Thomas Egan
Portfolio 2011
THOMAS EGAN 1701 Pepperidge Drive Orlando, FL 32806 thomas.m.egan3426@gmail.com (407 443-2817 May 27, 2011 Tim Stephens Sports Topic Editor 633 N. Orange Avenue Orlando, FL 32801
Dear Mr. Stephens: The Sentinel could use someone who grasps complex concepts, work independently and contribute to the publication in a great way. I have all these skills and more, which is why you should accept the accompanying resume for your review and consideration for the Sentinel Sports Institute, a place where these skills are of high demand and great value. As a staffer on my high school newspaper, I learned to manage deadlines, research important topics and write and edit stories. I worked with other staffers and assisted them in their stories as well. I have a background in writing and design and I can view topics from an unbiased standpoint. I enjoy coming up with creative story ideas. I am a quick learner and I am a perfect candidate for the Sports Institute. Your organization would give me a healthy environment to develop more skills so that I could assist your publication in the future. The resume that accompanies this cover letter describes and illustrates some of my skills but a personal interview would give you an opportunity to meet me and see some of my good personal qualities. Thank your for your time in reviewing my resume. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Respectfully yours,
Thomas Egan Enclosed: resume
THOMAS EGAN 1701 Pepperidge Drive Orlando, FL 32806 thomas.m.egan3426@gmail.com (407 443-2817 OBJECTIVE To learn how a newspaper runs and how to be an effective part of a publication through an internship or a part-time job.
EDUCATION Completed two years at Boone High School Graduation Date: May 2013 G.P.A. 3.00 EXPERIENCE Newspaper Staff Member, Boone High School • Aug 2010 - present. Newspaper staff member. Experience taking photgraphs, editing stories, writing stories and meeting deadlines
RELEVANT HIGH SCHOOL STUDIES
Technical writing; advanced composition; advanced music theory; grammar studies
HONORS, AWARDS, AND MEMBERSHIPS •
2010 Entertainment Review Winner Winner of Excellence for my story, “Event empasizes fear”
PERSONAL ESSAY I don’t remember why I joined newspaper. I can’t remember what got me into it. Ironically, it might have Joseph who convinced me. That just shows how much has changed since this time last year. Newspaper has changed my life forever. It has improved my ability to handle deadlines and I have met many great people through it. Whenever I imagine my life next year without newspaper, I just imagine myself sitting on a couch staring at the wall. I don’t know what I’m going to be doing with all the free time I’m going to have. I might have to pick up a new hobby or Ill just end up doing nothing all year except school and water polo, which sounds really boring. I love journalism and it kills me to think that I’ll be gone next year. It honestly was the best choice though. I could stay in journalism and stay on the level of stress that I’m currently at or I could quit and I’ll have more time to focus on school and sports. Hopefully I can come back senior year if I’m more mature and you’ll let me. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. First I have to learn how to focus on my work and keep out all the distractions and sounds that go on around me. I just hope that I will be able to do that so that I could come back because ever since I started,
Newspaper has been my life.
A SELFANALYTICAL EVALUATION I have learned so much about journalism and deadlines this year. The most important things I’ve learned this year are in regards to deadlines and work ethic. I’ve learned that the most important part of any assignment is starting early. In sales and deadlines, the best thing to do is to start working as early as possible. Get out and sell as early as early as possible so that you can be ahead of any other clubs who is also selling. Starting early also leaves breathing room in case something goes wrong or something needs to be fixed. Teamwork is another important thing I’ve learned a lot about. It is especially important on a newspaper staff. Everybody needs to do their part to work towards a common goal, such as publishing a newspaper.
