Mr. Zack Goes To A Conference

So, first thing, I am a little late, but (hopefully) this is one of those better late than never situations.

Do to some previous obligations I was only able to attend the last two lection sections of the last day of the conference. However, I was fortunate enough to be the only person in our class to stumble upon our humble instructor Joe Dennis speaking at one of the lectures.

Now, a few things need to be clarified. For one, he was not on the schedule to give this lecture. Joe was a last minute replacement, but a damn fine one if I do say so myself.

Secondly, the lecture was given on news writing. Which isn’t a topic that is exactly new to me, but hey, a review couldn’t hurt. Since I caught the last 35 minutes of the presentation I only got to see Joe going over “brainstorming.”

It would have been a bit nicer if this group of girls sitting behind me had not been talking about what was happening on their Twitter and Facebook pages.

For my second lecture I went to the one that talked about using diction and style to improve the “creativity,” of one’s writing.

This lecture I found more helpful than the last. In journalism I do sometimes find it hard to make topics like “Old woman grows flower garden,” or “high-school kids work part time jobs,” into anything all that creative or interesting.

The lecture discussed how simple changes in diction and emphasis in a sentence can really keep the readers interest.

I did have to leave 10 minutes early to get to work.