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he greatest hardship I faced this year was keeping the other staff members focused and on deadline. It was difficult to keep tabs on where all the stories were in the editing process and to nag the other staff members. I felt I did this fairly well, however, until the last deadline. I wish I had stayed more on top of the staff members to come after school and get their work done on the last deadline. I wish I had been tougher on people who let the paper down at the most important time of the year. For staff members like Sara, Tori, Thomas and Catherine to perform the way they did was unacceptable, and I should have been more vocal about it. In the future, I know that I will speak up when people are not contributing the way they should because I saw how their performance affected the entire deadline. I thought the year went smoothly, and for it to end with so much stress and last minute work was really disappointing for me. Looking back, I know I could have done more to keep us on deadline. I can only hope the returning staff members got a taste of how it feels to be way off deadline, so it won’t happen next year.
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y greatest weakness at the end of the first semester was my use of class time. I worked on my Calculus homework virtually every day in fourth and fifth period. This set a bad example for other staff members who could not afford to be working on other homework during class time. To be honest, I did not realize how often I was doing my math homework in class and that it was starting to become a part of my reputation, which was something I did not want. In the second semester, I contained doing my homework to lunch. While I still did my homework at school instead of at home, I was at least doing it on my own time, not time that I committed to newspaper and hilights.org. In this way, I think I removed my use of class time as a weakness. I was more available to help other staff members in the second semester, and completed my own work faster.
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N8 First Person Experience, Ping-pong teaches life lesson, page 4, May 13 I feel my May Letter from the Editor was the best I wrote all year. I began in a different way by using the first person experience, which I thought was more creative. Also, the short anecdote shows more of my personality than previous articles and was fitting for my last column. Although I used first and second person more in this column than any other, I think it was acceptable because I was giving a first person account of an event.
N1 News Writing, Adviser earns historic recognition, page 12, March 18 I chose this piece because I think the background information in the story. The details of how Burke came to love teaching and the fact that she is a product of Orange County Schools herself were great angles. Also, Kittrell and Burke gave amazing quotes that made writing the story easy. I think the lead is interesting. Overall, I think the story is thorough and detailed.
N9 Sports News, Team battles inexperience, page 26, October 8 I chose my story about football because I think it has a strong lead. The quotes add a hopeful tone to a story that otherwise would have been very negative. The story was difficult to write because of the team’s lack of success. However, I think it turned out well. It featured bright spots on the team like Marvin Bracy, as well as failures such as losing the first three games of the season. The story is concise and informational.
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his year’s portfolio design is more complex than those from the last two years. Using what I learned at camp, I made Photoshop brushes out of newspaper instead of looking for them on a website like Brusheezy.com. I think making the brushes made the design more specific to the paper, rather than random newspaper text. Also, this portfolio forced me to pay more attention to color. Last year, I basically used any color I felt like because the random colors fit into the random shaped design. This year, I made decisions like using yellow for the text next to my first draft edits because it fit well with the yellow highlighter used to make corrections. I had to be more conscious of color combinations this year, and I think I did well with them. I also used Photoshop effects like Vivid and Hard Light in my layers to make the color cutouts stand out when they weren’t on a white background. I’m not sure that this year’s design is leaps and bounds ahead of last year’s as far as overall aesthetics, but this year’s portfolio is more personal to my experience on newspaper.
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august.
october.
november.