Inverted Pyramid and Science in Mass Media - Essay Example

 But you didnt really explain how science use online tools to re invent science story telling, instead you just introduced all the types of online tools which can be helpful to science writers. If possible can you please add that part and also a conclusion. I will add the extra time as well as extra order fee if that is necessary.  What is the ‘inverted pyramid’ of news reporting, and how are science writers using online tools to re-invent science storytelling? Introduction: There are many ways in which news can be reported or, I should say, organized in a specific manner to make it more attractive and informative. Writing, being the most common and orthodox medium of news reporting, still holds a significant place in this modern and developed world of electronic media. Therefore, an efficient method of writing is required such as inverted pyramid to ease the problems associated with news reporting which will be the focus of discussion. As we evolved in human timeline, we gathered bank of knowledge that required division into different subjects for distinction and understanding. Among all those subjects, writing on science has never been an easy task and I believe that a lot of skill and patience is required to produce a quality news report on this particular subject. Concepts that are difficult to understand or present in a way that can be understood by others is the main hindrance in writing a science report. Most of the information relevant to science is very unique such as difficult symbols and abbreviations that are used in the text that require expertise for interpretation. There are many online tools available to the writers that can support them in the field of science. Such tools are required in this modern era as the progress in the field of science has considerably increased the amount of data needed to be processed for writing. So what are these tools and how these tools help science writers are important questions that need to be answered. Inverted Pyramid: Out of many diverse forms of news reporting, inverted pyramid is the most commonly used technique of arranging information. There are three important presentations of writing, Chronology, Climactic form and Inverted pyramid (Lorenz et al 1996). In chronology, the main or important part of the news can occur anywhere in the story. Whereas, climactic form present data in more like a pyramid with the climax of the story incorporated in the end. Imagine an inverted pyramid with the base on top and tapering its way down towards the bottom. This is the exact way information is arranged in this format. The width or size of the pyramid denotes how important or relevant the information in the writing is. Therefore, the most important and crucial information is placed higher in or in the beginning of the text, more like revealing the climax at the start of a thriller story, and less important information is placed lower down in the body of the script (Singh 2007). Components of Inverted Pyramid: There are basically three components of inverted pyramid (Mclntyre 1996). The first component is the opening paragraph that is also known as the ‘Lead’. Second paragraph is usually the more detailed interpretation of the Lead paragraph and known as the Supporting Paragraph. As for the rest of the text, it is mostly the extra or background information which may or may not be very useful in contrast to the lead or supporting paragraph. Beginning with the lead, it is the part where a summary of the news report is provided, therefore, opening paragraph is sometimes termed as summary lead. According to Mclntyre (1996), there are various types of summary leads and certain properties are linked to its definition. For example: an appropriate summary lead should contain 15 to 35 words and properly address the five Ws: Who, What, When, Where and Why. It is not easy to incorporate so much of information to one single sentence paragraph of few words and it requires a professional training to effectively write as inverted pyramid. Sometime the reason for an incidence, Why, is not included in the summary lead but left as a focus that is expanded in the next paragraphs (Henderson 2006). This form of summary lead is known as Blind lead or Delayed lead (Mclntyre 1996). The second component of inverted pyramid or the supporting paragraph explains the left over details of the lead. More likely the lead creates a question in reader’s mind that is answered in the supporting paragraph. Therefore, it is an important component of inverted pyramid. The last paragraph is secondary information which explains the minor details attach to the main string of the news. It is not really an important part of the news and the reader can still get the main news without the presence of this tail of information. Advantages of Inverted Pyramid: Newspaper writers are the frequent users of inverted pyramid. This is an important tool that aids the requirement of production (Mclntyre 1996). The space on the newspaper is very precious, thus, a lot of effort is put on squeezing in the news which is important and most of the time there is not enough space to accommodate the whole story of any particular news. During the arrangement of news in the newspaper, editors have to sometimes edit or cut some part of the news in order to squeeze it in. This may require time as the whole text needs to be revised and searched for the irrelevant or least important information and then cut it out. Further, the text will have to be rearranged in order to make sure that there is a continuity and sense in the written material. But all this time and effort can be saved if the report has been written inverted pyramid. In that case only the last portion can be removed with a simple step and no further editing is required as the core of the news is already delivered in the beginning. Moreover, it also favors the busy readers as they can simply get the glimpse of the whole news by reading the first few lines. This specific aspect of reading has some disadvantages discussed later. But for now let’s focus why people still prefer this arrangement. We all know that in our present world the time is constrained. We have to do so many things in such a short time that we are always in a hurry and want everything to be efficient. This deprivation of time is the main force for developing inverted pyramid and incorporating it in the news reporting. Imagine a businessman who reads early morning newspaper on his few minutes’ drive to his office. He is time constraint and would like to get the main important core of as many news as possible rather than reading a single whole news story with all the minor details. This is where inverted pyramid plays its part in providing with a solution to world’s fast reading demands. Disadvantages of Inverted