Learning to Edit News Stories Quickly

Students in news editing classes get plenty of homework that involves - you guessed it - editing news stories. But the problem with homework is that its often not due for several days, and as any experienced journalist can tell you, editors on deadlines must usually fix stories within a matter of minutes, not hours or days. So one of the most important skills a student journalist must cultivate is the ability to work fast. Just as aspiring reporters must learn to complete news stories on deadline, student editors must develop the ability to edit those stories quickly. Learning to write rapidly is a fairly straightforward process that involves building up speed by banging out stories and exercises, over and over again. There are editing exercises on this site. But how can a student journalist learn to edit more quickly? Here are some tips. Read the Story All the Way Through Too many beginning editors try to start fixing articles before theyve read them from start to finish. This is a recipe for disaster. Poorly written stories are minefields of things like buried ledes and incomprehensible sentences. Such problems cant be properly fixed unless the editor has read the entire story and understands what it SHOULD say, as opposed to what it IS saying. So before editing a single sentence, take time to make sure you really understand what the story is all about. Find the Lede The lede is by far the most important sentence in any news article. Its the make-or-break opening that either entices the reader to stick with the story or sends them packing. And as Melvin Mencher said in his seminal textbook News Reporting Writing, the story flows from the lede. So its no surprise that getting the lede right is probably the most important part of editing any story. Nor is it surprising that many inexperienced reporters get their ledes horribly wrong. Sometimes ledes are just very badly written. Sometimes theyre buried at the bottom of the story. This means an editor must scan the entire article, then fashion a lede thats newsworthy, interesting and reflects the most important content in the story. That can take a little time, but the good news is that once youve created a good lede, the rest of the story should fall into line fairly quickly. Use Your AP Stylebook Beginning reporters commit boatloads of AP Style errors, so fixing such mistakes becomes a big part of the editing process. So keep your stylebook with you all the time; use it every time you edit; memorize the basic AP Style rules, then commit a few new rules to memory every week. Follow this plan and two things will happen. First, youll become very familiar with the stylebook and be able to find things more quickly; second, as your memory of AP Style grows, you wont need to use the book as often. Dont Be Afraid to Rewrite Young editors often worry about changing stories too much. Maybe theyre not yet sure of their own skills. Or maybe theyre afraid of hurting a reporters feelings. But like it or not, fixing a really awful article often means rewriting it from top to bottom. So an editor must cultivate a confidence in two things: his own judgment about what constitutes a good story vs. a real turd, and his ability to turn the turds into gems. Unfortunately, theres no secret formula for developing skill and confidence other than practice, practice and more practice. The more you edit the better youll get, and the more confident youll be. And as your editing skills and confidence grow, so too will your speed.

Psychology Positive And Negative Psychology - 1645 Words

Positive psychology, is a new field of psychology that draw heavily on humanist influences. This area of psychology places its focus on understanding how to enhance our lives by studying what produces our happiness through the use of scientific methods to understand how this affects us leading healthy, happy and successful lives. Through the belief that society would like to lead meaningful and rewarding lives the goal of positive psychology is to, in addition the other fields of psychology, accompany these ideas in order to help individuals and society, as a whole, to achieve satisfactory lives, rather than just treating illness through the use of fighting our weakness by strengthening our positive traits. Martin Seligman, who is considered the â€Å"father† of positive psychology criticizes psychology for being primarily dedicated to addressing mental illness rather than mental wellness (as citied by Held, 2004). In response he states that in order to enhance the well-being and happiness of ourselves we must study psychology through a different means thus his aim of positive psychology is to begin to catalyze a change in the focus of psychology from preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building positive qualities. It is the scientific study of what makes life worth living, it is the study of positive experiences, positive character traits, and the institutions that help cultivate them (Seligman, 2011). Although this may sound similar toShow MoreRelatedPsychology : Positive And Negative Psychology955 Words   |  4 PagesPositive Psychology We often think of psychology with a negative connotation. A reason for this is that for many