that engage the reader, while giving insight into the people, places and emotions behind the news. The course discusses and analyses the different purposes of features and human interest stories. The structure of features will be discussed, and contrasted with the “inverted pyramid” structure of hard news. The different skills needed for researching features and conducting feature interviews will be covered and illustrated with examples.
Students will gain practice in structuring engaging features, before undertaking a series of practical exercises aimed at honing their writing skills. Participants will learn the difference between “showing” the reader a story, and telling them facts. They will learn the discipline that underlies all good writing, and how this is to be applied to the softer side of news. As part of the course students will be introduced to the best feature writing in Australia, and encouraged to apply the techniques and insights they gain to their own work.