My Degree Plan @ TESC and Progress

[Lady Grace of Pemberley]

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Introduction to News Reporting TECEP
Score: Pass

Just found out that I passed this TECEP, so here are my thoughts on this test.

It took me exactly 3 weeks to get my grade, but I think it would have taken me longer if I hadn't to submitted a ticket to the MyEdison Help Desk. I originally just contacted them to see if they had received my test from my proctor, as it hadn't shown up on the "Transcripts Received" section of Online Student Services yet, but someone from TESC emailed me and said that she just posted my score.

The first thing on the exam was the 20 multiple-choice questions, then 5 short essay questions on news reporting ethics and law, and then the 3 news stories that I wrote using the reporter's notes they provide. The [only] practice test provided on the fact sheet was a good representation of the real thing. There was a short survey to complete after the test.

I used "Writing and Reporting News: A Coaching Method" by Carole Rich as my primary book (read through the whole thing), and, since there wasn't a glossary in that book, used the glossaries in the other two recommended books. In the future, I wouldn't buy all three, but this was my first TECEP and I wanted to be prepared. One cool thing about studying for this TECEP was that the textbook I used primarily for this course is also the textbook I need for my News Writing course at TESC, so I knocked out the reading for two classes at once!

I studied for this test over the holiday season for probably 2-2 1/2 weeks.

Although I only used one of the three recommended textbooks, I did feel pretty comfortable with what I knew on the exam. I even recognized parts of the test (especially on the ethics/journalism law essays section) that seemed to be copied and pasted from the textbooks!

If possible, try to memorize the glossary from your favorite of the three books. I worked on the Quizlet flashcards (see below), and the terms on them are from two of the books and conflicted a bit, which got confusing.

Definitely write as many practice news stories as you can -- it will make you a lot more comfortable on testing day. I used the provided reporter's notes from the fact sheet as a template to write my own practice reporter's notes. On my test, I had to write a town meeting story, a feature story, and a weather story (it said on the fact sheet you would get to choose 3 of 4 provided story options, but I didn't get to pick).

One thing that the fact sheet practice test didn't really prepare me for was a part of the news story writing section. For two of my three required news stories, they asked me to list facts that "needed to be verified or followed up on" (or something like that) after I had finished writing my news story. I did not expect that, so it did unnerve me a bit when I saw it.

I was able to take the exam at my local library, which is so much more convenient than hiking all the way over to the nearest college testing center! Definitely look into that option if you can.

I used pretty much all of the three hours provided to take the test, but only because I didn't rush through the exam like a crazy person, I re-read and counted the number of words for my news stories, I went over all my answers at least two times, and I sat there for a while trying to remember the answers to some questions I didn't know the answers to. I think on my future TECEPs (that aren't all essay questions/definitions), I'll move more quickly through the test.

~American Code of Ethics for journalists
~Is it ethical to go undercover?
~Libel
~Know a few internet-related terms from the glossary (for some reason, I thought this wouldn't be covered in the test, so I skipped over it)

Helpful resources:

• Fact Sheet: http://www2.tesc.edu/tecep_desc/JOU-110.pdf
  
  
• News terms glossaries: The News Manual - Glossary
  http://info.wsj.com/college/glossary/journalism.pdf
  
  
• Journalist's code of ethics: Society of Professional Journalists: SPJ Code of Ethics
  
  
• News Reporting TECEP Flashcards (first 3 sets are AMAZING!!): News reporting tecep flashcard sets and study tools | Quizlet
  
  
• Practice writing exercises: Newswriting Exercises
  
  
• Short AP style guides:
  Associated Press - Using Associated Press Style
  Associated Press (AP) Style Guide - the basics
  
  
• Textbook companion sites:
  Melvin Mencher's News Reporting and Writing
  Book Companion Site - Instructor

Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any questions!