Journalistic Writing

obligatory courses

The course aims at preparing the students for journalistic activities by familiarizing them with the principles and practice of journalism - with strong emphasis on differences in academic and journalistic writing. The aim of this course is to provide the students with knowledge on the most common article types and the methods of creating engaging headlines, leads, and content. Primarily, the course focuses on creating feature and news articles which may appeal to readers.

In order to achieve the course objectives students will be required to write four articles of 400 to 750 words – a horoscope, a feature story requiring acquisition of information from personal sources, an opinion piece or a review, and an interview. During the course, students will acquire knowledge and skills on the methods of creating engaging headlines and leads, the choice of suitable register and style, the structure of a journalistic piece, and the ethical journalism. Basing on the up-to-date articles from British and American press, students will develop critical approach towards the journalistic articles - special attention will be paid to fake news and the assessment of both reliability and structure of a given piece.

1. Ethical journalism

2. Headlines and leads

3. Register and style

4. Structure

5. Horoscope

6. Feature article

7. Interview

8. Opinion piece

9. Review

10. Popular science

11. Current and future problems of journalism

Bill Kovach , Tom Rosenstiel ; The Elements of Journalism, New York, 2010.

Sol Stein, Stein on Writing, New York, 1995

Jo Ray McCuen, Anthony C. Winkler, Rewriting Writing: A Rhetoric and Reader, New York, 1990.

Stanley A. Clayes, David G. Spencer; Contexts for Composition, New York, 1969.

K_U03 is able to express himself/herself in English correctly, with precision and coherence, both working on the marketing side of journalistic activity (eg. headlines) and preparing various types of texts. (K_U02)

K_U05 is able to select and apply general knowledge and knowledge on linguistics and literary studies in collecting information for such journalistic forms as interviews, opinion pieces or popular science articles as well as in creating them.

Social competences

Students are ready to:

- develop intellectually using the skills necessary to prepare and produce various journalistic texts. (K_K02)

- recognize the diversity of opinions in the broadest range of sources and use them as inspiration for their journalistic activity. (K_K07)

Portfolios: At the end of the course each students will hand in a portfolio of work done in class. This portfolio, plus a written self-evaluation will determine 80% of the grade. The 20% of the grade will be accounting for the attendance and class participation. The portfolio will contain all versions of the articles plus the final one.

The retake consists in submitting written assignments which the student failed to submit and/or in rewriting assignments evaluated negatively, or in writing a new extra assignment or assignments. The submitted translations must obtain positive grades.

Two or three (to be determined by a specific group teacher), formally justified, absences are allowed.