Grading the major assignments

By: Rich Cameron

Posted: 5/15/08

There are five areas I look at when grading the deadline, Fire and City Council assignments. There are many factors for each and sometimes a weakness in one area crosses over into another. Each area is worth up to one full point, for a total of five points.

A = 4.5+ B = 4.0+ C = 3.5 + D = 3.25+

For Fire each section is worth two points for a total of 10 and for City Council each section is worth 10 points for a total of 50.

LEAD

How strong is the lead paragraph? Does it keep the publication date in mind? Does it have a news peg that designates it as a NEWS story now or is is more of a feature story? is the story newsworthy?

WRITING

How well is the story organized? Is paragraphing up to newswriting standards? Are there grammar errors? Do sentences make sense? Has the writer avoided editorializing? Has the writer left himself/herself out of the story (avoid "when asked"; who did the asking? You did). Does the writer avoid using double attributions in one paragraph?

EDITING

Does the story use proper AP style (dates, numbers, titles, abbreviations, etc.)? Are there spelling errors?

REPORTING

Does the story contain all the relevant details? Is everything factual? Are there irrelevant details in the story? For City Council this means did you cover all the relevant topics in enough depth.

SOURCES

The deadline assignment calls for a minimum of one source with one direct quote and one indirect quote. If these are there we're looking at somewhere in the .80 range. Stories with additional sources usually score higher. Are the sources named (full name) and identified? Are names spelled correctly (major point loss for misspelled names)? Are quotes properly punctuated? Are quotes good choices?