The document summarizes techniques for journalism writing presented at a Synapse workshop for UCSF students. The workshop covered structuring stories, writing leads, incorporating quotes, ending articles, and keeping writing concise. Students who contribute to Synapse can gain experience in writing, interviewing, expressing opinions, and networking across UCSF schools and programs through an extracurricular journalism project.

1. Synapse: UCSF Student Voices
Journalism Writing Techniques
2/10/2016
By Sylvie Sturm
Synapse Managing Editor
presents

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Students who contribute to Synapse get to:
• Practice writing, interviewing, storytelling, editing and leadership skills
• Learn and express opinions on what’s important to them
• Pursue an extracurricular project with guidance from peers and professionals
• Meet/work people from other schools and programs — one of few truly
interprofessional networks on campus
• Synapse has been active nearly 50 years
• Provides news about UCSF, and in particular, student life
• Vital in strengthening widely-dispersed campus
• UCSF students and affiliates can submit an article
• Articles are published on the website and in an email newsletter to 3,100+ subscribers
WHO WE ARE
Synapse: UCSF Student Voices Journalism Writing Workshop

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Synapse Journalism Workshop Overview
• Structuring a story: Inverted Pyramid
• Seven steps to writing a story
• Pre-Story Writing Exercise
• Writing Leads
• Lead Writing Exercise
• Quotes
• The Ending
• Keep it Concise

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SIX STEPS TO WRITING A NEWS STORY
1. Find a Newsworthy Topic
Ideas for news stories can come from many other sources:
Listen & observe: What are people talking about? What gets them excited or angry?
Read everything: Posters on a billboard, UCSF announcements, newsletters, journals, etc.
Most importantly, just pay attention to everyday life.
A tip: From a person — perhaps an “insider” — who tells you something for a potential story.
Another news story: Or a “follow-up”
Above all think about the needs of the reader

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2. Find the Angle (aka “Hook”)
Topic:
“Medical students and mental health” is a general heading that can include many different things.
Angle:
“Are stress factors causing mental health issues among medical students?”
Think about "S-I-N" — Significant, Interesting and New — ultimately you decide the
angle and stick to it throughout the article

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3. Decide on the Form
News:
• Time-sensitive information (may change quickly)
• Include facts, quotes and details about what is happening
Feature:
• In-depth look behind the news
• Explains the trend
• Not necessarily tied to a current event but it can grow out of news
Opinion:
• Persuasive essay — the writer wants to convince the reader
• Research topic and opposing view
Interview or Q&A:
• Subjects tell their own story
• Prefaced by a short intro explaining relevance
• Questions are crucial

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4. Know Your Topic: Research
• Online
• Newspapers and other media
• Libraries and documents
• Interviews (more on that later)
• Attending meetings or conferences

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5. Do the Pre-Write Story Planning
Asking yourself questions helps to narrow the focus:
• Who is the story about?
• What is the main issue?
• Where did it happen?
• When did it happen?
• Why did it happen?
• How is this important to our readers?
• Who will this story impact and why?
• What research do you need to do to learn more?
• What facts/statistics/new information do you need to include?
• What two sources are most directly impacted?
• Who could you interview to offer a different perspective?
Summarize your story in one sentence.

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6. Conduct Interviews
• Decide who to interview — for facts and a human face
• Set up the interview — face-to-face is best
• Write down your questions — ask the right ones:
Example: To a boy who rescued his little sister from drowning in a river:
Open-ended question:
"What were you thinking when you saw your sister struggling in the water?"
Closed question:
"You must have been terrified to see your sister struggling in the water, were you?"
Good use of a closed question:
"Mr. Brown, did you take the money from the student support fund?”
• Maintain neutrality — avoid loaded words, leading questions and double-barrel questions

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7. Write a Draft & Fine-tune
• Tell the story to anyone in an informal way
• Sketch a rough outline of your story and review
• Try writing the lead
• Does the story make sense to you?
• Can you shorten or delete some information without changing
the meaning?
• Is there something you have missed?
• Have you left some questions unanswered?

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Two categories of leads: "hard" for breaking events and "soft" for features.
The Hard Lead:
• Clearly conveys the angle
• Summarizes basic facts and conveys what you found out — the "5-W's"
• Must have a hook to catch a reader's attention and make them want to read
on
Example: A 15-minute operation involving a forklift, 20 firefighters, seven
police officers and one scared pig ended a two-hour traffic delay on Interstate 94
Sunday morning.
THE LEAD
The most important part of an
article — This is when the reader decides if the story is worthwhile.

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The Soft Lead:
• Takes longer to get to the point, building anticipation
• Can use a quote, a description, an amazing fact or even a pun
• Uses a “nut graph” (story summary) in 2nd or 3rd paragraph to get to the "5-W's"
• Must have a hook to catch a reader's attention and make them want to read on
Example: “Tailgate” the pig lay snoring in the middle of Interstate 94, oblivious to the
fire trucks and squad cars that had gathered around him.
Notes on the quotation lede:
• Keep it short
• Don't be afraid of shock value
• Set the tone of the piece
• Lead smoothly into the narrative

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• Quotes breathe life into a story — they should not be abused
• Don’t use back-to-back quotes
• Don’t quote material that isn’t quoteworthy
• Dry facts should be paraphrased
Example:
Not quoteworthy: “Officers arrived on the scene at about 9:00 a.m.” — you wouldn’t
quote that.
Highly quoteworthy: “That huge pig just sat there with tears running down his face and
I thought my heart would burst.”
QUOTES

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• Not an academic essay — do not go into “in conclusion” or “to
recap” mode
• Simply stop writing
• Acknowledge unanswered question(s)
• Look to the future
• Consider using exceptionally good endings for the lead
ENDING A STORY

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Keep your reader in the flow with brief and simple ideas and sentences.
a. Create a checklist for:
• Passive voice
• Needless repetition
• Run-on sentences
• Wordy phrases and clauses
b. Avoid consistently using sentences of 20, 45, 57 words — vary length; frequently, the word
'and' can be replaced with a period.
c. Simplify:
“has the opportunity to” = can
“is crucial that” = should, must
“despite the fact that” = although
“for the reason that” = because, since, why
“in the event that” = if
“it is possible that” = might, could, may
KEEP IT CONCISE

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