Hey Ross! Here is my rough draft – and I do mean rough. Please pay special attention to the form – i don’t know how to write in APA and I am needing to learn so make sure you mark all the mechanics of APA!!! thanks!

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Courtney Brown

Fundamentals of Journalism

Dr. Ross Fuglsang

Description: Rough Draft

When a student walks in or out of the Learning Center, the first and last thing they smell is coffee. The first thing they hear is a grinding blender dishing out a smoothie, and a sweet blonde lady looks up and smiles. “Hello, Hello how are you today? Need to warm up?”  The lady is Nancy Boyle, manager of “The Spoon holder Café”.

The warm, home-like scent pervades the air, and helps create an intellectual ambience for the library. It is the mecca of the students, and if you listen closely, you can hear some of us snoring – curled up and sleeping sweetly on the third floor, on the many chairs and bean bags. However, the library isn’t all we once knew it to be.

Hickman-Johnson Furrow Learning Center was built in 1904. A little known fact about the Library is that it was originally the gymnasium. The Second floor was a basketball court, and the third floor was a suspended track. It wasn’t until the 50’s that the gymnasium got turned into the Library, and in the mid to late eighties the second half was added. The Spoon Holder wasn’t actually added until the summer of 2005 – even though today we can’t imagine getting through a day without it. The Spoon holder however is not the only addition to the library within the last twenty years. We now have the Mass Communication department, as well as the Rhetoric department, both of which are housed here at the library. The Student success program, as well as the tutoring staff also calls the library home. There is a plethora of knowledge and resources here, ranging from human resources, to books and online databases. Anything we could need, or imagine, is right here for us, with concerned staff to help us get there.

Whether we need to wake up, or we want a quick nap without walking back to our dorm, the Learning Center is there. A center for both social and academic interaction, it is among one of the single most important buildings on campus. It is hard not to love the library especially if you spend four years here, falling asleep to the soft clicks, giggles, and blending sounds that comes together, and somehow creates a lullaby.

Hey guys I’m back with my latest blog entry. This is my news event of the week: another oil spill. However, this one wasn’t from BP. It was from a locally owned energy provider, and not quite as destructive. However, there were 13 oil workers found in the water – only one was injured. I think that the article was well written, and included all the answers to the major necessary questions:

how much oil was spilled?

what was the cause?

was anyone injured?

is there an investigation taken place?

Who is involved?

As far as a cut and dry disaster coverage goes, this was a good article. A little bland for My taste – but I’m Courtney Brown – EVERYTHING is a little bit bland to me if it isn’t completely flamboyant. Take a look though – its got some interesting statistics.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38973757/ns/us_news-life/

-Courtney Brown-

“Don’t judge a book by its cover”, its an old saying but the old saying holds true to Miranda Christian. At first glance Miranda may seem to be just another kid at college on an athletic grant. At second glance however – Miranda got a 32 on her ACT.

Hailing from Denver Colorado, she’s come to Iowa to play volley ball, but more importantly, pursue her dream to be a sports Broadcaster. Miranda transferred from Iowa Western, and also maintains a 4.0 while playing for Morningside’s volley ball team. When asked if she had any advice for incoming freshmen Miranda quickly replied “Go to class, do your work, and you’ll be fine”.  With a bright future, and a golden work ethic, nothing holds Miranda back, and she remains a dedicated athlete, a astute student, and a star role model for incoming freshmen.

-Courtney Brown-

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38871129/ns/health-food_safety

I will be following Msnbc for the duration of the semester, which is obviously the source of this article.

The article is very relevant and Newsworthy, because we are all living here in Iowa. The article covers a large Egg recall – the chickens that laid the eggs were being fed chicken feed that tested positive for salmonella when the FDA visited said farms. As far as the article goes – it is very well written. The author asked all the relevant questions: which farms? which eggs? How can we protect ourselves? How was this found out? They also made an effort to speak with Food and Drug, and other health officials, as well as the people responsible for sending out the contaminated eggs. They also were sure to include what the involved parties were doing to try and correct the situation, so over all I give this article and A+. It is relevant to our safety as Iowans, important  news for our every day life, and well covered in all areas.

Courtney Brown-