YEAR ONE FEEDBACK - shorthand. Sheila Mutch writes: Results of the assessment held on Friday below.It was in 4 parts, the ability to write short forms and phrases, write in shorthand from longhand, transcribe shorthand and finally a 2 minute piece at 30 wpm. Generally speaking the group are doing very well. They have been working hard and taking on board what I tell them, although they are naturally finding it a bit of a struggle. I have to come in by car and the parking is traumatising me!
I've grouped the results together to give an overall pass/fail.
Already at 30+ wpm
01 Andrew
02 Aimee
03 Cara
04 Claire
05 Domonique
06 Justyna Chlad
07 Hannah
08 Julie
09 Katie
10 Will
11 Seb
Not yet at tested at 30 wpm (revision and consolidation needed)
12 Karen
13 Jack
14 Rebecca G - ill on the day so not a valid assessment of her skill.
15 Rebecca W
16 Lauren - did not attend Friday pm for the dictation test
17 Gareth
18 David
Others absent without permission or explanation - fail unless mitigating circumstances form received (see Arts Faculty office). If you wish to transfer to journalism studies (combined with another subject such as media production or creative writing) please let us know as soon as possible. After week five it will still be possible to make such a change, but it will be more difficult.
19. Jake
20. Dale
21. Laura
22. Charlotte
23. Michael (continuing with introduction to journalism, but has dropped shorthand)
24. Margot (has dropped introduction to journalism and transferred to journalisn studies.
If you have withdrawn from shorthand (students 19 - 22) please let us know. If so there are two vacancies on the shorthand course, since settled numbers are capped at 20. It is quite normal for a number of students to drop out from shorthand at this stage. Students 1 - 18 will now go on to the speed building phase of the course and those not already at 30 wpm need to catch up as quickly as possible.
Please let me know anyone if you need any more info. Regards Sheila
sheilammutch@hotmail.co.uk
Chris Horrie adds: university regulations do not allow us to count your performance in shorthand as credit towards your degree. This means that you can still get a journalism degree even if you have no shorthand. This is because there are some jobs in journalism that don't require shorthand - but there are not many of them, to be fair, and they are much hrder to get. We have (now) designed the course so that in some of the news reporting exercises you will face towards the end of this term it will be very difficult to get a pass and essentially impossible to get top marks if you have no shorthand. But this is only in news.
Conversely we can reward the people who have put in the effort to learn shorthand by giving them very high marks. We will be asking you to give us your shorthand notes as part of some of these news reporting exercises - this is one reason why they should be written in standard form. So although the contact shorthand lessons drop from 8 or 10 hours a week to only two or three hours; in a way the the newsreporting exercises continue to be shorthand lessons. Effort in this area will be rewarded in the assessments we give you for news. Apart from this you will be graded for your information by Sheila. You can also do external exams in shorthand (a bit like GCSEs) organised by bodies such as the Royal Society of Arts or - possibly - the NCTJ. Sheila will be happy to advise you about this.
To sum up if you don't want to do shorthand you can still get your journalism degree, but it will be hard to get a job as a news reporter.
If you fail the shorthand course you are doing this term, it does not affect the grade of your degree in any way. But...
If you have no shorthand you are likely to struggle with the news reporting part of the practical journalism module...
But even if you fail this module, this might not affect you anyway because you only have to pass three of the four modules you are doing in order to carry on with the course.
The first year of the course is mainly about training to be a news reporter (and to produce news for radio and television and the web). Years two and three explore other areas of practical journalism such as magazine work, feature writing, etc.
The best thing is to just knuckle down and learn shorthand. It will do you a lot of good and will always count in your favour whatever branch of journalism you might specialise in later - for example it is hard to be an editor if you have not at least been trained as a reporter.
The easiest way to improve performance in journalism and the grades you get in practical journalism is to improve your shorthand.
We have reorganised the course this year so that shorthand is central to the course, with the rest of the timetable around it. You have had a 'full time' introductory course. We will continue the shorthand on friday - but the idea is that you should practice shorthand in all the other modules (including MS and HCJ lectures so you 'think shorthand' all the time. When you have had a reasonable time to get a useful speed we will start news reporting exercises on the assumption that you have got a shorthand speed. So in this way you can look at the news reporting lessons and exercises later this term as further shorthand lessons.
As a group you have all got off to an excellent start across the board, and the shorthand results overall are fine. Some people who have not made the first target have missed it narrowly and there is every indication you will be able to catch up.
People who are not on the list above have presumably withdrawn from the introduction to journalism module. Please confirm if you are still attending at least three other modules. You have lots of options and it is easy to replace the introduction to practical journalism module and progress as a journalism studies student. One or two people (who seem to have been made offers to attend the course due to administrative error) have already taken this course of action.
(Please note that this feedback was given on the first working day after the assessment took place.)
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