This Week's Assignment

(This post is part of an assignment for the class I am taking, Writing for Digital Media at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This week, I will be identifying a publication for which I will continue to create online content for later assignments.)

crowdrestaurantreviews.com

Proposal: A restaurant review site set up in the fashion of a social network where people can contribute their own restaurant reviews, ratings, comments, photos, videos, relevant files (menus, etc.), and recommend specific dishes. They can also help improve the site by linking to restaurant sanitation grades, other reviews (professional or otherwise), and other information such as franchise information, news articles, or the restaurant’s web site. In addition, users will be able to display their favorite restaurants and friends (other members) on their profile page, identify if they are a foodservice employee, and link to other social networking sites.

Restaurant owners or managers will also be able to participate by adding messages, twitter/RSS feeds, menus, links, and photos, and will have an option to advertise via banners on their page(s). Each restaurant’s page will automatically display name, address, phone, and a Google map based on restaurant listings in each metro area. (Pilot site is raleigh.crowdrestaurantreviews.com).

The site will also include a robust restaurant search feature which will search keywords from the page as well as the review & comment areas of the pages (a search for “spaghetti alla carbonara” would return results where that term was found in the user-supplied text). In addition, users will be able to search by restaurant type, price range, and location.

Restaurant profile pages will be easy to scan and show the most pertinent information (as available): Sanitation grade, google map, menu, average user star rating, list of reviews to read, editor’s review, hours, price range, and a photo.

Purpose: Currently, restaurant reviews are scattered all over the place on the web. The most popular site for local information, citysearch, seems to be the preferred place to look, but it only allows for comments and a star rating from registered users. In addition, there is no one site that concentrates solely on restaurant reviews in Raleigh. raleighrestaurantreviews.com is close, but it is pulling reviews from a host of other sites which makes the information overwhelming in volume. The purpose of crowdrestaurantreviews.com is to give a true “crowdsourced” view of each restaurant – allowing users to be the food critic, write their own review(s) and add pictures and/or video to make each review much more realistic and complete, instead of just displaying a laundry list of comments.

Competition: Citysearch.com, tripadvisor.com, diningguide.com, raleighrestaurantreviews.com, many others.

Audience: The audience of this site is vast, as it covers anyone who eats out and may be looking for specific information about a restaurant online. The main theme will be “…where you are the food critic”, so an important part of the audience will be people who enjoy writing and reporting, to include students and people with an interest or who work in a journalistic field.

The larger chunk of the audience, though, will be those looking for restaurant information online, so they will be educated, middle-to-upper class people looking for a good dining experience. They will be largely web-savvy, and will be looking for critical information to be up front and well-organized.

Age ranges likely are to be college-age through upper-middle-age. Although the pilot site is based on Raleigh, NC restaurants for now, this model could easily be applied nationally and even globally. The site will need to be tested on all platforms and browsers due to the diverse nature of the audience. Because of the dense multimedia experience this site will provide, non-broadband users would likely shy away. Advanced browser features and broadband are needed to fully experience this site.

Design: The design of this site, as noted, will focus on getting the most relevant information up front in an easy-to-digest format. The primary color scheme will be burgundy, since red is associated with restaurants where people like to sit and linger, and also has a wine connotation.

Style Guide: The Associated Press Style Guide will be used to guide the (non-contributed) content of this site.

This Week's Assignment

(This post is part of an assignment for the class I am taking, Writing for Digital Media at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This week, I will be fixing headlines, improving an article, and writing headlines.)

Assignment 1

Headline: SciTechBlog: Ike bad, could have been worse

Problem: Missing verb, awkward.

Solution: Blog: Ike sparing, just like Katrina? (deleted "to be" verbs")

Source: cnn.com, September 19, 2008

http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/16/ike-was-awful-but-it-could-have-been-worse/

Headline: Tests find chemical also in liquid milk in China

Problem: Awkward, not compelling.

