Pulled Quotes

In Tuesday, March 25th issue of USA Today there was an article written on page 4D by Greg Toppo called “Size alone makes small classes better for kids”. I thought that this article was really well done and probably one of the best articles I have read so far for my blog entries. First, the reader was able to see that the writer did extensive research and did all the background necessary for this article. I also liked how the article included a chart of data that supported what was written in the article. The writer also provided readers with quotes from good sources. The sources quoted were people who were involved in this specific study and people who analyzed the findings of this study. I also really liked the angle that the writer took with this article. He talks about how teachers’ techniques haven’t changed with the downsizing of classes and therefore are not really part of the reason why smaller classes have been better for students learning. This is an interesting angle because usually the reader would automatically assume that teachers would change the style of their teaching with small class sizes and this in return would affect the reason why students do better in smaller classrooms. But since the writer made it clearly apparent that this isn’t true, the reader is more drawn into the article because they are shocked to hear something different than expected, and at the same time, the article becomes more newsworthy. Along with the angle taken in this article, the reader can see that the writer included the most important background information necessary to support his angle of the article. It is obvious that there was much research and background the writer had at hand to use, and part of the reason why I thought that this article was written well was because of the fact that the writer effectively selected and chose the most important background information and research to support the point being made. This is especially important in a news article because there is limit and space constraints.   However, I do think that there is one negative to this article. I think that the writer should have included quotes from the teachers who were studied in this experiment/study. Since the angle took involved the issue of teachers in this study, it would have been nice for them to be quoted. I personally would have liked to see the teachers’ opinions, for I think that using these sources would have been important for the angle that was taken in this article.  It may have not been necessary for quotes from teachers to be included, but I do think that it could have made the article even stronger than it already was.  In other words, even though I saw a small flaw in this article, I still think that this article was really well done and well written despite the small flaw I discovered. 

USA Today’s story “Feeding the obesity epidemic” gave me something to think about before eating my next meal. The story was intriguing and interesting, but used a bit of a scare tactic on the rapid weight gaining consumers of today’s society. Obesity is at an all time high, and the fact that struck out to me the most, and was the most effective, was  that obesity “will soon surpass tobacco as the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths,” Zinczenko wrote. One word: WOW!

This article incorporated effective facts and statistical data in regards to restaurants that have an astronimical number of calories in just one meal alone. I also believe the studies they referenced creative a more effective message to readers, and gave strong insight to our culture of obese Americans. People are getting too lazy to make their own healthy meals, which causes them to take the easy way out of eating at restaurants, especially fast food restaurants. Consequently, they are unaware of the caloric intake they are injesting, and what they don’t know can’t hurt them.

This article opened my eyes, and I fear for the growing rate of overweight citizens. Eating healthy should not be a once in a while occurence, it should be everyday. Eating unhealthy should be a once in a while thing. I worry for the health of others and the increased numbers of diabetes and cancer for our future.

An article found in USA Today discussed an issue regarding passenger rights in airports, however, let the reader down.  The lead was too detailed, there were spelling and grammatical errors, and some information was missing.

A writer loses some credibility when there are errors in their writing, so when I read this article, I was disappointed, especially with the lead which contained one of the errors.  The writer could have made this article very interesting, as it involved the rights of airplane passengers and a large portion of the U.S. population flies on a regular basis.

As for the missing information, the last line of the article listed a new person involved, without explaining who they were.  This lack of information also does not help the credibility of the writer and the news source.  Overall, I believe that this article could have been a good one if the errors and lack of information had been fixed.  This would also have given the writer more credibility and might have enticed the reader to read more within the publication.