years, psychologists focused more on the negative side of psychology. This part of psychology deals with peoples’ symptoms, wounds, disorders, and trauma (Morgan Nemec, 2013). This changed in 2000 when psychologist Martin Seligman founded the science of positive psychology (Schueller Parks, 2014). Although certain aspects of positive psychology were studied long before the branchRead MorePositive And Negative Impacts Of Social Psychology1404 Words   |  6 PagesSocial Psychology is defined as â€Å"a subfield in psychology that focuses on social interaction between people, how people influence and are influenced by others, and the relationship between the individual’s behaviors/cognitions and that of others in a group† (Robertson, 2002-2015). Within that subfield there are many theories and concepts that explain these feelings, thoughts, and beliefs that are construc ted and how psychological factors influence our interactions with others. The topics examinedRead MorePositive Psychology At Gable And Haidt1098 Words   |  5 PagesPositive psychology according to Gable and Haidt (2005) can be defined as â€Å"the study of the conditions and processes that contribute to the flourishing of people, groups and institutions† (p. 103). Similarly, it can be described as the study of human strength and virtue to understand positive and emotionally fulfilling behaviour (Sheldon King, 2001). There are three dimensions or levels of positive psychology which are based on aspects of our life experiences. Our positive subjective experiencesRead MoreThe Behavioral Perspective Of Clinical Psychology993 Words   |  4 PagesClinical psychology is a relatively new area of study in the broad category of psychology. It is a subfield of psychology that covers a wide range and variety of topics and issues such as the study, diagnosis and treatment of psychol ogical disorders. (Feldman, 2010) Clinical psychologists also might deal with patients who have learning disorders, substance abuse, depression, anxiety and eating disorders. This paper will briefly discuss the behavioral perspective, some research methods in the fieldRead MoreThe Downfall Of Positive Psychology1654 Words   |  7 Pages The Downfall of Positive Psychology In Schrank’s â€Å"Positive psychology: An Approach to Supporting Recovery in Mental Illness† he discusses the definition, history, research, and psychotherapy that is involved with positive psychology. There are multiple definitions that psychologists have developed for positive psychology that stem from six core domains which are â€Å"(i) virtues and character strengths, (ii) happiness, (iii) growth, fulfilment of capacities, development of highest self, (iv) good lifeRead MoreThe Psychology Of Clinical Psychology967 Words   |  4 PagesClinical psychology is a relatively newer area of study in the broad category of psychology. It is subfield of psychology that covers a wide range and variety of topics and issues such as the study, diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders. (Feldman, 2010) This paper will briefly discuss the behavioral perspective, some research methods in the field of psychology, positive and negative components associated with clinica l psychology, and different controversies and ways to overcome theseRead MorePositive Psychology And Cognitive Behavior Therapy1520 Words   |  7 PagesThis aim of this essay is to provide an overview of Positive Psychology and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Strengths and weaknesses of both models are presented, as well has a discussion on areas where they are similar and different. Essay also highlights that whilst one model may be more suitable given the clients psychological state, the models may be utilized individually or complementing each other. Positive Psychology (PS) Positive Psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worthRead MorePositive Psychology Can Not Make Us Happier887 Words   |  4 PagesPositive Psychology Cannot Make Us Happier The question of whether individuals can create their own happiness without the aid of external influences has been raised and researched. However, the answer to the question is unclear. Positive psychology is a branch of psychology that supports the theory that an individual’s happiness is under their personal control, independent of any external influences or validation. Consequently, researchers have uncovered evidence that provides mixed results regardingRead MoreSimilarities Between Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology1278 Words   |  5 PagesPositive Psychology and Coaching Psychology: Positive psychology and coaching psychology have certain similarities with regards to their development as responses to the status quo of the field. The status quo was deficit-based, pathology-focused, and based on essential assumptions regarding human nature. These fundamental assumptions were largely less than positive, especially when examined from a rational perspective. As responses to the status quo, positive psychology and coaching psychology areRead MoreCarol Rogers Influence in Psychology1264 Words   |  6 PagesInfluence on Modern Psychology Introduction Carl Rogers is considered the founder of client-centered therapy, which asserts that childhood experiences affect an individual’s feelings, thoughts, and behavior (Rathus, 2004). The therapist must see the world from that of the client to be effective in treatment. Rogers has influenced many psychological theories and therapies present today, especially positive psychology. Despite this fact, many who practice positive psychology do not, or are not

