• Is it appropriate for the IT Times?
• What is the purpose of your story?
• Audience
• Tone
• Gathering Your Facts
• Structure
• Outlining and the First Draft
• Revisions
• Writing the Lead
• Incorporating Quotes
• Checklist of items you need to submit

 
Once you have identified the subject of your story, you need to make a number of decisions BEFORE you begin to write. Here are the major ones:

Or should you consider another publication? See About the IT Times to review the goals and audience for this publication.

The IT Times is a newspaper. Therefore, whenever possible, stories should have a news angle. You can approach this in a number of ways:

• you are writing about something new (a new product or service, for instance);
• you are trying to draw attention to an existing service, but there is some news associated with this (think about why you want to write about this topic now);
• you are providing information in a way that it has not been presented before (for instance, you are providing advice on a common problem that has not been addressed in this publication before). Remember to keep the distribution date of the upcoming issue in mind when deciding on the "newsworthiness" of your story.

Of course, sometimes we may want to merely draw the readers' attention to an existing service, or we'd like to provide some "how-to" information. There are a number of appropriate stories that may not have a traditional news angle, but every story must have a purpose that makes sense to the readers. Be sure to check what we've published on the subject in the past. Reference the article(s), as appropriate, rather than rewriting a previous article or column. This could also help you to focus in on a news angle for your story.

Answering the questions below ought to help narrow down your scope and to tailor your information to meet the needs of the particular audience you are trying to reach.

• Within the IT Times' target audience (UC Davis faculty and staff), what specific group is your story aimed at? Is it just faculty? What kind of faculty? Is it both faculty and staff? What sub-groups of those groups (e.g., staff who help faculty with course preparation)? Just staff (what kind? staff who deal with students or staff who manage others)? Are you targeting a specific group of users (e.g., Banner users or all POP users)?
• Are you aiming at all users? If so, are they just current users or potential users?

(See "Top 10 Tips for User-Friendly Writing" for more help on how to write for your audience.)

This is perhaps one of the trickiest things for any writer to determine. Tone is governed primarily by the content and the audience. Tone is created through choice of words, sentence structure, and the use of examples and images.

You need to begin by asking yourself, what is my subject matter and who is my specific audience? For instance, if your subject is about a frustrating problem many readers face (maybe hard drive crashes or full email in-boxes) and you plan to provide advice on how to deal with this problem, you might opt for a funny, we're all in this together, tone. A good example of this can be found in Paul Waterstraat's article on file saving. On the other hand, if you are reporting on the recommendations of a recent report, you will probably take a more neutral tone and structure your article around the recommendations, without adding a lot of extra imagery or ironical asides.

So far you have cleared your topic with the editor, decided upon your audience, and identified the purpose your story. Now what do you do? Your next step is to identify your sources. In doing so, consider the following:

• Gather the facts and opinions that will shape your story before you can begin to write.
• Most often, your sources will be people and information that reside at UC Davis (e.g., users, technical staff, programmers, project managers and sponsors, directors, and managers).
• Always be sure to let your sources know that you are writing a story for the IT Times and ask them if you may quote them.
• Base your questions on what you think your reader would want to know.

The goal is to establish the credibility of your information and analysis with authoritative sources. (See "Incorporating Quotes" below.)

Because the IT Times is a newspaper, stories need to be written in a journalistic style, rather than in an expository style. From a structural perspective, these two styles are polar opposites.

Expository style vs. Journalistic style
Most of us are used to writing within an expository structure. That is, we begin with an introduction to our basic topic, make an assertion, and then build our "evidence" or arguments out to support that assertion. This is the structure most of us were taught in our high school and college composition classes. This structure holds true for most reports and other analytical writing, as well. The details unfold, often with the most important point (the "clincher") coming at the end of the piece.

Journalistic structure does just the opposite. All of the most important details come first. It is the reader's job to draw out a general principle or theory. It is the writer's job to lay out the facts, to answer the crucial questions first: who, what, where, when, and why. This structure is often referred to as an inverted pyramid to illustrate that all of the most important points are made in the first three or four paragraphs, with the finer details and background appearing at the end. The reason for this is simple: most people don't read a news story all the way through. Therefore, you need to be sure to tell your readers what they need to know as early and as concisely in the piece as possible (aim for one to two paragraphs, at most).

