- Description
CMC 240 Week 1 Project Topic Identification
Choose a project topic from the following list. This topic will be used for several individual assignments throughout the course.
- Bullying in school (physical, cyber, laws, role of schools of parents)
- The evolution of the American family
- Stalking (laws, physical, vs. cyber)
- The impact of media on a specific audience (children, women, teenagers, or other)
- Celebrity culture or cult of celebrity
- American consumerism
- A First Amendment topic
- Federal powers vs. state powers
- Government financial reform
- A recent Supreme Court decision
- A topic of your choice in consultation with your instructor
Submit your chosen topic for approval to your instructor.
CMC 240 Week 1 Identifying and Eliminating Bias
Read the front page of The Kelsey Gazette.
Choose one of the headline stories.
Write a 350- to 700-word paper in which you discuss potential bias in the story you selected and ways you can avoid bias as you do your own research. Address the following:
- Identify the bias and unethical use of information.
- What criteria could you use to improve the credibility of this story?
- Rewrite the story to eliminate the bias. Your audience is a general audience made up of men and women of varying education levels.
- How would you adapt your message to an audience made up exclusively of college professors?
- Explain how you adapted the message to the new audience.
- Discuss potential areas of bias associated with your specific topic.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
CMC 240 Week 2 Pre-Search Questions and Application
Develop a list of at least 5 pre-search questions to avoid message bias and identify potential sources about your project topic. See examples in Ch. 9 of Reaching Audiences under “Developing a Strategy” in the “Getting Started” section.
Find and list 3 or 4 sources for your project topic.
Write a 250- to 350-word analysis of the sources for their credibility based on the following criteria:
- Accuracy
- Authority
- Currency
- Audience
- Agenda
Develop a list of several follow-up questions you have after reading these sources.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
CMC 240 Week 3 Finding Information
Resources: Ch. 9 Reaching Audiences and the University Library
Locate at least 3 articles through the University Library that are potential sources for your project topic.
Locate a recent news story related to your topic from at least three different news aggregators (Google News, Bing News, Yahoo News, or others).
Write 300 to 500 words evaluating and comparing the process of using the University Library versus the news aggregators in terms ofaccessibility and usability. Support your claims with specific examples of the information you found.
Evaluate your findings using the criteria for establishing credibility from the Pre-Search Questions and Application assignment in Week Two.
CMC 240 Week 4 Beyond Breaking News
Write a 350- to 700-word paper discussing the advantages and challenges of researching and producing online content for your project topic. Include the challenges of audience participation.
Explain how your topic might be different when delivered either through a newspaper or on the Internet, and how it might be different as a breaking news story, a news feature, or a blog entry.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
CMC 240 Week 5 Dealing with Informal Sources Paper
Review “The People Formerly Known as the Audience” in the Electronic Reserve Readings.
Locate 2 recent news stories about your project topic. Pay close attention to the comments section and the share function (to share on social media sites). Consider how the audience both receives and creates information and also how social media affects the way people receive information.
Write a 500- to 700-word paper in which you briefly discuss the effects the online audience can have on a story’s content, credibility, and trending, particularly as it relates to your project topic. Address the following questions:
- How might this affect the way you write your story?
- How is quoting informal information from an interview different from quoting information from online comments?
- Why is it important to be accurate and attribute sources?
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
CMC 240 Week 6 Exploring Virtual Libraries
Resources: “A Guide to Media Writing” and “Observation” in Ch. 9 of Reaching Audiences
Identify specific sources using the Librarian Internet Index (http://lii.org).
Research your topic using at least two different sources.
Write a 350- to 700-word paper discussing these sources in terms of accessibility and usability. Give specific examples of the information you found to support your claims. Discuss common pitfalls of online research.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
CMC 240 Week 6 Information Trail
Resources: Ch. 6 of Reaching Audiences
Complete and submit the table in Appendix A as an attachment. This assignment is similar to the Finding Information assignment from Week Three. Using your project topic, create an information trail of at least 5 sources through indexes, bibliographies, or reference lists.
CMC 240 Week 7 Article Summary
Complete Appendix B by answering the set of questions about each of the sources you have identified for your project.
Write a 1-paragraph summary of each of your resources using the checklists in Ch. 10, 11, & 12 of Bookmarks.
