One Thing @ A Time

I really enjoyed reading Walter Kirn's The Autumn of the Multitaskers. I think that he had a good lead but I would have started off with the story of looking for the picture on the phone and driving off the road to really be the lead. I found that this story was much more interesting because it is something that happens to many people. Even more people have had near accidents because of toying with their phone.

I liked the way that Kirn would separate each story in his essay by using the three dots (I can't think of what they are actually called) at the end. I think it adds interest while also giving the reader a break. It felt like it read much faster than a normal 19 page essay.

By using so many different stories and examples, the reader is really able to understand the multiple ways that multitasking can negatively effect people's lives.

Page 308- drives off road by checking phone

Page 311- "Where do you want to go today?" (could you not just stay home?)

Page 312- "We concentrate on the act of concentration at the expense of whatever it is that we're supposed to be concentrating on."

Page 313- "...certain studies find that multitasking boots the level of stress-related hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and wears down our systems through biochemical friction, prematurely aging us."

Page 325- "Where do you want to go today?...Away. Just away. Someplace where I can think."

Because Kirn used so many examples, I started to think about how multitasking may actually be causing me more stress than if I would just do one thing at a time. If he had not done the amount of research or given as many examples, his writing would not have had the same effect on me or other readers.

Getting Down to Business

This week I seriously started putting thought into writing my feature. I have known about it for a while now, but of course I did start writing it until I absolutely had to. I have a little problem known as procrastination. I'm pretty sure that I am one of 20% of procrastinators that suffer from chronic procrastination. Since I have this problem, it is fitting that my feature is on procrastination in college students and the psychological effects that it can have.

I am interviewing students that are admitted procrastinators and I have information and pamphlets that I have taken from the Counseling Center that I am going to incorporate into my article. So I have those 2 forms of research that I am mainly using but then I also did quiet a bit of research online. I am having trouble finding information in the form of statistics though. I am thinking that this may be because everyone procrastinates so it may be hard to put any kind of importance into a percentage.

While I was writing my article I kept thinking back to Laskas and the amazing amount of research and time she spent on her article. She spent months talking with miners and spent months living their lives just to write a single article. She makes me understand how much work is needed to write quality pieces. Even though we have a word limit we need to be writing for quality and not quantity.

I have noticed one main thing that Laskas does effectively that I have not been able to do yet and that is her use of quotes. I have also had trouble putting as much description into my article. I know that the reader is supposed to be able to "see" what I see, but I haven't been able to accomplish that. I am confident that I will be able to add to and improve my article after our workshop on Friday though!

Construction of the Underworld

Underworld by Jeanne Marie Laskas is a powerfully moving feature that gives readers a look into the lives of hard working coal miners. Laskas was able to write such a great piece because of the amount of time and energy she spent with the miners. She did more than just interview and talk with the miners but she actually observed them and listened to their conversations with each other.

An example of her time spent with the coal miners is on page 398:

They were shy at first, eager to impress and with little other apparent motivation, welcomed me in. I followed one crew, "the E rotation"- Billy, Smitty, Scotty, Pap, Rick, Chris, Kevin, Hook, Duke, Ragu, Sparky, Charlie- who worked in the Cadiz portal, one of the two the company owned. I followed them underground, home, to church, to the strip club where they drink and gossip and taunt and jab and worry about one another.

Another example in her writing that shows how much time she spent studying the miners is one page 400:

I spent months trying to position myself and my world around these people-people who seem stuck in a bygone era that isn't bygone at all.

It seems that after spending such a great deal of time with the miners that Laskas realized that it was not the miners who were stuck in a bygone era but that it is the consumer that is stuck. This is a great example of how new ideas stem from what is being written about and can take a piece in an entirely new direction. You find new ideas and new stories while doing research-learning something new is something that should happen while writing a feature.

Another feature of features is the use of description. Writers should describe as much of what is happening as possible so that the reader can almost feel like they are there and can see what the writer sees. A few of the most descriptive sentences used is found on page 404:

Once you step off the elevator, you climb onto a manstrip, a small train car. You don't sit so much as lie on that thing, a crawling convertible, you lean way back on it so as to avoid scraping your head on the ceiling as you whiz on in through a cool, damp tunnel, mud, slush, clunk, clunk, rattle, hiss. You travel a mile in, two miles in, sometimes as far as six or seven miles in and away from the elevator shaft where you first dropped down.

Laskas's use of description and the lengthy amount of time she spent researching her story made the piece effective and made me feel more connected to the people that she wrote about.

"Specialist Town Takes His Case to Washington"- Feature

The article “Specialist Town Takes His Case to Washington” by Joshua Kors was an amazing story featuring a story that many people would never find out about. It’s heartbreaking to find out that after serving months or years in the service that soldiers are being misdiagnosed and kicked to the curb so that money can be saved. Before reading this article, the issue was never anything that crossed my mind because I have so much respect for the people that protect our country and I assumed that everyone else felt the same way. If it were up to me, soldiers would be provided with whatever they needed for the rest of their lives.

Kors did a great job of bringing this case to the American public and it just shows how powerful a feature article can be. Writers really have the chance to publish an article about real stories and can take part in making a wrong a right. It also got me thinking about how much research has to go into a feature. He needed to know what medical terms meant, he needed to know every person involved and then interview them, he needed to know dates and places. This article made me realize that to make the story great and worth reading that a lot of research is going to have to take place. But anything worth doing is worth doing well.

Influential Reviews

This week I realized how influential reviews in magazines can really be. I have a subscription to Texas Monthly and I guess I never really realized how many reviews are regularly written in the magazine. The cover of the August issue shows a delicious hamburger and has the title, “The 50 Best Hamburgers.” I read through the entire article to see which restaurants I have been to and then I made a mental list of the burger restaurants that I want to visit in the future.

In class we read a review that a student wrote on the Cupcake Cottage in Fort Worth. I had heard about this place through word of mouth, but it wasn’t until I read the review that I actually wanted to go. Immediately after reading the review I went onto the Cupcake Cottage website to see what all of the 31 flavors were. The writer made the place sound so good that I wanted to go to the store that day and buy a cupcake! If it had not been for that review I probably never would have given the Cupcake Cottage a second thought.

For my article, I am review the Mexican food restaurant Freebirds. I wanted to write about this place because I have heard many TCU students talk about how much they love Chipotle. I am not a fan of Chipotle, but I absolutely love Freebirds. The atmosphere there is great and the employees are always so friendly and helpful. They even recognize me when I come in now. I hope that after people read my review that they will think about giving Freebirds a chance. I got hooked on it when I live in College Station and now it’s the only place I go to get my burrito fix.

Hi everyone! My name is Sara and I am a senior this year at TCU! Well, technically I was a senior last year too :) but I decided to stick around a while longer. I am majoring in Secondary Education- English/Language Arts, Reading, and ESL with a minor in English and I hope to be teaching in an ESL classroom by Fall of 2010. Although I love teaching high school students, I plan on going back to school so that I can teach at the college level one day.

When I am not in class you will more than likely find me working at the Info Desk or on duty in my resident hall. This is my first year as a RA and it has been interesting to say the least. When I do get free time I enjoy spending time with my friends and catching up on the sleep that I miss out on during the school week.



From this class I expect to gain more understanding as to how a magazine comes together. I was the editor of my high school newspaper but I have always been interested in writing for magazines as well. My favorite magazines are Texas Monthly and Cosmo. They are completely different but each is great in its own way.