Personal Narrative Labov

1
Personal Narrative (Labov)

• Abstract summarizes central action and main point
  of the story
• Orientation sets the scene, addresses the
  questions who, what, when, where
• Complicating Action is the central part of the
  story, answers Then What Happened?
  chronologically.
• Evaluation answers So What?. Justifies the
  storys value and may be dispersed throughout.
• Resolution concludes the sequence of events
• Coda and that was that, bridges the narrative
  time to the present.

2
Applied to News

• Abstract lead or intro, preceded by headline
• Orientation who, what, when, where. May be
  elaborated throughout story.
• Action the main narrative, but seldom told
  chronologically.
• Evaluation establishes significance of story,
  possibly in lead
• Resolution there is not often a resolution in
  news, and if there is, its in the lead.
• Coda no coda in news stories.

3
News Narrative Discourse

• Radical discontinuity of time.
• Weak cohesion.
• Each paragraph a separable unit. Isolated chunks
  of information. Lack of link devices.
• Lack of resolution.

4
News Story Elements

• Abstract lead sentence and headline.
• Attribution where the story came from.
• Episodes and events.
• Events describe actors and action, setting and
  attribution.
• Background events prior to current action
• Commentary
• Follow-up actions subsequent to the main action.
  

5
Explaining News Time

• News Values (e.g. recency, immediacy,frequency,
  unexpectedness, novelty, elite-ness etc.).
• Deadlines or cycles (continuity, competition,
  predictability, prefabrication).

6
News A Multi-Authored Text

• Heteroglossia mixing of many voices (Bakhtin)
  embedding
• Interviews, face-to-face, phone, internet etc.
• Public addresses, Press conferences
• Written text of spoken addresses
• Organizationally produced documents Press
  releases
• Earlier stories on topic
• News agency copy
• Journalists notes from all the above

7
Inverted Pyramid

• Information is arranged from the most important
  to the least important
• Saves the reader TIME, and the paper SPACE
• Is headed by the Lead Paragraph
• Importance is determined by RELEVANCE,
  USEFULNESS, INTEREST
• Story answers the questions who, what, when,
  where, why, how.

8
Alternate Leads

• Immediate-Identification emphasizes the who.
• Delayed-Identification emphasizes other elements
  e.g. the action or event.
• Summary leads do not highlight specific action
• Multiple-element lead covers a number of distinct
  actions

9
Story Organization After the Lead

• Introduce additional important information that
  was not in the lead
• Indicate significance or so-what factor
• Elaborate on information in lead
• Introduce new information in the order of
  importance
• Develop the ideas in the same order in which they
  have been introduced
• One new idea for each paragraph. s

10
News Narrative

• Vivid scenes
• Dialogue
• Foreshadowing (advertising whats coming)
• Anecdotes

11
Focus Structure

• Alternative to pyramid
• Focus on individual or group that represents a
  bigger population
• Transition to a theme or nut paragraph
• Add foreshadowing
• Add so-what
• Add to-be-sure
• Mix exposition (facts) with narration
• Has an ending, conclusion

12
Speeches, Conferences, Meetings.

• Preparation
• Visit to the morgue for background on
  speaker/topic.
• Check national database such as Nexis/Lexis.
• Check if there is advance copy of speech or
  agenda
• Check speakers office or associates.
• Get interview of speaker/chair before/after
  speech.
• Note other journalists questions.
• Record direct quotes.

13
Writing the Story

• Lead
• Direct quotes
• Background
• Headings
• Get reactions
• Sidebar possibilities
• Find something unusual/interesting