Pyramids: This specific arrangement of information in a news or report raises many questions in my mind. Is it really a good idea to put all the relevant information in the beginning of the story? Are there any disadvantages of using inverted pyramid? I already understood that it can help news editors in easily cropping out the unimportant material at the end of the story. But that’s really not the only way to look at it. In my view, the present generation is already running away from the habit of reading stuff. This format further positive reinforce this practice. When inverted pyramid already provide the reader with the essence of the whole text in the very beginning they do not bother to read through the whole story thus further reducing the time spent on reading literature. This is not really a healthy habit and may discourage the writers as they put a lot of effort in gathering all those minor details to decorate their main attraction of the story. Therefore, mostly news reporting is the only field where the use of inverted pyramid is adequate. The other forms of writing in other fields may not be very open to this form of arrangement and writers seem to avoid using it. Imagine a suspense story using this particular format! No writer would like to reveal the main climax in the very beginning of the story. Even in the newspaper doing so can take away the interest of the reader. Therefore, in my view, inverted pyramid has certain disadvantages and raise some serious issues along with it helping in many ways. Science writing technique: As I mentioned earlier, writing on the subject of science is not as easy task to do. While writing a scientific report the most important aspect that needs attention is the beginning. Before we start writing, we should make sure that we have outlined all the constraints and pay some attention to how they will be addressed (Alley 1996). Another important aspect is to know the audience who will be reading the report. It is important because that will determine at what level you have write. Sometimes you have to start with explaining the basic terms if you suspect your audience to be those not well aware of the subject. Otherwise, you can go on to discuss the more complex issues without wasting much time on describing the fundamentals associated with the report. Information Source: Gathering appropriate information and data for scientific reports is the key. In the ancient time, deprived of today’s latest technological gadgets, collecting information was a time consuming and a tiresome errand. The most frustrating part was to find the right materials for the specific group of readers which was aimed to benefit from the science writing. Imagine the rate at which the science is growing today. Everyday latest discoveries and inventions are adding bulk to the scientific data. A science writer is always concerned that the report is up to date and the sources used are as recent as possible. But it takes a lot of time for a scientific finding to be incorporated into text form that can be acquired for report writing. Therefore, writers today use many online tools to facilitate them in their writing. Online tools? So the question that needs to be answered here is what these online tools are and how they can help the writers in revolutionizing science writing. To start with, online tools include many web based applications that helps the writer with finding the right content for their report. Such applications include copyspace and whiteboard. From Google to Wikipedia there are various platforms which provide science writers with abundant of information to get started with. Moreover, the new researches in the field of science are also instantly published online making web an irresistible tool for science writers (Lindberg 2007). These updates are present in many journals that may or may not be free access. But still they provide with the instant data to the writers and they don’t have to search every book in the library to acquire relevant materials for their science report. Other way online applications help writer is by providing the free writing software that is the essential tool of today’s writing. In contrast to the not so old typewriter era, these modern features of editing and spell check abilities of writing software is nothing but a revolution for writers. There are numerous formats in which information is provided in the online media. It includes videos, audio and writing material. Many new gadgets, such as Apple products, support podcast can prove to be an invaluable tool if used properly by the writers. Many universities have provided their students with online podcast resources that can also be viewed offline. Therefore, young science writers can have an instant access to latest findings on different science experiments performed in these renowned universities. Imagine you sitting in an online writing community where you can share your work with lots of other experts instantly. This is also an important online facility available to many science writers who can get an appropriate feedback on their work from writers around the world. Whiteboard as mentioned before is an online application that allows different writers to sit on a platform and write on a specific topic. Therefore, online tools are proving to be an incredibly fast source of gathering information which reliable. They also allow different writers to share their views and thus reinvent science storytelling. Conclusion In the modern times story telling has reached different peaks and the scientists are using a variety of methods to express their views pertaining to different topics. Science storytelling is being reinvented through these tools which help the scientists to gather the information rapidly and easily. News reporting and other tools such as the new gadgets are being used by the writers so that they can successfully put forward their views and reinvent science storytelling. It is further expected that this modern technology would expand in the future and help the scientists even more to put a different view to storytelling. Works Cited Alley, Michael. The Craft of Scientific Writing. New York: Springer, 1996. Print. Henderson, David. Making News: A Straight-Shooting Guide to Media Relations. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2006. Print. Lindberg, Christensen L. The Hands-on Guide for Science Communicators. New York: Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 2007. Print. Lorenz, Alfred L, and John Vivian. News: Reporting and Writing. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1996. Print. McIntyre, Bryce T. English News Writing: A Guide for Journalists Who Use English As a Second Language. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1996. Print. Singh, J K. Media and Journalism. New Delhi: A.P.H. Pub, 2007. Print. Read More