Eating out in Steps

The Good Housekeeping article by Sari Harrar gave an in-depth description on how to go about eating out while being healthy too.

Even though it was kind of long, it was a pretty quick read. The structure was simple and self-evident, nothing too deep or needing to be revealed. The quotes were short and added to the main idea.

There was quite a bit of technical data and hard facts which was ok. I did feel like this information was something I had heard before. No new angle or spin was given to it. It was pretty standard and basic.

This makes me think of one of the larger issues with these types of articles. Its hard to make a how-to article sound interesting and relevant and this one, to me does not do that.

Published at: 3:46pm April 5, 2011

Working on our stories

Possible lead:


The sustainability movement is gaining momentum and not surprisingly college students are the frontrunners for change. Not quite as heavy or abstract as environmental justice but not as light as the green movement, sustainability is nestled right in the middle. The environmental protection agency (epa.gov) says that sustainability calls for policies and strategies that meet society’s present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. 


has mass appeal because it is easy to get involved. Minor changes in everyday living is all it takes to get started.


(to be continued.)

intro to how-to, goes global

How to goes global.

This ridiculous article is a horrible attempt at breaking down step by step how to seduce a girl no matter how you are in the world. It is simplistic and dumb. The writing is not necessarily weak, but the subject matter and content and organization and treatment of the topic is the bad part. Seduce her with Food, Seduce her with technology, etc. It is so silly.

On to the organization or structure. It is clear, with dividers in obvious places. Not overwhelming with large blocks of texts which I liked. Small interjections with quotes.

I could not tell if this was a satire or real life.

Musical genius among us

Joshua Bell.

A social experiment by the staff of the Washington Post.

This article had so many moments that were memorable and creative. The writing was elaborate without being boring which I enjoyed.

The style of it, with detail and a pace setting tempo of the sentences made me keep reading.  There are questions posed and then all caps sentences which show the break of a section.

The lead and first few paragraphs were kind of in a story-telling type of way so it set up a scene. I am a visual person so it was so interesting for me to continue on and paint a visual in my head.

Outline (with edits)

Outline of Article

Concept: How-To Green Your Space. This will be a list of steps someone can take to green their lifestyles in a collegiate setting.

Sources: For the people I want to interview, I was thinking Lauren Kastner who is the President of Coal-Free IU, Bill Brown the Director of the Sustainability Office, I also want to use myself as a source if that is possible because I’m really passionate about this stuff.

I.         Lead

a.          I do not have the specifics of the lead in mind yet like how I want to word it, but I do know how I want the article to begin.

                                               i.     I want it to start of kind of like a trend piece

                                              ii.     It will grab the reader with probably an anecdote or relevant rationale as to why the green movement is a legitimate trend

                                            iii.     After introducing the trend I want to create a pull for the reader, which I am assuming to be around my age, to want to be involved.

                                            iv.     I am also debating whether to include what IU’s Sustainability Grade is (we got a C+) as recent as 2009

II.             Body of the article

a.            In order to avoid being boring and bland which can happen sometimes with the green movement I want to bring in very simple but innovative and fun ways to be eco-friendly.

b.            Some things I have are as simple as turning off your lights when you are not using them, others are a little more heavy like putting up a clothes line by your bed and hanging dry the bulk of laundry instead of using a dryer to conserve energy.

c.             Refilling a harder shelled water bottle instead of the plastic ones from Wal-Mart, although probably equally cost effective, one is just obviously worse for the environment.

d.            I want to expand on certain points with either anecdotes or more statistics and facts, because simply throwing away a water bottle can have an adverse effect to the human body and environment alike

e.            I want to be creative and interesting without over-doing it or pushing my excitement for this topic on to others.

                                               i.     People are easily turned off by over excitement for abstract topics
f. I will also be using plain English rather than lofty terms and anything too technical or focused.
g. This will also hold the quotes from my sources, my expert, a student leader in a related organization and a student that has maybe tried out some of these things.

______

III. Conclusion
I would finish by bringing in ways to start asap. Like "as soon as you finish this article do _____)
Providing a call to action would be helpful.

Written by the same guy who wrote the flowery novels about life.

So Mitch Albom wrote this article called The Courage of Detroit. I immediately recognized his name as the author of those self-help and inspirational type books which my parents continually buy for me as if I'm in a quarter life crisis or something (which I am, but I don't want to read his books).

In any case, I tried looking past his name and giving this article a chance.

I think America, or at the very least I, consider Detroit to be like Britney Spears. Britney was in the depths of failure and has risen again, like a phoenix. And we were all routing for her, well at least I was. Thats how I think of Detroit. We are ready and supportive of their triumphant comeback.

The article was written in his usual chant-y type of you-can-overcome spirit that is always present in his writings.

I found it interesting how he used the phrase "and yet" which honestly reminds me alot of being back home in my Black Baptist church. The preacher would say that alot when he was all revved up (no pun intended)

Although the writing was still kind of flowery for my taste, I did want to keep reading. Overall I enjoyed it, which I'm surprised to say.


posted at 3:44pm 3/24

Article

Green Living and green dorms would be relatively simple to turn into a how-to type article. After our in class discussions I'm considering a trend story or some type of mix between green living trends and how to green your living space.

I will think about this more in the coming days.