General Purpose Financial Reports Public Sector

Question: Discuss about the General Purpose Financial Reports for Public Sector. Answer: General Purpose Financial Reporting (GPFRs) GPFRs are required to be prepared by the reporting entities according to the Australian Accounting Standards which is the governing body. The GPFRs are prepared in order to meet the needs of those users who are not in a position to demand financial reports from the company as per their tailored needs. These users are dependent upon the GPRS for their information needs in order for them to decide on the allocation of the scare resources. Who is required to prepare GPFRs All the reporting entities are required to prepare GPFRs whereas all the non reporting entities should prepare special purpose financial reports (SPFRs). A reporting entity is that which is expected to have users who rely on the general purpose financial statements for information which will be used by them to decide where to allocate the scare resources. The reporting entities of GPFRs may be divided in to two tiers namely Tier 1 and Tier 2. Tier 1 entities include entities which work for profit and are private companies and entities belonging to the local, state and federal governments. Tier 1 entities are required to prepare GPFRs in total compliance with the accounting standards. A private company is said to have public accountability if its equity or debt are traded in the open market or is in the process of issuing equity or debt for trading in the open market and if the primary business of the company is to hold assets of a group of outsiders as a fiduciary. Such companies include insurance companies, banks, investment banks and brokers and dealers. All other entities which do not fall in the category of tier 1 are tier 2 entities and tier 2 entities have reduced disclosures but have to comply with the classification, recognition and measurement of the accounting standards. (KPMG, 2014) Objective of GPFRs The main objective of GPFRs is to provide useful information to the existing or potential investors, creditors in making a decision as to whether to allocate the scare resources to the entity or not. The decision relate to investing, holding, selling in the companys shares, giving loan and credit to the company. There are many users of financial information provided by GPFRs. These users are interested in the GPFRs as they are in a position to decide it they want to allocate the scare resources to a particular entity or not. Investors decide whether to invest in a company or not, creditors decide whether to provide credit to a company or not, government decides whether to lend funds for a programme of the entity or not, employees decide whether to sell their services to the entity or not, donators decide whether they want to make donations to the entity or not, the owners of the company decide whether they should allocate resources for the companys operations and who would ,manage the business activities on their behalf. The interest of the community is served in the best manner of the scare resources which are allocated to the entities utilize them in the most efficient manner by generating maximum output. Efficient utilization of resources leads to higher living standards, rising economic development and overall development of the economy. The above efficient allocation of resources will take place only if the providers have sufficient information about the entity in which they want to invest and will base their decisions on the information provided in the GPFRs. GPFRs also provide mechanism to the management of the company through which they can fulfil their accountability. The management is accountable to the public because it is using their resources and hence with the help of GPFRs the management is able to discharge their accountability. (SAC2, NA) Qualitative Characteristics of GPFRs The usefulness of the GPFRs depends on the type of information provided. The information under the GPFRs include the economic resources possessed by the entity and the claims against the entity at a particular data and it also consists of events and conditions which led to a change in the resources and claims of the entity. Apart from the financial information, the reports also provide data on the strategies of the entity and the future outlook of the company with respect to growth. However, to make the above information useful, it is necessary that it should be relevant, comparable, understandable, verifiable, and timely and should be in faithful representation. (IFRS, NA) Relevance the information contained in the GPFRs is said to be relevant if it has both predictive and confirmative values and has the capability of making a difference in the decision made by users of allocating the resources to the entity or not. It is said to have predictive value if the information can be used by the users in making certain