Designed with the beginning journalism student in mind, this undergraduate textbook for fledgling reporters is a reference guide and an instructive text full of real-world examples and writing exercises. Conrad C. Fink, a long-time reporter and bureau chief with the Associated Press, leads journalism students through the basics of news writing, fo

Presents information on writing informational pragraphs for all kinds of articles and essays, covering how to select a topic, find data, create the first draft, make corrections and revisions, and share work with an audience.

Provides practice in writing informative prose -- from the use of descriptive, directional, and time-sequence words to the organization of ideas into sentences and paragraphs.

The essentials of communication for professionals, educators, students, and entrepreneurs, from organizing your thoughts to inspiring your audience. Do you give presentations at meetings? Do you ever have to explain a complicated subject to audiences unfamiliar with your field? Do you make pitches for ideas or products? Do you want to interest a lecture hall of restless students in subjects that you find fascinating? Then you need this book. Make It Clear explains how to communicate—how to speak and write to get your ideas across. Written by an MIT professor who taught his students these techniques for more than forty years, the book starts with the basics—finding your voice, organizing your ideas, making sure what you say is remembered, and receiving critiques (“do not ask for brutal honesty”)—and goes on to cover such specifics as preparing slides, writing and rewriting, and even choosing a type family. The book explains why you should start with an empowerment promise and conclude by noting you delivered on that promise. It describes how a well-crafted, explicitly identified slogan, symbol, salient idea, surprise, and story combine to make you and your work memorable. The book lays out the VSN-C (Vision, Steps, News–Contributions) framework as an organizing structure and then describes how to create organize your ideas with a “broken–glass” outline, how to write to be understood, how to inspire, how to defeat writer's block—and much more. Learning how to speak and write well will empower you and make you smarter. Effective communication can be life-changing—making use of just one principle in this book can get you the job, make the sale, convince your boss, inspire a student, or even start a revolution.

Writing to Inform is filled with fun, high-interest writing topics that will give your students a variety of opportunities to improve their writing skills. The first activities focus on the fundamentals of informative writing, such as the use of descriptive words to make writing more effective. Guided writing activities will challenge your students to write informative paragraphs on book summaries, travel brochures, and character sketches. Students will also write sequential paragraphs using time and direction words, various types of letters and newspaper articles, and much more. A section on proofreading wraps up the book at the end. All activities are reproducible. Students will use graphic planners, such as webs and Venn diagrams, to organize their thoughts and ideas before writing. Writing to Inform is the perfect tool to use when teaching your students the techniques of effective informative writing.

Provides twelve tips on how to write informational works.