Week 2 - Interview Assignment: Moorpark Student

Week 2 - Assignment:
1. Interview a fellow student and write a 400-word profile about this person. Due on Tuesday, January 22, 2008. Please submit a hard copy, double spaced, with your name and the date on the top.
At the end of your story, please type: -30- OR endit so your editor (instructor) can be sure she received the whole thing.

Figure it will take each of you about 15 minutes to conduct your interview. Using the information in Ch. 2 about the elements and ordering in a story, organize your thoughts and plan your story. You will begin to tell (write) your story, of course, with the most interesting aspect or experience, rather than a chronological recounting of the person’s life. (I.E. don’t begin with your subject’s birth, unless, it was in itself somehow remarkable.) So this story is likely to begin somewhere in the middle of the person life, or possibly with an anecdote about a life goal, a life-changing experience or an inspiration, or even what brought the person to journalism.

Name your file: Profileyourlastname. Word count minimum: 400 words
Audience: Your campus community
Story must include: Full name of subject, date and place of birth, family information, year at MC, education and career goals, at least three direct quotes. Remember that direct quotes are verbatim, or word for word.
Quote style as follows: “I have always loved marine life,” said James Ramirez, 18, a Ventura College marine biology major. “I hope to study the migration of the gray whale. They are intensely interesting animals.” (Open quote, sentence, comma, attribution, period. Open quote, 2nd sentence. Period. Third sentence. Period. Close quote. Use your subject’s last name on second and subsequent references. Remember, this is not a first-person account, so there should be no ‘I’s’ in the story, unless they are in a quote. (It’s not about you the author, it’s about your subject.)
Review notes: Take 10 minutes to review your notes. Go through and underline the quotes you think you’ll use. Clarify your writing where it’s a little difficult to read. Ask more questions if you forgot something.

TO WRITE YOUR STORY:
1) Lead: Pick out something interesting or exciting about this person to lead with. Could be unusual hobbies, career goals or obstacles overcome to get here. Make this lead ONE SENTENCE. That will take some work to compile it into one sentence, but you can do it.
2) Support your lead with more interesting info that will flow into your first quote.
3) Use a direct quote from your subject here. (Follow quote style: “I love music,” Wagner said. “It speaks to me. It takes me to another world.” Note that the quote begins the sentence, followed by attribution. Then a second or third sentence.
4) Nut graf: How is this person’s life relevant to your reader? Connect us. That will probably be through her role as a student at VC, OC or MC. It’s your focus paragraph.
5) Background: Now you go to when and where she was born, a little about family.
6) Transition: Take the reader back to the present.
7) Body of the story; Give the reader the rest of the facts about her that are interesting, including more about her studies, career, any other interesting information and at least two more full quotes.