predictions about the entity through processes employed by him to predict the future of the company. Like a company may give future outlook of the company in terms of the increased revenue, costs and profits and on basis of this outlook, the user may base his predictive value. It is said to have confirmative value if the information can confirm or change the evaluations made by the users in the past. Confirmative and predictive value is interrelated. Like the revenue data of the company is confirmative value, however, the user may use the revenue data of the past to predict the future revenue based on the pattern it follows. Also if revenue ha s been predicted in the past, the actual revenue can be compared with what was predicted and on the basis of the correctness of the data, the processes employed to forecast future revenue may be altered. Faithful Representation all the information contained in the GPFRs whether financial or no financial should be represented faithfully, in other terms it should be complete, neutral and free of any material error. A complete description is the complete information and explanation about the phenomena being described. Like if assets are being reported, complete description would include nature of assets, their numerical value (original cost, fair value, depreciation). Information is said to be neutral when it is presented without any bias, emphasis or over emphasis on any particular information so as to influence the understanding of the user of the report. All the information should be presented in the most neutral way so that it is read by the user the way the events took place in the company. The information presented in the financial report cannot be 100% accurate, however free from errors means there are no omissions in information presentation. Also the process adopted for representing the information is free of error. Like if a company makes an estimate of doubtful debts, it may not be necessary that the estimate is perfectly accurate; however the procedure of estimating the doubtful debts should be accurate. (IFRS, NA) The above two features are called the fundamental qualitative characteristics. The features which are to follow are called enhancing qualitative characteristics because they enhance the quality of the information which relevant and faithfully represented. Comparability usually the users of GPFRs are interested in making comparisons between the financial performances between similar entities to decide where to allocate their resources. They may also like to compare the performance of the same entity with the past. Hence the GPFRs should be comparable. Comparability is achieved with some degree of consistency. Consistency refers to the use of same accounting policies and methods in reporting a particular item over different periods or across the entities. Uniformity is not necessary for a report to be comparable. Comparability requires similar things to look alike and different things to look different. Comparability is possible only for the financial information contained in the second half of the report, for the first half which constitutes narrative reporting, comparability is not significant. Verifiability the users of the report should be able to verify the information contained in the report. Verification can be either direct or direct. Direct verification is verification through direct observation like verifying the cash balance by counting cash. Indirect verification is verifying the value given in the report by applying the same procedure as adopted by the company to calculate that value. Like verifying the value of plant and machinery by taking the input given in the report like costs and quantity and recalculating the value using the same assumptions as made by the company. However, it may not be possible to verify the forward looking information, so the company should the underlying assumptions and how the information was compiled in order to support the information. Timeliness it is important for the information to be provided timely in order to be useful. The information should be capable of helping the users make decisions with respect to investment and that is possible only when the information is provided timely. However, some past information may also be useful to the users for studying the trends, compliance of the company performance with the budgeted one. Understand ability - the report should be clear, precise and understandable. There should be proper categorisations and classifications to make it understandable. Moreover, it is assumed that the users of the report are aware of the economic and business activities and can analyse the information in a diligent manner. (IFAC, 2012) Need for Rules and Regulations in preparing GPFRs GPFRs are required to be prepared by the reporting entities which constitutes of all the public companies as well as the private companies who have raised capital in the form of shares of debt and these instruments are traded in the public. From the nature of the companies, it is clear that they are using the public money to carry out their business and hence are liable to provide information on their business activities so that the users of financial report are aware where and how their