Solution: China: [Before: Tests find more of infant-killing chemical in milk]

[After: Tests find evidence of deadly chemical in milk]

Source: wral.com, September 19, 2008

http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/world/story/3572921/

Headline: UNC releases injury report

Problem: Not compelling, very vague

Solution: [before: UNC's Massenburg 'doubtful' to play Saturday]

[after: UNC's Massenburg 'doubtful' for Saturday]

Source: newsobserver.com, September 19, 2008

http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/1224724.html

Assignment 2

Before: http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/1224290.html

After: 

Triangle home sales plummet, buyers struggle with lenders

Both sellers and buyers face tough obstacles, but there is hope

The plight of Triangle home sellers turned gloomier in August, and buyers don't always have it easy, either.

From bright to bleak, the Triangle housing market over the past year

Sales of existing homes in Durham, Orange, Johnston and Wake counties fell 39 percent from the same month a year earlier -- the biggest year-over-year decline since the national housing bust first nicked this region a year ago -- data from the Triangle Multiple Listing Service show.

Meanwhile, fewer buyers roamed the market as the number of homes listed climbed to a four-year high for the month, even as sellers budged on prices more than ever in the past six years.

"The sellers aren't getting what they want," said Ed Willer, a York Simpson Underwood broker in Raleigh. "And the buyers -- well, the lenders are beating them up. So it's tough on both sides."

The Triangle is coming off three frenzied years of record home sales and surging prices. But the market has come to a standstill, compared with recent years, as lenders tighten standards following years of easy money.

Thinking about buying? 

The pros:

• Sellers are starting to price homes lower, abandoning the ambitious price tags of two years ago. For the first time in at least six years, the prices of more than half of the homes on the market have been reduced at least once. At least 52 percent of the 14,041 homes on the market are price-drop listings, up from 41 percent a year ago.

• Mortgage rates are low right now, so it's a good time to buy. As long as you have good credit...

The cons:

• Good credit is a must right now. Those who don't have good credit are facing higher borrowing costs and are being asked to pay more up front.

• Appraisers are being very conservative. What this means for a buyer is that the appraisal may come in lower, even much lower, than the already agreed upon selling price, and the buyer may have to chalk up the difference, according to Triangle area real estate agent, Jeanette Benjey.

Thinking about selling? 

The pros:

• The good news for owners is that prices held steady in August. Average prices were essentially flat at $248,079, as was the median price of $197,000.

• People are getting reasonable prices for their houses. "I don't see anybody getting killed" Willer said.

• A recent dip in mortgage rates may encourage more buyers to pull the trigger. 30-year fixed mortgage rates in North Carolina are averaging 5.95 percent -- the lowest since April, according to Bankrate.com data.

The cons:

• Sellers need to be very flexible in the months ahead. The number of homes on the market swelled 8 percent to 14,041 in August -- the most in any August since 2004: competition is high.

• At the same time, showings dropped 18 percent from a year ago and pending sales sank 29 percent to a five-year low: traffic is low.
  

Have we hit a low?

Looks like we're close. The number of residential building permits issued in Wake County, the region's biggest, was down 43 percent through June, county records show.

"That's one of the things we have to see before we hit the bottom," said Stacey Anfindsen of Cary-based Birch Appraisal Group.

Anfindsen, who analyzes listing data for Triangle real estate agents, thinks recovery will come only after there are three consecutive months of both increased showings and pending sales.

Until then, sellers face a sobering reality: "You have more inventory than you've had in a long time," he said. "And you've got fewer buyers than you've had in the past four years."

Assignment 3

Headline before: Scratching the Surface: Breaking Down the Global Warming Debate
Headline after: Dissecting the Global Warming Debate

Assignment 4

1. Contaminated meat from China blocked by U.S. government

2. Chinese contaminated meat blocked by Government

3. More sub-standard Chinese imports suspended: chemical and bacteria-laden meat blocked by U.S. government

Review of enn.com (Environmental News Network)

By Marcie Barnes

(This post is part of an assignment for the class I am taking, Writing for Digital Media at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This week, I will be reviewing enn.com and making suggestions based on our readings.)

enn.com is a good place to get environmental news. But does it pass the white glove test when scrutinized for possible problems? Let's find out. (added, trying to be less arid, add a hook.)

