Armstrong Atlantic State University
English 4700  Advanced Composition

Responses to rough drafts for Assignment #6 follow the reminders below.

Final Revision of Assignment #6 (Feature Story). Due no later than 6:00 p.m. on Monday, May 10. Drop folder (containing assignments #1 through #6) in the box outside Victor 1-10. No late papers accepted. Graded essays can be collected from this box any time after Monday, May 17.

Reminders.

• Guide for Assignment #6 . Please re-read the assignment guidelines carefully, beginning with the first paragraph on page two:

  A feature story can take many forms, though I'm asking you to focus on one of the following: informational, profile, historical, or travel (see pp. 84-86 in "The Second Step-Write"). [Other approaches may be possible: e-mail your ideas to me and together let's see what might work.] In any case, this will not be a first-person essay. A strong feature story should have at least one of the following qualities: currency (write about what's happening now--unless, of course, you've opted to take an historical approach, in which case you might relate a past event to what's happening now), character (see guidelines for our profileassignment), impact (how a situation or event directly affects your readers), oddity (the unusual or unexpected). You may return to an earlier assignment (#2, #3, or #4) and consider ways of reworking a topic and approach to suit the magazine that you're targeting.

  And remember that a feature story is built on information--specific, reliable, current, and relevant information. Not opinions, impressions, feelings, or empty stylistic display. Your editor is looking for fresh information--presented in an engaging way.

• Review the advice provided in "Magazine Editors' Roundtable." In particular, look at what Salerno and Raskin have to say about conducting research and quoting sources, review what all four editors have to say on the subject of style ("when reviewing a writer's clips"), and read Salerno's vision of "the ideal freelancer."
• In the chapter on "The Second Step-Write," consider in particular the sections on leads (77-78) and endings (82-84), and then look again at the concluding section on revisions and rewrites (90-92).
• In the chapter on "The Third Step-Publish," review the short section on "Know the Buyer" (105-107): though your query letter has been accepted (congratulations), keep in mind that there's still no guarantee your article will be published. As you work on your draft, make sure you familiarize yourself with the magazine you're writing for.
• Study the examples (good and bad) in the article "Making Your Article Leads Sparkle." Beware of the cute, the clichéd, the tedious, and the obvious. And remember that you don't have to begin at the beginning.
• Because many of us have struggled at times to write effective conclusions, pay heed to the article "Twelve Ways to End Your Article Gracefully." (But please skip the fourth way-"The Play on Words.")
• Final versions of your feature story should include a cover letter and drafts. Article should follow the format that is explained in the "At-a-Glance Guide to Magazine Article Format," and that's illustrated on pages 81-82 from the Guide to Manuscript Formats. Please note how this format differs from the one prescribed for previous course assignments--and remember to include your e-mail address.

The remaining handouts ("How to Test Your Articles for the Eight Essentials of Nonfiction," "Revision: Seven Steps to Better Manuscripts," and "Manuscript Mechanics") provide concise summaries of key points we've been considering throughout the term and should be helpful to you as you revise and edit..

Note on editing. A reminder to review the first five essays you've submitted and take note of any corrections I've made. Then please make a special effort not to repeat any errors (no matter how slight) that may have appeared in your earlier work. By this final assignment, you should know how to arrange and punctuate quotations, how to space ellipsis points (. . .), and how to use conjunctive adverbs (such as however and therefore). You should know the difference between it's and its-and be prepared to check spelling with the aid of a dictionary as well as an electronic spell checker. Above all else, you should know how to learn from your own mistakes-and if you're not sure, please ask me before Monday, the revision is due.

RESPONSES TO ROUGH DRAFTS OF FEATURE STORY (Assignment #6)

Following are brief responses to drafts that were dropped off by the deadline of May 4.

John Branscomb. John, I found your article fascinating: you're cooking up a solid story here. Excellent lead--though I agree with your comment that additional examples in the body of the piece could help both to illustrate your observations and to move the article from an academic territory to the land of the feature story (though you really don't have too far to go in this one). Don't hesitate to refer to examples from film and fiction (as you do in your query letter)--even if it's to point out the fallacies in those fictions. The latest MLA Manual (and its online version, at http://www.mla.org/set_stl.htm ) suggests how to cite Internet sources. Because you're referring to two works by Treffert, cite the text as (Treffert Extraordinary) and the web site as (Treffert "Savant"), each followed by a page number if available. Because of time constraints, I wouldn't worry at this point about locating more recent information-but I would encourage you to do that after the end of term. The article does have publishing potential (though probably not in Time, by the way, which relies so heavily on staff writers: perhaps Atlantic magazine?). I'm looking forward to seeing the final version.

Katy Byrd. I've already sent you a response via e-mail. Let me know how things are coming along.

