News Story

Write an 800-1,000-word news article.

Imagine you have just been hired as a journalist to cover the science beat for your employer. Your first assignment is to write a short news story on new, peer-reviewed scientific research.

Report the recent research on one of the following topics:

Continue working with one of the scientific research articles that you used for the Press Release assignment in Topic 2.

Study the article and develop a news story angle based on some aspect of the article. The angle you choose should be something that makes the science approachable to a lay audience. You may have to write through a few story angle ideas before settling on one that has the most merit and appeal.

Convert the difficult scientific language into explanatory descriptive writing, expressing the scientific concepts clearly and concisely for a popular audience.

Include content that your editor and your audience might typically expect from this type of news story, such as narrative techniques to tell the story.

Write in a style that your editor and audience might expect of a news story. Assume that your story will appear on the Internet and not in print.

Use typical organizational or transitional practices that one finds in news stories (such as opening the article with something the audience might already know about, and then using that to introduce the research on which you are reporting)
Interview an expert in the field of your story and incorporate highlights or quotes from the expert into your story. (Note: You need to get permission and record the interview so that you can listen to exactly what the expert says many times. You will also use the audio recording in the Radio News Story due in Topic 6).

Include both an appropriate visual that reflects the angle of the story to engage the reader and an appropriate caption that connects the visual to the story.

Prepare this assignment using Associated Press Style.