Written Critiques
(Graduate students: Your critique assignments are different!)
These are short (500–1,000 words), double-spaced, printed papers to be handed in on each of three separate deadlines. The student chooses one example of online journalism. In each critique, the example must be from a different category (your choice, but choose a new category for each one of your critiques) on this list from Chapter 1 in the Flash Journalism textbook:
- Photo slideshow with audio
- Animated infographic
- Story package
- Interactivity
- Interface or navigation design
Each critique uses ONE example from ONE category.
NOTE: You can see a good example of a critique (PDF, 49 KB), written by a student (used by permission).
The examples do NOT need to use Flash. The examples MUST be journalism. Do not use any examples included in the book.
Do NOT use a whole news site (e.g. BBC News, The New York Times) as your example. Choose a single story or story package to critique.
Some places to find journalism examples include:
- Online News Association annual awards: Finalists, 2006
- SNDies annual awards, 2006 (these are links in my del.icio.us bookmarks online, because the SNDies site is not very user-friendly)
- MultimediaShooter list: Multimedia Year in Review (2006)
- MediaStorm (single stories ONLY, not the whole site)
- Interactive Narratives (even though the site is not updated frequently anymore, you can find very good work here)
Grading Criteria
Each critique is worth 5 points.
- 1 point -- Appropriateness of the example. Is it really journalism? Is it a good example for the selected category? You lose this point if you use an example that is included anywhere in the book.
- 1 point -- Quality of writing.
- 2 points -- Quality of critical thinking and analysis. Make sure you discuss why this is a good example of the category. If you do not clearly identify the category, you will lose 1 point.
- 1 point -- Balance of completeness and brevity. Is the paper 500 to 1,000 words? Does it cover everything it should? Is it "padded" with unnecessary description? Is the URL working, and can I find the example using the URL you provided?
Three critiques are required.
Meeting the deadline is necessary. Late assignments always receive a zero.