Course ID: | JRMC 7356. 3 hours. |
Course Title: | Advanced Health and Medical Journalism |
Course Description: | Challenges students to dig deeper into connections between
scientific research, politics, culture, and health care. Health
of poor people in the South need not be the main thrust of
stories written for course, but the theme remains important.
Advanced students will research, write, and revise a major
feature article for publication. |
Oasis Title: | ADV HEALTH MED JRL |
Prerequisite: | JRMC 7355 |
Semester Course Offered: | Offered fall semester every year. |
Grading System: | A-F (Traditional) |
|
Course Objectives: | Student will:
1. Be able to identify, analyze ad understand the interplay of
scientific research, politics, economics, culture and health
care - especially their role in health disparities in the
American South.
2. Gain a mechanistic understanding of nonfiction narrative by
analyzing outstanding articles about health, medicine, and the
shaping of policy and practice by scientific research.
3. Understand and master a hypothesis-driven approach to
conceptualizing, researching, writing and revising a major
feature article or series of articles for print and/or online
publication.
4. Master skills needed to prepare for and conduct high-yield
interviews with experts, pick out narrative threads in the
scientific literature, and translate complex ideas and findings
for general audiences. |
Topical Outline: | 1. Shopping for stories, formulating and testing hypotheses,
using the tools of investigation.
2. Structural and stylistic analysis of major newspaper or
magazine features about health or medical topics.
3. Working with editors - perspectives from editor, staff
writer and freelancer.
4. Constructing a plan of work and a calendar, using a process-
oriented approach to nonfiction narrative.
5. Organizing complex material and writing clear explanations.
6. Making characters come alive.
7. Hitting the long ball, writing the first draft.
8. Marketing the story.
9. Being your own best critic, polishing the work for
publication. |