Appendix B
| Article 1 citation:
| |
| Does the information in the source answer the important questions you identified in your research? | |
| Does this source support your arguments, or present good counterarguments that you should address? | |
| Does this source present good examples or illustrate important points of your thesis? | |
| How current is the information in this source? | |
| Are the statistics or other concrete facts and figures in this source still relevant? | |
| Do more recent works substantiate the claims of this source or do they provide information that is more pertinent? | |
| Does the author appear to have written from firsthand knowledge or experience? | |
| Does the author use facts and figures from reliable sources to support his or her position? | |
| Article 2 citation:
| |
| Does the information in the source answer the important questions you identified in your research? | |
| Does this source support your arguments, or present good counterarguments that you should address? | |
| Does this source present good examples or illustrate important points of your thesis? | |
| How current is the information in this source? | |
| Are the statistics or other concrete facts and figures in this source still relevant? | |
| Do more recent works substantiate the claims of this source or do they provide information that is more pertinent? | |
| Does the author appear to have written from firsthand knowledge or experience? | |
| Does the author use facts and figures from reliable sources to support his or her position? | |
| Article 3 citation:
| |
| Does the information in the source answer the important questions you identified in your research? | |
| Does this source support your arguments, or present good counterarguments that you should address? | |
| Does this source present good examples or illustrate important points of your thesis? | |
| How current is the information in this source? | |
| Are the statistics or other concrete facts and figures in this source still relevant? | |
| Do more recent works substantiate the claims of this source or do they provide information that is more pertinent? | |
| Does the author appear to have written from firsthand knowledge or experience? | |
| Does the author use facts and figures from reliable sources to support his or her position? | |
| Article 4 citation:
| |
| Does the information in the source answer the important questions you identified in your research? | |
| Does this source support your arguments, or present good counterarguments that you should address? | |
| Does this source present good examples or illustrate important points of your thesis? | |
| How current is the information in this source? | |
| Are the statistics or other concrete facts and figures in this source still relevant? | |
| Do more recent works substantiate the claims of this source or do they provide information that is more pertinent? | |
| Does the author appear to have written from firsthand knowledge or experience? | |
| Does the author use facts and figures from reliable sources to support his or her position? | |
| Article 5 citation:
| |
| Does the information in the source answer the important questions you identified in your research? | |
| Does this source support your arguments, or present good counterarguments that you should address? | |
| Does this source present good examples or illustrate important points of your thesis? | |
| How current is the information in this source? | |
| Are the statistics or other concrete facts and figures in this source still relevant? | |
| Do more recent works substantiate the claims of this source or do they provide information that is more pertinent? | |
| Does the author appear to have written from firsthand knowledge or experience? | |
| Does the author use facts and figures from reliable sources to support his or her position? | |
| Article 6 citation:
| |
| Does the information in the source answer the important questions you identified in your research? | |
| Does this source support your arguments, or present good counterarguments that you should address? | |
| Does this source present good examples or illustrate important points of your thesis? | |
| How current is the information in this source? | |
| Are the statistics or other concrete facts and figures in this source still relevant? | |
| Do more recent works substantiate the claims of this source or do they provide information that is more pertinent? | |
| Does the author appear to have written from firsthand knowledge or experience? | |
| Does the author use facts and figures from reliable sources to support his or her position? | |
| Article 7 citation:
| |
| Does the information in the source answer the important questions you identified in your research? | |
| Does this source support your arguments, or present good counterarguments that you should address? | |
| Does this source present good examples or illustrate important points of your thesis? | |
| How current is the information in this source? | |
| Are the statistics or other concrete facts and figures in this source still relevant? | |
| Do more recent works substantiate the claims of this source or do they provide information that is more pertinent? | |
| Does the author appear to have written from firsthand knowledge or experience? | |
| Does the author use facts and figures from reliable sources to support his or her position? | |
CMC 240 Week 8 Writing Your Story
At this point you have completed your research and now you are the journalist. It is time to write your newspaper story.
Resources: Ch. 5 & 6 Reaching Audiences
Write a 75-word summary lead based on your topic and research that uses the basic news elements: who, what, where, when, why, and how.
Write a 500- to 700-word story about your topic using the inverted pyramid strategy.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
CMC 240 Week 9 Evaluating Your Research Process
Review all your previous assignments and readings.
Write a 750- to 1,050-word evaluation of the research processes you undertook in this course.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.