The
School of Humanities and Graduate Studies
COURSE PROPOSAL, March 17, 2006
Department of English and Mass Communications
Lincoln University, PA
COM 332—News Layout and Design
Instructor: TBA
Office Hours: TBA
Office Telephone: TBA
E-mail: TBA
PREREQUISITE: ENG 103;
CO or PREREQUISITE: ENG 330 (News Writing)
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The class will address the integration of type, image, color, navigational systems, and other multimedia elements into a user-friendly layout for print media within the context of specific software programs such as Quark Express, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver.
REQUIRED TEXTS
Harrower, Tim. (2005). Newspaper Designer’s Handbook. 7th Edition. McGraw Hill, Hightstown, NJ
Kessler, Lauren & McDonald, Duncan. (2006). When Words Collide, 8th Edition,
Wadsworth, Belmont, CA.
The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. (2005). Perseus Books, Reading MA.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of the course, students will be able to use the following journalistic skills:
- Apply rules of selection and judgment for both printed and visual materials that reflect news values for a particular audience, including accuracy, fairness, social responsibility and First Amendment concerns
- Ensure clarity, style and grammatical correctness of edited material
- Use editorial skills to check numerical and statistical accuracy
- Use journalistic technological tools such as QuarkXPress, Adobe In-Design, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver in the editing and design process
- Apply an understanding of audience diversity in a global society to the creation of meaningful texts
- Communicate technical, scientific, news, and feature topics to
general audiences.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
- Three Projects
- Midterm and final exams
- Written exercises in class
- Active class participation
ATTENDANCE POLICY
A professional classroom environment assumes that students will attend every class and participate fully in classroom activities. University Policy allows for three hours of unexcused class absence for a three credit course. Absences in excess of this policy will affect the grade.
ACADEMIC DISHONESTY
Lincoln University’s policies regarding academic dishonesty are outlined in the Catalog and are available on the Web. With regard to this course, acts of dishonesty include, but are not necessarily limited to, cheating on tests, plagiarizing material from other sources, making up material or sources of information, and/or submitting work for this course originally completed for other courses without the permissions of the instructor. involved.
Grading
Your overall grade will include the following elements:
1. Midterm (20%)
2. Project No. 1: A technical web-based newsletter creation exercise (20%)
3. Project No. 2: A magazine editing and design exercise (20%)
4. Project No. 3: A newspaper editing and layout exercise (20%)
5. Performance on other class exercises and class participation (10%)
6. Final Exam 10%
Superior
Excellent
Average
Poor
Unthinkable! F |
A 94-100
A- 90-93
B+ 87-89
B 84-86
B- 80-83
C+ 77-79
C 74-76
C- 70-73
D+ 67-69
D 64-66
F 59 and below
|
Tentative Class Schedule
Week 1
Welcome to the course
Discussion of class objectives and schedule
Basic copy symbols exercise
Grammar Evaluation exercise
Assignment: Examine sample publications to describe: (1) audience; (2) article length
and treatment; (3) readability; (4)layout; (5) photo and graphics use; (6) use of a website.
Chapters 1 and 2, When Words Collide
Week 2
AP Style Evaluation: Exercise
Chapter 3, When Words Collide
Chapter 4 When Words Collide
Effective title and headline writing for magazines, newspapers and the Internet
Week 3
Chapter 5 When Words Collide
Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. How to check story content for accuracy.
Use of Lexis/Nexis and Web resources to gather material and ensure story accuracy.
Chapter 6: When Words Collide
Introduce Project No. 1: Editing a technical paper for a Web-based Newsletter
Week 4
Editing a technical paper: Exercise
Chapter 7 When Words Collide
Chapter 8 When Words Collide
Work on technical papers in class
Draft text copy of both abstract and one-page summary is due
Working with the Web. Creating and placing copy in HTML frames.
Week 5
Open Lab to work on HTML versions
Chapters 9 When Words Collide
Chapter 10 When Words Collide
AP Style: Numerals and Time
Edits are returned with comments; work on HTML versions. Intro to Dreamweaver.
Teams work on design/software decisions.
Week 6
Chapter 11 When Words Collide
AP Style: Titles
Finalize copy and HTML design
Chapters 12, When Words Collide
AP Style: Geography and troublesome words
Presentation of HTML designs by each team: discussion and critique
Project No. 1 is due
Week 7
Discussion: feature story editing exercise
Discussion and Exercise: Photos: Essentials for the Editor – photo selection, sizing and
cropping, placement. Read: Harrower’s Newspaper Designer’s Handbook
Week 8
Exam on When Words Collide, style, and other class discussion/assignments
Introduction to magazine editing
Introduction to Project No. 2: Magazine editing/layout assignment using text and photos.
Midterm exam
Week 9
Adobe In-Design Basics: Basic commands for this desktop publishing program.
Exercise in placing text, a photo, and a headline on a page.
Develop plan for Project No. 2
Finalize work on story editing for grading.
Week 10
Graded story edits are returned.
Work on layout and design elements.
Finalize designs
Week 11
Critique and discussion of magazine editing and layout assignment
Exercise: Editing for accuracy with numbers and statistics.
Basics in Newspaper Design
Exercise with Design
Project No. 2 is due
Week 12
Introduction to Project No. 3: Newspaper editing and layout.
Select top stories and edit them. Edited top stories are due this week.
Week 13
Execute design: lay in text, headlines, and photos on Daily template
Continue working on design
Develop plan for Project No. 3
Week 14
Finalize editing and design work.
Week 15
Presentation of newspaper designs: critique and discussion
Course evaluation.
Selection of times for final week interviews.
Project No. 3 is due
Week 16 Final exam.
