Q Media Writing Leads assignment 2 – Feature Leads – Assignment 2 Please note that this assignment has two parts. The directions are different for each part so read carefully. Part 1 1. Write summary leads for these stories. 2. Then write feature leads for the same stories. Details: • You work for the Omaha World-Herald, today is Tuesday, and the stories will appear in next morning's edition. • Please remember to keep your paragraphs short and double-space. • Fix any AP style errors. • Do not add information to what you’re given. • Use proper attribution to the source. Refer to the handout on writing quotes. a. FACTS: Nebraska college students are borrowing more money to go to school. The average graduate of a college or university in Nebraska had nearly $20 thousand in student loan debt by the time he or she graduated in May, according to a study of governmental education data released today. The study was released just release by the Project on Student Debt, an advocacy group that tries to make college more affordable for lower- and middle-income students. College graduates today borrow twice as much as a decade earlier, the report said. The reasons include rising tuition costs and waning support from state and federal governments. Maggie Bradford, a sophomore biology major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is a typical example. In her first 3 semesters, she has already taken out $7,000 in student loans. “All my friends have at least one or two loans,” she said. “It’s normal. What else can you do? It’s the only way I can attend college.” b. FACTS: IT University in Copenhagen, Denmark, which established the Center of Artificial Intelligence Computer Games Research ten years ago, announced Tuesday that it graduated its first Ph.D. in AI video games, Jesper Juul. His dissertation, “Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds,” was about how video games should be defined and how academics should go about studying them. Juul said AI video games merit study because so many people play them, yet the games are less understood than movies and books. “What effect does the video game have on society? What are appropriate levels of violence in video games? What are the real levels of intelligence in these games? These are all questions that deserve answers,” Juul said. When the center opened, students enrolled for fun, said a spokesman for the Denmark research center. Today, 200 students participate in degree programs and research at the center. Past research from master’s candidates in video studies includes an analysis of the violence in multi-platform games are also studied as methods of telling stories. One master’s study asked why violence is considered acceptable in the classic book “The Odyssey” but not in the video game “Grand Theft Auto.” Part 2 1. For the two sets of information below a and b, write a lead and a few paragraphs for each story. Details: • Use an anecdotal (narrative) feature lead – one that tells a story – and then add additional paragraphs needed to tell the full story. • The last paragraph you write should be the nut graf. • Fix the AP Style errors. • Do not add any information to what you are given. a. FACTS: According to new statistics from the healthresearchfunding.org high school athletes suffer two million injures, 500,000 doctor visits and 30,000 hospitalizations each year. Thirty-five percent of the injuries are to the neck or head. Thirteen youths died last year. Most critics blame the helmet. When Pete Stenhoff was a 16-year-old junior at Chula Vista High School in Redmond, California, he was hurt in a game. He rammed his head into the ball carrier’s chest. Stenhoff cracked vertebrae in his spine and now must use a wheelchair. At the time of the accident, he weighed 210 pounds; now he weighs 172 pounds. He didn’t graduate with his class and is trying to get his high school diploma by taking correspondence classes. He is not bitter. “I knew the risks involved when I decided to play football,” he said, “but I wish I would have known just how bad it could be.” b. FACTS: Every 30 minutes a teenager attempts suicide because of bullying. About 47 teens are bullied every five minutes. Victims of cyber bullying show more signs of depression than other bullying victims. Cyber bullying is on the rise in dramatic numbers. It is relentless and more frightening if the bully is anonymous. About 282,000 students are reportedly attacked every month in the nation’s high schools. Seventy-one percent of students report bullying as an ongoing problem. The leading cause of death among children under the age of 14 is suicide. These statistics were released this month from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Tony Bartoli, director of youth advocacy at the institute, said that bullying is one of the greatest threats to a student’s academic success. Jennifer Pritchett was a fourteen-year-old in eighth grade when she attempted suicide because of constant bullying by students at her school, Oak Ridge Junior High in Des Moines, Iowa. "School made me shake. I was terrified of the bullies,” she said. She escaped the bullying by transferring to another school, but she has continued to get counseling.