Using Quotations and Paraphrasing in Journalistic Writing/Post-Class Activities/Version 2
These activities will build on the skills you learned previously. You will be working with another interview transcript to gain more practice in selecting quotes and paraphrasing material, but will begin by considering how to re-order quotes from an interview to make the resultant article more engaging.
Recall that it is acceptable, and often necessary, to re-order quotes to make them slot in better with the story you are telling; it is very rare that you will receive good, coherent quotes in the order you need when interviewing somebody, and/or you might decide to write your story from a different angle based on what your interviewee tells you. The important thing is to make sure you do not misrepresent your source.
Questions 1 and 2 (4 marks each, 8 marks total)
For each of the following two questions, try to first choose the most effective opening to the story (1 mark) before ordering the three related quotes in the most effective way possible (3 marks) to make your story interesting and engaging. Copy and paste the opening to the story you like best, and then copy and paste the quotes in the order that you think they should appear.
Q1: For the opening, choose either A or B:
A: Astronomers used a high-tech new telescope to take a peek at the coldest place in the universe and were surprised when they found it looks like a ghost.
At -458° Fahrenheit, they originally thought it looked like a bow tie before the greater resolution provided by the new telescope showed a ghost-like shape.
B: Astronomers were shocked to find that the coldest place in the universe (the Boomerang Nebula) looks like a ghost when viewed through a high-resolution telescope.
The Boomerang Nebula, which is about 5,000 light years away from Earth and is in its final stages of life as a star, has a temperature of just -458° Fahrenheit.
Now select the order that the following three quotes (all taken from the lead researcher, Duncan Galloway) should appear in the story:
1: “They’re not just cold at this late stage though as they also emit lots of UV radiation, which is what allows us to see them from so far away.”
2: “What remains of a star at this stage of its life cycle is just the very central component of the original star. They aren’t burning now, which is why they are so cold.”
3: “We’ve seen some funny images over the years, but the ghostly spectre of the Boomerang Nebula was a real shock.”
Q2: For the opening, choose either A or B:
A: Students at the University of St. Andrews have designed a new app that helps schedule the time they keep in hand ahead of their assignments.
Project developer Andrew Stephen explained that the idea sprung from an unhappy classmate who complained about having three essays due in the space of four days.
B: Failing to manage time spent on coursework effectively could be a thing of the past after students from the University of St. Andrews developed an app to help time scheduling.
Project developer Andrew Stephen explained that he hopes the invention will prove useful to fellow students all over the world.
Now select the order that the following three quotes (all taken from Andrew Stephen) should appear in the story:
1: “The basic idea is to help students plan ahead more effectively.”
2: “Although we have road-tested the app, it’ll be a few weeks yet before it’s ready.”
3: “Without good planning, deadlines can often creep up on you and you’ll find yourself with too little time to devote to an assignment worth a lot of marks.”
Writing an Interesting, Relevant Article
Read the interview transcript entitled ‘Exercise Motivation Interview’. A pdf copy of this is available for you to download here. As you read it, try to think what makes the research interesting, and how you should write your article about it (after all, there is no point writing a boring article or one with little relevance to the research that was done).
The questions that follow will give you more practice in using interview material to select an effective angle to take with your article, as well as in extracting quotations and paraphrasing material.
Question 3 (5 marks)
Consider the five following angles that could be taken when you write an entire article about this research. Try to rank these from most interesting to least interesting. Hint: Imagine reading an article framed entirely around each one of these revelations. This should help you decide which angles are more newsworthy, novel, and interesting.
A: It is important to track motivation changes in follow-up studies to see if people have maintained their commitment to exercise.
B: You must commit more than six months to an exercise regime to change your attitude towards being active.
C: Some people do not enjoy exercise and only do it because they feel they should.
D: A high proportion of Canadians do not exercise.
E: Five different studies were analyzed to assess attitudes to exercise.
Question 4 (3 marks)
Imagine that your editor has asked you to produce a very short article explaining (to the general public) how the researchers measured motivation. Read the first response given by Wendy Rogers in this transcript when she was asked this question. Try to paraphrase how researchers measured motivation. Try to remove all jargon and complex, potentially ambiguous words (1 mark). Do not write more than 60 words (1 mark), but make sure you explain the important elements of the research and do not change the meaning (1 mark).
Question 5 (3 marks)
Now read the second response given by Wendy Rogers in this transcript (when she was asked about how many people were studied, and how they were studied). Try to paraphrase this material and remove all jargon, and complex, potentially ambiguous words (1 mark). Do not write more than 50 words (1 mark), but make sure you explain the important elements of the research and do not change the meaning (1 mark).
Question 6 (1 mark)
Imagine that you have just paraphrased the third and fourth responses given by Wendy Rogers (when asked how she defines long-term exercisers, and how many people fit into these categories in Canada) as:
Wendy Rogers explained that ‘long-term exercisers’ are people who exercise at least three times a week, and who have done so for at least a year.
Worryingly, a small proportion of Canadians fit into this category.
Rogers said: “…
Choose one quote to incorporate into the writing above (1 mark).
Critiquing Other Articles
Now you have had a good amount of practice in writing interesting articles, selecting quotations, and paraphrasing material succinctly, you should be able to critique articles written by other people. The final activities in this post-class set will require you to do this when referring to the fictional summary article (below) of a recent science discovery that was published in a university newspaper.
Students who spend at least one hour a day reading for pleasure are more likely to sleep better at night, according to a recent study published on a Navan University science blog by graduate student Lily Maeve.
Maeve asked students who never previously read non-course-related books to wear sleep monitors for a three-month period in which they agreed to read such material before bed, before comparing their sleep patterns with those of students who only read course notes.
She found that the ‘readers’ slept for longer, and enjoyed less broken sleep than the ‘non-readers’. She also noted from qualitative responses that the ‘readers’ said they felt more awake in class and were better able to relax at night.
QUOTE 1: “We thought that we would consider two groups of students: those who agreed to read for pleasure, and those who either only read course notes or did not want to read other things.”
QUOTE 2: “Most students said afterwards that they weren’t surprised by the results, which makes me wonder why more people don’t read for pleasure all the time.”
QUOTE 3: “I think the results are very reliable because we used sleep monitors that were previously validated in other experiments; values from these were compared with data that people personally recorded about their sleep patterns, such as when they went to bed and got up, and when they woke up at night. The sleep monitor data was very reliable when correlated with these personal observations.”
Question 7 (1 mark)
Which quote should be used as it is in the article?
A: Quote 1
B: Quote 2
C: Quote 3
Question 8 (1 mark)
Which of the three quotes should not be used in any way in the article? Hint: this one should not even be paraphrased.
A: Quote 1
B: Quote 2
C: Quote 3
Question 9 (1 mark)
Which quote is the best choice to paraphrase instead of using as a direct quote?
A: Quote 1
B: Quote 2
C: Quote 3
Question 10 (2 marks)
Explain your answer to Q9. Briefly state why this quote should be paraphrased (1 mark) and then succinctly paraphrase it yourself (1 mark).