Navigation

The navigation on enn.com is clear, there is a prominent green bar running just under the banner/logo at the top of the page. I found it (deleted "It's") easy to tell what section I was visiting (deleted "you are currently in") because the section I (deleted "you are" and "currently") visited turned darker green and a little slider arrow moved to serve as a visual marker of where I was. (deleted "that part"). This navigation bar was consistent on each page I visited, so I always knew where to go if I wanted to move around.

Clicking on the banner/logo brought me back to the home page, which is good practice. The search box is placed well – near the top right – where many tend to look for it. Search results came up quickly and were organized by date, most recent first. I imagine an advanced search would be helpful for many users as well, that feature is missing.

Page Layouts/Site Organization

The pages are well balanced, and the elements on them work well together. I found my eye always going to the most important story first, and so on. Good balance keeps the reader's eye from bouncing about aimlessly and eventually bouncing away, much like in an erratic game of "pong":

 (added.) This site is well-organized, again, with clear navigation and placement of different items where the typical reader would expect to see them.

Consistency

There is a nice, consistent feel to this site. The lead story in each category is always in the same place, below that is a long list of other (earlier) stories to read, and below that a spotlight, commentary, and member press releases are always anchored in the same spot regardless of what page I was on. The advertising placement is also consistent, albeit a little prolific, on this site.

Because this site is a compilation of articles contributed from a variety of sources, subtle things such as tone and voice (below) and style do vary from article to article, but that is expected in this format. [Before: One thing I did notice, however, is that sometimes the full article is published on this site, and sometimes I have to click through to the source site in order to finish the story. I personally would prefer to stay on the site I’m on, unless I choose to go to the source site for more information.]...[After: I did notice, however, that sometimes the full article is published on this site's server while sometimes I click and am sent elsewhere. Good practice would keep readers on the original domain at all costs, and in order to avoid confusion. A link to a "source" site would be welcomed in case readers need more information.]

Tone

There is an intellectual and professional tone to this site: it is cleanly designed and gives off an air of authority in its design. In addition, the headlines are published with their source information underneath which really helps with credibility.(added.) Conversely, (deleted "However") the advertising takes up too much real estate on this site for my tastes, and the text ads embedded within the articles (described further in the hyperlinks section) make this site appear too commercial (deleted sales-ish), which may put off  (deleted "may be a put-off for") some people.

Writing Quality

Again, because this site aggregates (deleted "conglomerates") articles from “a variety of trusted global sources,” the writing is generally solid. However, I did encounter typos and formatting problems from time to time. This commentary box,

which has a prominent position at the top of each page, was overflowing with words. It seems that the editors need to place a character limit on what goes in this box, or redesign it so more characters can fit.

In this article, I found words running together in the lead paragraph. I also wanted to hyphenate “Tree Free” (a mistake passed down from the source site). I’m also not sure what was going on with the extra commas that always appeared just before the source in the byline.



In this article, there was a strange character (box) in the 3rd paragraph and another case of words running together in the 4th. These problems typically didn't seem to exist when I checked out the article on its original web site, so it looks like the editors of enn.com need to do a better job checking the information they post.

Hyperlinking

Words colored in blue are actually links to other pages/articles that support the current article, a style I employ on this blog as well. However, why not use the standard blue underlined link we are all so accustomed to? These non-underlined words probably would not stand out as hyperlinks to many readers.

Double-underlined words appear as “links” that, when hovered over, bring up a small advertisement. One, in the article Sarah Palin's Record on Climate Change, links the word “governor” to an ad that reads: “Artery Clearing Secret from Nobel Prize Winner.” There is no relevance in that. I’m not really sure readers want their text infiltrated with advertisements in the first place, isn’t there enough already? If there are going to be ads literally in the text, at least make them relevant. Another one in the same article links the word “Obama” to donate.barackobama.com – that makes for a relevant link.

Overall, enn.com is still a great place to get environmental news. It is well-organized, well-designed, and easy to use. (moved from former intro paragraph). There are just some things that need to be cleaned up in order for it to be a high-quality site. (added.)