REFLECTION 1 I think that the most significant piece this year was “Parents influence student futures”. This was the first piece that Catherine didn’t rewrite and it was also the first time she ever told me that I did a great job, soneedless to say, I was elated. It was my second editorial and I wasn’t confident in my ability to write it well after my first editorial, “Sunrail creates new opportunities”, ended up being a flop. I remember watching Karen mark off stories that were taken and seeing my choices whittle down until only about five were left. I saw “Blaming” and I decided that this was my chance to redeem myself, so I took it. It started out similar to Sunrail, mostly void of any opinion, but after I went to Johnny, I created the dummy report card that was on the right of the story, went home and practically rewrote the story, adding in opinion that was based on legitimate statistics and research. The story had no widows and I think that the lead was perfect. I have started to think that I wrote the story so well because I have struggled with my grades at times so the writing, especially the lead, comes straight from the heart. The lead mentioned students stressing over the last Friday of the quarter, and the dreaded fourth period that report cards were passed out in. I have felt that same stress and had to look at the disappointed look on my teacher’s face. I’m not only proud of the story. I’m also very proud of my graphic. The report card took about an hour to make just because I wanted to make it absolutely precise, proportional and appealing to the eye. I wanted it to be pretty clever and similar to what a real report card would look like, even though it doesn’t look like the ones we receive at Boone. I think I met my goal and in the end, I think it looked great with the story. Now, editorials are my favorite stories to write. This is also one of my only stories where the layout of the page wasn’t changed at all. Sunrail’s layout was changed several times, and all of my sports stories were rearranged in some way. It was my only story this year that I made deadline on and I learned how to effectively write and editorial from writing this.
First Draft
REFLECTION 2 In my first reflection, I wrote that “Parents influence student futures” was my most significant piece this year. It was one of two editorials that I wrote this year. My other editorial was “Sunrail creates new opportunities” and I think that it is the piece that could still use the most work. In fact, saying that “Sunrail” could use work is the understatement of the century. If I could work on it again, I would rewrite it, redesign it and completely change the secondary coverage. I liked the lead that I wrote. It accurately described the story and summed it up well in the first paragraph. The problem is that the lead is the only part of the story that I like. I didn’t think that two secondary coverages looked good with the story and I don’t think the story shows enough opinion. The most embarrassing part of the story is that when the issue came out, we read it over and my subtitle was placed on Amanda’s story as well. I was horrified and worried that it was my fault but I was sure that it wasn’t because I had never been on Amanda’s page before and I don’t see any way that I could have placed it there. The story greatly improved from the first draft to the final draft. The first was a legendarily awful editorial, completely and absolutely devoid of opinion. I had never written an editorial before so I didn’t know how to put my opinion in. It was effectively a news story, full of facts and statistics that were unbearable to read. Back then, I didn’t know how to write an editorial so I took a blind stab in the dark and missed by a wide margin. The best result from Sunrail was that it was good practice for writing my next editorial, “Blaming”, which I think is my best story this year.
First Draft
REFLECTION 3 Favorite Picture
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REFLECTION 4 I regret to say that I wasn’t as big an asset to the newspaper as I had hoped to be. I was late to deadline every issue but one, I was the only staffer that had a story pulled and I was a constant distraction to those around me. It would be accurate to say that I was the worst staffer this year and the “Biggest Procrastinator” paper plate award that I’m sure I’ll receive would be well deserved. One of the reasons I’m leaving staff is that I don’t think that I am mature enough to handle the responsibility and that it would be better if I left. I do think that I helped towards the last issue. I was really nervous to have a story in “Year in Review”. I would be working alongside the returning members of staff and I was the only newbie. This pressured me to perform better, which is why I had all fifteen story cards ready when we were deciding stories. Having the cards really paid off, because a huge number of the stories we went with were mine and I was really proud. Even with a bad record, I think that I showed a pretty great commitment to staff. While I was really behind on the march issue, I stayed for five periods on the Friday before we went to press so that I could finish my stories. Regretfully, I didn’t finish but I think this showed that I am committed to not letting the staff down, which is why it was so painful to have a story pulled. Whenever there was time to work after school, I was in room 224 working on my story. Sometimes this meant I would be late to practice but I stayed anyways, which ended up costing me a lot of playing time. Losing playing time was worth it as long as I was helping out the staff and I would do it all again.
