Learning Goals

In this session, you'll be learning to apply the concept of Genre to newsletter.  By the end of the session, you know three things:

• What defines a newsletter?  What makes it different from other types of communication?  Why do we even write newsletters?

• What does it mean to produce original content?  Why does that matter?

Genre: What's a Newsletter?

There are certain expectations for a newsletter.  If you're writing a newsletter, you're basically sending updates about your topic or organization to others who want to learn more.

As we talk about newsletters, it helps to know some academic terms.  You're actually already familiar with these concepts, but the vocabulary might be new to you.

• Genre: this is the type of communication you're using, and that has certain conventions.  Some examples of genres are horror movies, nonfiction documentaries, poems, and so on.

• Conventions: these are the "rules" of a genre, or what people expect to see from that genre.  For example, a horror movie will always have scary music and some kind of monster.

• Audience: this is the group who will read or watch a particular genre — and their expectations become the basis for those conventions.

A newsletter is simply one type of communication — hence, a genre.  For newsletters, it's expected that you'll provide interesting updates about a topic that your audience cares about — and the conventions center around the sound and look of your newsletter.  Your audience is the group of individuals who care about your topic and want to hear more — and when you write your newsletter, you want to prepare something that this audience will enjoy.  So if you're doing a newsletter about the American presidents, you'll want some pictures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln — if your topic is Heavy Metal, you're gonna need some photos of bands and concerts, and you'll likely want a black background to convey the themes of the music.

How Plagiarism Wastes Time

Did you know that Google actually penalizes websites that plagiarize?  If one website simply copies material from another website, Google will downgrade or possibly even remove that site from search results.

Now, that's just a small example of why plagiarism is a waste.  When you write a newsletter, your audiences will be looking for new information — your readers want information that's fresh, information that only you can provide.

Assignment: Describe Your Newsletter Topic

Now that you know a bit about what a newsletter is and why it needs to be original, talk with your group about what your newsletter will be about.  Figure out your topic, the direction you want to go, and what original content you'll provide.

First, you and your group members can brainstorm using paper, if you like, or a whiteboard.  I recommend taking a picture to upload to Google Drive.  This stage is conversational.

Next, build your folders in Google Drive.  This project require creating a Google Drive folder for your whole group, and then creating individual folders for each group member.  One of the hardest part about group projects is keeping everything organized — and for this project, you need to keep things sorted so that each of you can show your specific work.  Once you have your individual folders, you should not be editing materials in the folders of others — instead, you'll draft your materials in your individual folder, and then copy your materials to the main project when they're ready.

Add your notes to Google.  Add all your individual notes to your individual folder — when I do my grading, I'd like to see what you specifically have been writing down.  Then as a group, add the most relevant notes to a single group document.

Here are some examples of great notes to add:

• handwritten mind maps

• photos of your whiteboard brainstorm

• a list of bullet points

• A few paragraphs of freewriting.

Finally, add Headings and a Table of Contents.  In Google Docs, it's ridiculously easy to add a table of contents — but only if you have your headings in place.  At this stage, you don't need anything fancy — you just need to know what a heading is so you can continue using this skill in furture sessions.

A couple tips:

• This is the rough, rough, rough draft stage.  Actually, we aren't even at that stage.  This is just the planning stage.

• You can note down anything you like.  Don't worry about whether your ideas are "good" or "bad" or anything.  All that matters is getting as many ideas as you can.

Choosing a Highlight Image

Yes, it's true: we've spent most of this time considering aesthetics.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the look of your newsletter is at least half your message.

While the next session focuses on the research and writing, we're going to spend a little more time here on visuals.  Now that you have a layout, it's time to figure out how you'll fill that layout.  Ironically, text is one of the easiest parts of your layout — whatever your write, the words will bend and flow to the shape of the box you put them in.  They're like water this way.  Images, on the other hand, are solid.  Either the words move around your images, or they go through the images — the images cannot twist and curve to accomodate what you have to say.

Finding a good image today is surprisingly easy.  The internet provides all kinds of beautiful and useful images — and some are free to use!  But here are key considerations:

• Not all images are fair game!  Most images are copyrighted, and you should only use these images if you either have permission or you can justify that usage under fair use.  For this course, you should not count on fair use — instead, learn to tell which images are copyrighted, which are royalty-free, and which are public domain.

• Public Domain images are free to use!  Examples would be works of art that are too old for copyright and any image produced by the U.S. federal government.  You must, however, still cite the source of these images.

• Royalty-Free images are a good choice, with limitations.  You'll notice that I use many images from Pixabay.com — the images from that site are posted by the artists for others to use.  However, for this course, you must still

• Be careful with photographs!  Let's say you want a picture of an ancient Greek ruin — the photograph of that ancient piece of art may still be copyrighted to the photographer.

• Always double-check the copyright status!  Many people make assumptions about what is and isn't copyrighted — for example, the copyright to Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" is still  held by his family, and poem's by the late Robert Frost are often (mistakenly) assumed to be public domain.

• Photographs of people have special rules.  You can't take an image of a random person and say that individual supports your brand.  Sure, the photo might be royalty free, but the person is still an individual.

Royalty-Free Images

Looking for images for your newsletter?  Try these sources!  Just remember — regardless of where you find your image, I'm looking for a citation for where it came from.  Be sure you read and understand the license agreement before using an image.

•  Pixabay.com

• Pexels.com

• Unsplash.com

• 21 Best Websites for Free and Royalty Free Images by Benjamin Talin

A Warning About Royalty Free

Royalty Free does not mean Copyright Free.  It simply means that the artist has given permission for the image to be used under certain circumstances.  Typically, this means the following:

• You usually need to give the source of the image.   Not all creators require this, but many do.  For class, I require this regardless.

• Some people share images they don't own.  I once found a snazzy looking spacecraft image on a royalty-free image site.  Turns out the image was a copy from a 1980s science fiction show — and this often happens with popular shows like Star Wars and Star Trek.  If you see a "royalty free" image of an X-Wing or the a Romulan Bird of Prey, know that those images are not free for you to use.

Adding Two Sources

Step 1: Find Your Info!

It isn't news unless there's new information, and you need sources for that.  For this part, your goal is to find sourcs about your topic that are both interesting and reliable.  here are a few examples to get you thinking:

• Music: an interview with the members of a band on tour.

• Sports: an ESPN announcer giving a breakdown on last nights big game.

• Movies: a YouTube clip of your favorite scene from your favorite movie because it's absolutely your more favorite of all time.

With the sources, remember that you want your sources to be as specific as possible not only for your article, for also for your group.  So in your group, make sure that you're talking with your classmates to decide how each of you will approach the topic.  And remember — you each need two unique sources that aren't being used by your other classmates.

Step 2: Add Your URLs

Whenever you use an outside source, you need to show where your information came from.  For newsletters, this is much easier than it is for a research paper — for the most part, you can simply link to the page where the information came from.

Now, you want your links to be good ones that are easy to follow.  To do this, you should highlight the words that describe your link, and then use one of the following ways to add the link:

• The menu bar has the hyperlink button.

• The right-click button will bring up a menu with "Insert Link."

• You can hit Ctrl-K (or Command-K in Apple) to bring up the Insert Link dialog box.

For this, make sure you're highlighting the right text.  Here are some examples of good and bad types of links:

• Good: This video shows