Stats: Fatals

For what is likely the final written practice story of the semester, we had some issues. Fatals included ...

PROBLEM: When we meant to say 113.1 million, we said 113/1 million. That creates a fraction as opposed to a whole number, and that creates a fatal.

SOLUTION: Double-check ALL numbers when finished writing, to make sure what you wrote was what you intended to write.

*****

PROBLEM: We said two percent of households were without computers, when the data you were given indicated 38.2 percent of households currently lacked a computer.

SOLUTION: Same as above. Plus, before we start writing we need to make sure we clearly understand the facts. We should not start writing until the facts make sense to us; otherwise, how can we clearly and accurately explain things to others?

*****

PROBLEM: We said 62 percent, or 113.1 million households, when we meant 62 percent of 113.1 million households (or 69.9 million households).

SOLUTION: Same as above.

*****

PROBLEM: In quoting a document, when we meant to say "There has ...", we accidentally said, "There as ..." with the "H" missing from has. Any spelling error inside of a quote that changes the word is a fatal.

SOLUTION: Double-check all quotes in their entirety to make sure what was written is exactly the quote, with no errors or omissions.

***** 

PROBLEM: We spelled U.S. Census Bureau as U.S. Census Bearou. Misspelling of a proper name is a fatal, per the syllabus.

SOLUTION: Double-check all nouns -- any person, place or thing -- when you finish writing, to make sure that all such names are spelled correctly.


Now, let's put these solutions together in a coherent strategy:

When you finish writing, print out your story. Then, circle every noun (person, place or thing) and every number and/or statistical unit and the entirety of every quote. Then, get out your notes (or in this case, your book). Go through your story line-by-line, and as you come across a circled item, look up that circled item in your notes and/or book, and make sure in the story that it is exactly the same as what is in your notes and/or book. (For quotes, that means making sure it is exactly as-is.) Then X out each circled item as you check it. I promise you that if you do this in a serious, detailed manner, you will catch 95 percent of the fatals we've been seeing this semester.

But it only works if you do it, precisely and in its entirety and every time. 

*****

Like I said earlier, this was probably our final written practice story. If you've mostly been getting 3.5s on practice stories as of late, you're in good shape. If not, we probably won't have any opportunities to practice basic story writing, so we need to do some self-tutoring.

Please go back in the blog. If there are particular areas where you are still struggling, revisit the blog posts that deal with those subject areas. Each blog has story tags at the end that will take you to every blog post with the same tag; for example, all blog posts focused on ledes has the story tag of "ledes;" just click on the tag and you'll get all ledes posts from this semester.

If you are still working on a broad set of issues, I think it would be well worth your time to revisit every blog post form the semester, and make sure you are comfortable with concepts as we go into our second and third out-of-class stories, which will be critical to getting a good final grade this semester. That's what we've been building up toward; the out-of-classers.

As always, I am available to help and talk through specific issues. But please don't expect a total recap from me of everything we've done this semester; I simply don't have the time to detail everything we've been doing over the past two months. For that, you have the blog as a resource that does cover everything we've done.