• Understanding the roles of editors.
• Understanding how the contemporary newsroom works.
  
• Understanding the straits, challenges and possible opportunities of contemporary journalism.
• Thinking innovatively.
• Thinking critically.
  
• Digital Tools for Journalists.
  
• Digital organization of the flood of information available to you.
  
• Expanding your vocabulary, both in general and the jargon of journalism.
• Expanding your Web-based knowledge, both for fact checking and keeping up to date on the discourse surrounding the problems of journalism.
• A more intense revisiting of editing’s first-order – the nuts and bolts of grammar, punctuation, spelling, style, headline writing, and the visual aspects of news presentation.
• Higher-order content-editing skills.
• Making yourself employable and knowing where to look for a job you will love.

Office Hours
I am available to you this semester – and beyond – to talk about this class, to talk about journalism and communications, to talk about your career, or to just talk. My office hours are are on my schedule:

• Here is a Link to my schedule
  
• Or just stop by – my door is pretty much always open, and if I am in and I am free, we can talk.
  
• You should also note  that  I check my e-mail  once in the morning and once in the evening  Monday  through Friday.

• When Words Collide: A Media Writer's Guide to Grammar and Style by Lauren Kessler & Duncan McDonald -- Required & you are required to bring it to every class

• The Associated Press Stylebook -- Required & you are required to bring it to every class.

• The dictionary I use in grading is the same as the AP Stylebook cites as the second reference to the stylebook: Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition. See AP's Note on Dictionaries

• Supermedia: Saving Journalism So It Can Save the World by Charlie Beckett -- Required

• Other readings as assigned each week (see tentative schedule below).


• The Gainesville Sun and the New York Times, and sign up for and read NewYorkTimes.com at http://www.nytimes.com/ and check out the more digitally oriented Annotated New York Times
• We talk about the news in this course and if you are not reading news, what will you have to say?

• Log in to the e-Learning Support Services web site at http://lss.at.ufl.edu.

Optional Texts

• Journalism 2.0: How to Survive and Thrive: A digital literacy guide for the information age

• Newspaper In A Box from J-Lab -- an incubator for innovative, participatory news experiments.
  

Attendance
Class attendance is required. More than three absences may result in an incomplete for this course. For sure, after your first absence, every lab you miss means your grade drops a level – A becomes B+ and B+ becomes B and so on. Arriving late or leaving early will be considered an absence. To receive credit for tests and quizzes, you must attend and be on time. No make-ups will be arranged for unexcused absences or tardiness.  In addtion, whether the absence is legitimate or not, there will be no classwork make-ups. Life is just too darn complicated as it is, and when I have 20 students juggling deadlines - well, it is just too complicated. The key here is whether your absence is legitimate or not.

Note: University-approved absences must be documented (in advance, if for an approved university activity) according to official university policy. Obtaining written verification for an excused absence is your responsibility.

• 80% on your:
  
• Various editing exercises and  quizzes
• Entrepreneurial Media Ride-Along Report -- including your powerpoint or slideshow presentation.
• Book Report on Steroids
  
• Blogging on Readings
• Case-Study Write-Ups
• Your Midterm and Final Assessments
  
• Resume and Cover Letter
  
• 20% on your Participation, which manifests itself in such things as: 
• Attendance
• Preparation
• Blogging and use of digital tools we go over during the semester
• Classroom demeanor
• Willingness to work with and collaborate with others
• Participation in class discussions
• Ability to follow instructions
• Contributions to the class in whatever form that may take

• Note: I take this participation requirement quite seriously because this class partly involves tapping into the knowledge and life experiences of fellow students. I have been know to give a zero to any student who spends the semester acting like a dead appendage to the class.

• Also Note: While you will not be notified beforehand, not everything you do will receive a grade.

Grade Scale
See Grades and Grading Policies re UF's new policy on minus grades

Not everything you do will receive a numbered grade. Sometimes you will see an "X" in the grade book, which means you satisfactorily completed the assignment. Other than that there is no number grade. The only number grade is zero, which means the assignment was not completed by deadline or not satisfactorily completed. Then when I run the calculations, the X is not figured into the average, but the zero is.

• A flawlessly edited blog item that is description only would garner  1 to 10 points.
• Description with some basic analysis would get you  11 to 15 points.
• But generalization to the issues of journalism based on your own knowledge drawn from experience or your readings in and out of class will garner 16 to 20 points.

Book Report on Steroids on "Supermedia: Saving Journalism So It Can Save the World" by Charlie Beckett. Be ready to offer a short oral report in class. Report of at least 1,000 words will be filed to your blog and is due Week 14. Your report will deal with the book "Supermedia" and any number of the readings about the digital world of journalism you are assigned this semester. The report will consider the arguments of the book and the readings, but it will show how, when taken as a whole, singular, synthesized text, they shine a light on a question currently important to journalism in an ever-changing world of digital media. This essay will include at end a list of sources referenced. 

• SuperMedia: the future as “networked journalism”
• State 2.0: a new front end?

Accommodations
Please let me know immediately if you have any kind of problem or disability that would hinder your work in this course. I will do my best to help you. Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office, which will provide documentation to the student who must then provide this documentation to the instructor when requesting accommodation.

Campus Helping Resources
See links on front page.

Caveat
Sometimes a class such as this will deal with controversial topics, so be warned that words that may be considered offensive may be spoken in the context of the subjects we are discussing. As a teacher, I have no political or social agenda, so do not try to answer in a way you believe might comport with what I want to hear or read. Feel free to advocate any position as long as you remain respectful of others' opinions, and always be able to defend your point of view.

COURSE SCHEDULE* = this is still a bit tentative but it is 90 percent there

E-Learning Web site: https://lss.at.ufl.edu/