Tutor: Nuala Naughton
Dates: One night a week for ten weeks starting 16th September 2008
Location: Glasgow Metropolitan College, North Hanover Street, Glasgow (opposite Queen Street Station) from 6pm-9pm
Cost: £100 per person
Content & who should attend:
The course is about the ART of putting words into a fit state for newspaper, magazine or web publication.
Through mini-lectures and exercises, students will pick up the elements of all the basic skills needed for subbing. This will include:
- Reporters wanting to get their copy into publications without having to be rewritten and wanting to learn the art of headings and caption writing.
- Writers and book editors wanting to tackle the hard-nosed side of subbing news pages.
- Existing subs who want to tighten up their skills.
- Other journalists - for example, photographers, re-touchers and design desk people wanting to widen their skills.
Qualifications
A desire to be a sub-editor, the ability to learn from every mistake and not repeat it.
Expected learning outcomes
Acquiring the skills to process raw material from writers and reporters into copy that is aimed at the type of readership a publication has, is intelligible, attractive, accurate, fits its allotted space and carries eye-catching, apt headings, subheadings and captions.
Course details
A wide-ranging discussion of the qualities needed to be a sub-editor and an analysis of a piece of copy which should never have seen the light of day in the form that it did.
General story construction and a project involving rewriting a short piece for a local publication and the same piece for one of the national papers. This is assessed and new material added.
Intense sessions on introductory paragraphs in stories, the importance of publication style, things that should set off warning bells in a sub-editor's mind and important points about the use of grammar and punctuation.
Other aspects of text - cliches, automatic adjectives, circumlocutions, jargon etc - the art of writing headlines and picture caption writing.
Dressing up stories visually
Publications and the law and the importance of maintaining the NUJ Code of Conduct. A session that involves applying all the learned skills to a realistic newspaper situation followed by an assessment of each student's handling of it.
Further courses to consider
QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign - subs tend to be expected to know the mechanics of publishing.
Feature Writing - anything that improves your awareness of good writing bolsters your subbing skills.
Law for Journalists in Scotland - more detailed tuition of Scots Law than is covered by the general principles taught on the Text Handling course.
Contact Angela Austin, Assistant Organiser on email angelaa@nuj.org.uk or tel: 014 248 6648
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