money is being put in use to. These companies have a high economic and political influence and their business activities may affect the growth of the economy as a whole, hence it becomes mandatory for them to carry out the business with utmost care and also report their activities in the best manner so that different users may be able to scrutinize the performance to be in best interest of the society. (AASB, 2010) References IFAC, (2012), Conceptual Framework for General Purpose Financial Reporting by Public Sector Entities: Presentation in General Purpose Financial Reports, Consultation Paper, International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board AASB, (2010), Exposure Draft ED/2010/2 Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting: The Reporting Entity, AASB submission KPMG, (2014), Australian Financial Reporting Manual, Department of Professional Practise Horwath, (2015), Reporting Entity: General Purpose Vs. Special Purpose Financial Reports, Crowe Horwath Sydney SAC2, (NA), Objective of General Purpose Financial Reporting, Statement of Accounting Concepts IFRS, (NA), The Objective of General Purpose Financial Reporting, Conceptual Framework

Hotel and Mobile Housekeeping App free essay sample

In the article â€Å"Quadriga Launches Mobile Housekeeping App†, the author shows us a new mobile application for housekeeping services. This App – Housekeeper – can largely improve the efficiency in checking and reporting room status through most web-enabled mobile devices. It as well enhances the communication among staff. The App has already been deployed in some hotels and may be applied in more countries and hotels in the near future. The article interests me because it is about technology innovation, which has obtained a lot of attention of hoteliers in the past five to ten years. According to Ian Millar, Deputy Director of INTEHL, hospitality industry is good with technology. It has always been a reactive rather than a proactive industry when it comes to technology. And this needs to change in order to improve internal efficiency and create unique and impressive customer experience. Consider the use of the new housekeeping App in hotels. We will write a custom essay sample on Hotel and Mobile Housekeeping App or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page It will be much easier and faster for room division staff to carry out housekeeping tasks, and as a result, saving time and laborer to a large extent. In fact, the recent years have seen an unprecedented technology development, and such a development has brought both challenges and opportunities to hoteliers. On the one hand, customers have higher expectation and demand for hotels. But it is not easy to keep up with the all the cutting-edge technologies and major online trends. On the other hand, if hotels can follow the rapid pace of technology development and take reactions quickly, they will be more likely to meet or exceed customers’ expectation and earn reputation as well as profit. In terms of room division, one important aspect is in-room technology. Five years ago, I might feel it was just enough to have a TV in a guest room. But today I cannot imagine a room without Wi-Fi. The pervasive use of social media and mobile devices determines customers’ growing need for internet access and availability of internet bandwidth and online content. People expect to have the same work or entertaining experience as they at home. So it is important for hotels to adapt to in-room technologies and upgrade amenities of guestrooms in order to narrow the gap between guest’s experience at home and in the rooms. For example, as smartphones and laptops have gradually become the mainstream, guests get more accustomed to use their mobile devices. So hotels can offer radio players and televisions that can connect to smartphones and laptops, providing guests with better experience of entertainment since they can play music via a loudspeaker and watch movies on a larger screen. As the young generation has become more and more dependent on technology, it is important for hoteliers to prepare earlier and adapt to technology shifts. Quadriga Launches Mobile Housekeeping App UNITED KINGDOM—Quadriga has launched a new mobile application for housekeeping services via an exclusive global agreement with partner Hibox Systems Ltd, Finland. According to the company, the app is designed to reduce costs and deliver improved efficiencies for hoteliers with an average 50% reduction in the time required to carry out housekeeping and hotel support tasks, enhanced staff communication, as well as powerful reporting capabilities. Housekeeper provides an alternative to Quadriga’s established, fixed TV-based housekeeping solution, integrated into its Sensiq guest communications and entertainment platform. The Hibox Housekeeper application is a web-based service that can be hosted in the cloud and provides hotel staff with immediate reporting capabilities via most web-enabled mobile devices. Services include the reporting of room status to the hotel PMS, minibar usage and rooms fault reporting and management, as well as a staff-messaging tool. Housekeeper is already deployed in hotels across the Nordic region and is now available worldwide.