Veronica Martini. Lead will work once you revise or cut the first sentence ("over the rainbow" allusions are pretty worn out and "way down South" is also a cliche): the details in your "if" clauses are captivating. In the second paragraph, identify Borges by name (sadly, not all your readers will even recognize the name) before identifying him as "the Argentinean voice." What your editor will have you strike out are the attacks on Buenos Aires (particularly the "eleven million xeroxed souls"), so try tempering these remarks. You can still establish a regional contrast without pursuing put-downs. Once you start to get down to business on page 3, see if you can clean up the mixed metaphors in the paragraph that begins "Resembling the palm of the farmer's open hand . . .." and combine a tighter version of this paragraph with the key point(s) in the next one. (By the top of page four, this is all beginning to sound like a very long introduction.) Fortunately, you establish a focus in the short paragraph that begins "Like the tourists . . ."--though I'm curious to learn a few more details about how these people live (something about their houses, work, communities--will this be coming up?). Your editor will perk up at the bottom of page five: here you begin to assume more of a "you-orientation" (i.e., you start to anticipate the questions and concerns of the traveler unfamiliar with this land) and I expect this is where you'll be providing us with some practical information about journeying in these parts. Without loss of blood you could cut about a third from pp. 1-4 to make room for the information you're about to provide us. Though rough, this is all quite promising.

Judy Morris. Coming along fine. First page is a lot sharper and more focused than the version you showed me earlier in the week. The use of second-person helps you to keep the reader in mind throughout the article (THANK YOU), and the precise details (as in the original version) really help to walk me through this place. I like the addition of brief quotations, particularly as a way of providing some history on the shop--just wish there were a few more of them. What I'd like to see integrated into the piece and developed into a full conclusion is some factual information (whatever you can possibly get--perhaps Sara and Jimmie can help) about the prospects for such an enterprise in modern America. Is it possible to make a living running such a shop? Are there more of them or fewer than ten or twenty years ago? In other words, try to provide some data (even if it's anecdotal information) that will lead us toward an answer to the question you pose in your lead: "How long will they survive?"

Sarah Smoak. Sarah, an editor is going to tell you straight away that you're going to need a fresh angle, a sharper focus, and more specific information. As it stands, it's basically a "don't litter" piece--with not much new to say. I thought you were going to focus on the littering that goes on in our country's parks and nature preserves: if so, try a lead that dramatizes the problem (heart-breaking descriptions of the litter and some statistics on the cleanup costs), cut out the stuff about our neighborhoods, and get some quotations from folks (such as park rangers) who have to face the mess everyday. You need to research the problem further-check out major environmental sites on the Web (Sierra Club, etc.) Also, think harder about a more focused and effective response to the problem. Clearly, neither littering laws nor "awareness of the problem" has done much to combat the actions of the slobs (people who are probably too thoughtless to be reading your article). Consider more draconian solutions-beginning, perhaps, with the death penalty. You can do it.

Sheri Reagan. If you were writing for a religious magazine, the opening paragraph might be satisfactory. For Women's Day, try for a stronger lead that gives us an immediate, first impression of your subject. She's your hook, so from the start try to catch the reader's interest by showing her in action or letting her reveal herself through her own words. In the first couple of body paragraphs, try answering these questions: where is/was the "Christian Tabernacle Assembly of God," how old was Dana when she entered and left, how did she get into the cult? (Btw, follow MLA format--no single spacing--and integrate quotations into your text.) If the key message about the cult is that it was fear-based, can you provide more specific examples of how fear was used as a motivator? (Such information might replace the passage about rules against immunizations.) Could this involve more specific information about her relationship with her father? Considering what we've learned in recent years about both the PTL Club and Jimmy Swaggert (page 4), might these references send some mixed signals to your readers--signals not wholly consistent with the point you make here? On page 5, could you clarify Dana's relationship with her family: it appears that first the family separated from the cult and then she separated from her family--am I reading this right? On page six, you quote Dana referring to "the hurt"and "the pain"she experienced, but have those qualities of hurt and pain been adequately dramatized in the first part of the article? Later the word "perpetrator" appears, but is it clear what was perpetrated? On page 8 you observe that Dana's "gift of communication" results from "her religious studies and belief." Are you referring just to post-cult studies and belief--or is there the suggestion that in some ways she still remains affected by her childhood experiences? There's may be publishable story in here, Sheri, but try working on drawing out more specific information about the cult and Dana's cult experience. And whatever you can do to SHOW us this individual (both as a child and as an adult) rather than TELL us could strengthen the article. Good luck.

Angela Spaulding. I thing you're on to a promising topic here, Angela--I just hope that your scheduled interview went well (that should provide you with the heart of the article). Make sure you give us a sense of how pervasive these operations are, where they tend to be located, and what sorts of people are most likely to be exploited by them. Any information you might have re. pending legislation would be valuable, but it's getting late--try a Web search of state government sites (in Georgia and SC) but don't get bogged down on this part of the story (it will work without the legislative info if necessary). Good luck. (I'll have your Issues paper back to you next week.)