The following comparison illustrates the difference between the expository and journalistic structures. Both examples contain the same basic information but are structured very differently.

Example 1: Expository IT Progress Report Now Available Information Technology departments on all campuses have faced many of the same challenges over the last five years: how to communicate with customers, how to develop technologies and services that put the needs of the customer first, and how to retain quality employees. At UC Davis, the Division of Information Technology (IT) has been under a lot of scrutiny over the last few years and has demonstrated a lot of progress. For instance, in April 1999, IT received a five-year administrative review (http://it.ucdavis.edu/adminrev/AUR_Response.html). The review focused on five over-arching themes: Academic Priorities, Delineation of Responsibilities, Institutional Ownership, IT as Campus Policy Advisor, and Organization and Access. All in all, the report made 43 recommendations for improving IT's performance. IT responded to all 43 recommendations with proposed solutions. One of the most notable responses was the hiring of John Bruno as Vice Provost-Information and Educational Technology to provide a higher level of leadership for the Division. Dr. Bruno has also filled a number of other key posts in his office and has created a new Instructional Technology and Digital Media Center to better meet the needs of faculty. Now, IT has released its first annual progress report outlining how the original report recommendations have been addressed so far. You can find the report at http://it.ucdavis.edu/adminrev/prog2k/. Like every other IT campus around the country, IT at UC Davis has had to reinvent itself to keep up with the growing demands of both faculty and students. The first steps toward that reinvention are documented in the AUR Response and illustrate progress made.

Example 2: Journalistic IT Progress Report Now Available Since the Division of Information Technology's (IT) Five-Year Administrative Unit Review (AUR) was completed in April 1999, IT has made a great deal of progress in response to the report's 43 recommendations. The first annual Progress Report is now available online at http://it.ucdavis.edu/adminrev/prog2k/. The Progress Report outlines steps taken to fulfill the recommendations. Most notably, since the hiring of John Bruno, Vice Provost-Information and Educational Technology, in September 1999, several key posts within the Vice Provost's Office have been filled or are in active recruitment. Dr. Bruno has also initiated a realignment of services within IT and the creation of the Instructional Technology and Digital Media Center. These developments are in direct response to the recommendations made by the AUR Committee last year. The AUR focused on five overarching themes: Academic Priorities, Delineation of Responsibilities, Institutional Ownership, IT as a Campus Policy Advisor, and Organization and Access. The initial IT response, which addresses all 43 recommendations, was presented to Provost Grey on July 7, 1999, and is online at http://it.ucdavis.edu/adminrev/AUR_Response.html.

Writing for the Web
The IT Times is primarily a Web-based publication. This means that we must also be aware of the difference between writing for a print publication and an online publication when making choices about how we should structure a story.

First, reading an online document is a very different experience from reading a print document.

• Print documents are read on paper of various sizes and held in the hand. The designer/printer can control the type face, color, and ink.
• Web-based documents are read on a screen, usually no more than 15" square, and are displayed in a variety of type faces, colors, and resolutions that the designer can only minimally control. The reader is often farther away from the screen when reading from the computer than from a hand-held paper.

As a result, the most important thing to keep in mind when writing for the Web is that your piece needs to be "scannable." Your reader must be able to quickly scan the document on screen and pick out the most important points. Readers will quickly assess whether to stay on a page or click away within the first few seconds of loading a page.

Here are a few simple ways to structure a piece written for the Web:

• Use a journalistic structure (people reading on the Web tend not to scroll; get your most important points up early).
• Write in short blocks of text (3 sentences on average), rather than long paragraphs.
• Use two or three levels of headings and sub-headings to indicate the content of a block or section of blocks of text.
• Use tables and bullets whenever appropriate.
• Be succinct. Write about half of what you would write for a print document.
• Include other resources/references for the reader: related urls, email, and phone numbers where readers can get more information.

An excellent resource for writing on the Web can be found at http://www.useit.com/. Here you can find out how to make text more scannable, how people read on the Web, and results from Web usability tests that illustrate effective Web writing.

Almost no one can write a story from beginning to end without rewriting and editing it several times. Your best bet is to begin with an outline. Roughly sketch out the structure of your story. What will come first, next, last. You may want to spend the time in this phase constructing the heads and sub-heads that will govern your story. Then write your first draft.

