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Showing posts from December, 2020

Preliminary Feature Writing Practice 5

Thomas J. Serle works for Parker Bros. Circus, which is in town this week. Performances are scheduled at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. every day through Sunday, beginning today. Serle, who maintains a home in Fort Lauderdale, is a laborer who helps care for the animals at the circus, including 10 elephants. During a conversation with a reporter, he said: "Some people look on work with a circus as a glamorous job. It ain't. But I been doing it all my life, and it's too late for me to change. I'll be 60 next year. I was born into it. Both my folks were circus people. I started out as an acrobat until I fell and busted a leg. It never healed quite right, so they offered me this job, and I took it. What else could I do? There's all kinds of myths about circuses, like about these elephants here. Some people say they're afraid of mice, but that's crazy. When we pen the elephants up for the winter there's always mice that get in their hay, and it don't...

Preliminary Feature Writing Practice 4

 4.The police in this municipality received a call at 3:45 p.m. yesterday afternoon. A woman shouted at the sergeant who answered the telephone. She said: "My son's been beaten. His teacher whipped him this afternoon, and he's all red where she paddled him. Can teachers do that? That's assault and battery, and I want her arrested." Two police officers were sent to the home. They questioned the boy, who is 9 years old. At his mother's insistence, the police officers also inspected the boy's reported injuries. They reported: "We couldn't tell that the boy had been paddled. His fanny didn't look red to us, but we did notice that his pants legs were wet and muddy. As we talked, it became obvious that he boy was lying. He finally admitted that he had stopped to play on the way home from school, forgot the time and got home late. He told his mother that the teacher had spanked him and kept him after school. His mother was there with us ...

Preliminary Feature Writing Practice 3

 3.Someone called 18 people in the city last night. The caller identified himself as the president of Rutherford Ford, Inc., 2780 Doss Boulevard. He told each of the people that they had just won a new car from his dealership. Interviewed by reporters today, most of the people who received the calls said that at first they just couldn't believe it. And they were right. They couldn't. The person who called was a prankster, and Allen Rutherford, president of the dealership, says he has no idea who placed he calls, and that he's spending all his time today trying to explain the situation to those 18 people. "Someone apparently has a sick idea of humor," Rutherford said. After convincing people they had won a new car, the caller asked them to drop by the dealership this morning to pick it up. All 18 were there when the dealership opened its doors at 9 a.m. "I told them we never offered to give away a car," Rutherford said. "One woman told m...

Preliminary Feature Writing Practice 2

 2.Many freebies no longer are free. Because of rising expenses and other problems, American business establishments are eliminating many services and other amenities once offered their customers free of charge. Many of the services that gasoline stations used to offer for free to attract customers have gone the way of the dinosaurs—they have become extinct. Gasoline stations no longer wash windshields, and many no longer even provide the squeegee, the windshield cleaner or the towels so customers can do it themselves. One station owner said he quit offering the service because his customers reportedly were using too many cleaning towels, which cost a two cents each. Service stations have also discontinued free giveaways—free car washes with a fillup, free glasses and steak knives, free road maps—because of the increasing costs of the freebies. "We can't justify the cost of the freebies. We don't make much profit on a gallon of gas and if you start giving thin...

Preliminary Writing Feature Practice: Exercise 1

 1.A study at the University of Michigan shatters some myths. The results were announced today. Women have a reputation for gossiping and talking, yet the study found the reputation is undeserved. The study, which required researchers to observe a number of people at work, found that women work both longer and harder than men—that men spend more time goofing off on the job. The study found that the average employed man spends 52 minutes, or 11 percent of each working day, not working: in scheduled coffee breaks, unscheduled rest breaks, at lunch beyond the normal hour and so forth. The average working woman spends only 35 minutes, or 8 percent of her working day, in such scheduled and unscheduled rest breaks. The same study found that the amount of effort expended by women at work is 112 percent that of men. The discrepancy is more dramatic than the statistics indicate because men earn more than women for the same type of work. The average man in the study earned $13 ...

Why Representation Matters

      Growing up, I read many magazines, comic books, watched many movies. It was very hard to find people who looked like me. There was always white or fair skinned people portrayed in lead roles. These types of things have a huge effect on kids. People want to feel like they can relate to people who are in magnificent positions and should be recognized.      That is directly why I've utilized this opportunity to create a magazine that would represent many girls who look like me or aren't openly represented enough by society. Usually dark skin women are less casted for lead roles for magazines or movies and face racism in this industry. My magazine will correctly portray black women and people of color. This will make people who look like me, especially young girls, feel like they can be the face of a large cover magazine.