REFLECTION 5 My biggest problem this year was keeping up with deadlines. I only made deadline once and boys weightlifting, one of my two stories for March issue, was pulled because I was so far behind. I have been too easily distracted by things going on around me and I haven’t been completing my work on time. I have been taking pretty easy stories but I procrastinate and think that I will be able to do it at the way end but something always comes up and I end up falling behind. I’ve learned that there is a time for work and there is a time for play but work should always come first. That way, when it is time for fun, it can be more enjoyable because the work is finished. That way you can relax and have a good time. I’ve also had a hard time with the small details and style edits. Fonts, font sizes and other style edits have plagued me throughout the year. I’ve learned that it is important to pay attention to every detail in an assignment because everything is an important part in the final product. I’ve learned a lot from this year. I’m miles ahead of where I was before the first issue. I know so much more about style and InDesign and Photoshop. People will sometimes ask me for help doing something on InDesign. I still have a lot to learn though. Mark is light years ahead of where I am and it shows in the quality of his work. He is more capable of putting effort in which means that he is more able than I am. I don’t believe in ideas like “being able to do it, but not willing to put in the effort”. If somebody isn’t able to put in the work, the they are not able to do something. This applies to everything. In sports, a talented player who can’t put in the work can be equally as able as somebody of less talent who can put in the work. I still have a lot to learn and a lot of maturing to do. I hope that I can mature over next year.
REFLECTION 6 For my mid-term exam, I wrote that my greatest weakness was getting too easily distracted and falling behind. This would lead to me falling behind on deadline and losing points, getting poor grades and ultimately damaging the newspaper. I think that the main cause of my falling behind was that I was too easily distracted by Cooper and I ended up constantly talking to him. I’m not saying that it’s Cooper’s fault entirely. I accept responsibility for my actions and I realize that I need to mature so that I can become less easily distracted. It’s hard to say whether or not I’ve matured. For the issue immediately following the mid-term, I met deadline for the “Blaming” story. I remember that when I did make deadline, I was so proud and happy. I thought that I had matured and that I could make deadline for the rest of the year. After I made deadline, I went right back and fell extremely far behind on both “Softball” and “Boys Weightlifting”. I ended up having boys weights pulled which heavily damaged both the newspaper and my grade. The newspaper lost a story and I had a C for the quarter. On May issue, I was assigned three stories, “Local News”, “Baseball” and “10-in-10”. For my first time having three stories, I think I did pretty well. None of them were on deadline but they all went to press. 10-in-10 was an easy story, it only took about two days to go throught the editing process. Local News stressed me out the most because I couldn’t find the photos I needed for several of the stories. I ended up having them in the end but it came down to the final seconds. Baseball also came down to the wire. The page was redesigned several times and it had many corrections that needed to be made after the final edit. It was also the only story that people reacted negatively to. After the paper came out, I walked past Bradley Irwin and Frank Grandinette in the downstairs 200 building. I only caught part of the conversation but I heard Bradley yelling “I can’t believe they published this headline. Why would they do that?” He was referring to the headline about their loss in the first round of districts, “Colonial crushes postseason hopes.” I understand his anger but I stand behind the headline because they shouldn’t have lost. The deadlines have caused me a lot of stress but I think that I have matured greatly since the midterm exam. However, I still have a long way to go before I can be a good staffer.
REFLECTION 7 N14 Entertainment Reviews, Event emphasizes fear, page 32, October 8 I chose this piece because I thought that the page was very well designed and the pictures described the event very well. The graphics showed some of the great characters from the event and one of the cool presentations that is put on in the streets. I also thought that the story was well written and I’m proud to say that the layout of the page never had to be changed to fit the story because I managed to write the story to fit the space.
N4 Personal Opinion: On-campus issue, Parents influence student futures, page 6, February 11 I chose this piece because I think that it is my best piece from this year. I struggle with grades at times and I think that helped me in writing this piece, especially the lead. I know the feeling that comes with expecting a bad report card and I think I did a good job painting the picture of a student waiting for a teacher to pass out the report cards. I also liked the graphic of a dummy report card that I made on InDesign.
N9 Sports News, Team bounces back, page 21, December 17 I chose this piece because I think it is the best sports story I’ve written all year. I liked the headline and the subhead a lot because I think they were clever and witty. The lead describes the pre-game mindset of the team very well from the information that one of the players gave me. The picture showed god action of the team’s most valuable player, Kyndal Skersick, driving down the court.
REFLECTION 8
DESIGNS
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER
FEBRUARY
MARCH
MAY
CONTINUED
MAY
CONTINUED
MAY