For the first draft, focus on filling in the outline. Try not to worry too much about sentence structure or even grammar and spelling. Your focus here should be on the logical structure of your story and the accuracy of your content.

Most experienced writers tackle revision at several levels. For instance, the first draft should be scrutinized for content, logic, and coherence. The second revision pass could focus on the sentence level -- working to choose more active verbs (see "Top 10 Tips for User-Friendly Writing" for more on this), and to ensure consistency of tone. Another pass could focus on grammar, punctuation, and spelling. All this before you go about writing the "lead" or incorporating quotes.

The lead is the first paragraph of a news story. It should be concise and contain the key point of your story. Test your lead by asking yourself if the reader read only the lead would he/she know the answer to the questions: who, what, where, when and why. A really good lead should also set the tone and draw in your target audience. Here are some examples of good leads:

• Odyssey 1998: Although El Niño may have dampened attendance, hundreds of faculty, students, and staff braved the rain on May 28 to attend the Odyssey '98 Technology Showcase in Freeborn Hall. Campus and community members toured the 43 exhibits and attended 9 tutorials scheduled throughout the day. People not only observed what was on display, but were seen discussing, debating, advising, and describing their technology experiences.

• New Lab: Prompted by the success of The Station in the Memorial Union, IT-Information Resources in March opened a third open-access computer facility on campus.

• New Guide: Have you ever wondered where campus computer rooms are located? Where you can find a scanner? A video editing machine? Did you ever want to know what ServiceIDs are, what they do and how they could possibly be useful? The answer to these questions and more can be found in Information Technology's new Student Computing Guide.

• New Web site: The Division of Information Technology (IT) has a new Web site. To be launched on November 29, IT's new divisional Web pages will provide intuitive, user-centered navigation and content.

• Groundbreaking Research: Keith Barton and Ray Shiraishi had a problem. Their research project, a study of child development based on a psychological therapy known as Sand Tray, was rapidly drowning in a sea of logistical struggles, data-entry nightmares, and subjective analyses. So Professor Barton and Graduate Research Assistant Shiraishi turned to computers to streamline the project. In the process, they may very well have changed the way social science research is organized in the future.

• New service: In its ongoing effort to meet the needs of faculty, the Office of the Vice Provost-Information and Educational Technology has announced the creation of a new Instructional Technology & Digital Media Center. The Center, planned to be operational by Fall 2000, will provide a cohesive, service-oriented entry point for faculty to a broad range of technology and digital media services.

The words of real people (e.g., users, content experts, authorities) are an essential component of any good news story. Quotes can provide credence and make a story relevant to the real life experiences of the reader. Here are some general guidelines for incorporating quotes in your stories:

• Choose on-campus sources who are either key players in the topic you are writing about or will be/are directly affected by it.
• Quote your sources verbatim -- this means you need to take good notes and run the quotes by your source to ensure accuracy.
• For the IT Times, we posit quotes in the present tense: so and so "says," not said.
• Use quotes expeditiously. This can be a real art, but try to use quotes that support a general statement or fact and incorporate them throughout the story accordingly.
• Keep quotes to two or three sentences max, whenever possible. Sometimes the most effective quote is only a word or two.
• Don't over-quote your sources. Paraphrase your sources whenever possible, and save the direct quotes for unique statements.
• Don't overuse quotes. A news story is not an interview. In an average 500 word article, use only three or four quotes, max.
• Be sure to include a person's first and last name, and their title on campus. If your source is a faculty member, be sure to confirm his or her appointment: professor, lecturer, assistant professor, etc.
• Sometimes opening a story or closing a story with a quote can be quite effective. Experiment with this approach, but don't use it as a crutch or as a way to ease into a story.
• Save your interview notes for at least a couple of months after the story is published.

• The story
• Visuals (graphs, charts, photos, etc.)
• List of content experts you consulted and asked to review for accuracy (in addition to anyone you may quote in the story)
• Abstracts: Most stories will be run as abstracts in the print version of the IT Times. Abstracts should be around four or five sentences (approximately 75-100 words) and should encapsulate the key points of your story.

Note: All of these pieces should be submitted electronically (by the deadline) to the Assistant Editor (ietpubs@ucdavis.edu).