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vernonfielding · 5 years

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Life Writes Its Own Stories

Welcome to my obsession! An Amy/Jake newspaper AU: Amy Santiago is a Brooklyn crime reporter eager to break the big story. Jake Peralta is a cynical NYPD detective who trusts no one. If they can get over themselves, they may figure out they’re on the same side.

AN: I am incredibly grateful to the amazing @fezzle for her help with this story: as a beta, a cheerleader, a title-brainstormer and a friend. She offered invaluable feedback that changed the whole tenor of this story, in a way that I think made it so much better. I am so lucky to have found her.

A note to readers wary of multi-chapter fics: This story is complete. I will be posting updates every couple of days, unless I get hit by a bus or something, in which case @fezzle has permission to post for me.

And now, onto Chapter 1 of 15! (You can read at AO3 too.)

Chapter 1

Amy took the subway stairs two at a time and sprinted into the bright morning sunshine, slowing down just enough to glance down at the cell phone in her hand and check the time. She was already one minute late.

“Damnit,” Amy said under her breath and picked up her speed again, waving over her shoulder at the taxi that honked when she darted through the traffic on Bergen. She took the turn onto 6th Avenue so fast that she had to flail her arms to keep her balance, then she put her head down and raced. She ran right up to the front entrance of the 99th Precinct and slammed to a stop, gasping for breath.

“Press conference is delayed,” said the cameraman standing beside her. “Nice day, huh?”

Amy glared at him and he laughed. It was approaching triple digits and the humidity was well over 80 percent and she could feel sweat pooling in her lower back and under her breasts. She plucked at the front of her blouse where it was stuck to her chest. At least she wasn’t late.

The other reporters were spread out in a loose ring around the front of the precinct, most of their faces familiar to Amy. There were three TV journalists, a couple of radio folks, the guy from the online newsletter who was at literally every event in Brooklyn – Amy could never tell how he managed it – and, to her surprise and displeasure, reporters from The Times and the Daily News. And she’d thought her day was already a mess – now this story was competitive.

Amy undid her ponytail and tied her hair into a slightly more secure bun, glad to get a little more air on her neck. She took out her phone again and opened the voice recording app, then pulled out her notebook and her favorite pen and her two backup pens, which she shoved into the pocket of her skirt. She was just checking her email when the precinct doors swung open and Captain Pembroke stepped out, followed closely by Scully and a handful of other cops. The reporters surged forward as one, arms thrust out with cell phones and other recording devices. Amy hit “record” on her phone and stacked her notebook on top so she could jot down every word, just in case.

“We made an arrest in the Adams case,” Pembroke said without preamble, in the same smug voice he used for every interaction with the press, no matter how grave the news. “Last night, we took Keith Jones, fiancé of Judy Adams, into custody…”

Amy took down the name of the suspect and then paused, listening as Pembroke went over all the details of the case. She was still a little confused as to why he’d called a press conference. This wasn’t an especially remarkable case, other than that the dead woman was young, blond and beautiful. (Amy had actually spent a weird amount of time studying her eyeshadow to try to figure out how she got such a fantastic daytime smoky-eye.) She’d been found strangled in Prospect Park last weekend, and for a day or so there had been concerns in the community that she was attacked by a stranger preying on women, which was probably why The Times and the Daily News were here. But that didn’t explain why the NYPD was holding a press conference.

Pembroke droned on for a while but he didn’t have much new to say – Amy had already been tipped off about the fiancé by Scully – and when he finally asked for questions, Amy let herself be nudged back by the other reporters as they yelled out their follow-ups. She glanced down at her phone, debating if she could stop recording, when a voice whispered in her ear.

“Ask about the ex.”

Amy jerked and looked back over her shoulder. A man was standing right behind her. He had dark tousled hair and he was wearing sunglasses and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Amy thought, out of nowhere, ‘He has nice forearms.’ He also had a detective badge around his neck.

“What did you say?” she said.

The detective nodded toward Pembroke. “Ask him about the ex-boyfriend.”

Amy gaped at him for a moment, then turned back to Pembroke, who was smirking in a self-satisfied way at the assembled journalists -- which, again, was not anything new.

“Peralta!” a voice called out.

Amy looked back over her shoulder just as the detective did the same. He glanced once more at Amy, mouthed “the ex” very dramatically, then turned on his heel and walked away.

One of the TV reporters asked if a wedding date for the dead woman and her fiance had been scheduled and Pembroke said, “That’s a stupid question, we’re done” and made for the front door. The reporters let him go, and Amy ducked through the scattering pack of them. She reached Pembroke just as he was pushing open the precinct door.

“Captain?” Pembroke turned and looked her up and down, slowly. Amy felt her skin crawl and she cleared her throat. “Amy Santiago. With the Brooklyn Bulletin. What can you tell me about Judy Adams’ ex-boyfriend?”

Pembroke’s face went suddenly hard and he narrowed his eyes. “Why? Who told you about him?”

“No one,” Amy said, quickly. “Just, I heard there was an ex and I wondered if he was a suspect.”

Pembroke stared at her long enough to make her uncomfortable, then muttered, “No comment” and disappeared into the precinct.

+++

Amy worked the story the rest of the day. A quick look on Facebook confirmed that Judy Adams did have an ex-boyfriend, and he was a cop who worked out of Queens. She tracked down family and friends and talked to the fiance’s lawyer and even got Scully to slip up and tell her that Judy had once taken out a restraining order on her ex. Finally, with just half an hour before deadline and on a last-ditch whim, she called the jail to ask if anyone with the ex-boyfriend’s name was there, and the answer was yes. He’d been booked on murder charges that very afternoon. After Amy confirmed that the birthdate and city of residence of the inmate were the same as the ex-boyfriend – she’d seen it happen before, people with the same name getting confused in the media – she topped off the article and sent it to Terry, who ran it by Holt.

They made the deadline.

“That was good work, Santiago,” Holt said later, after asking her to stop by his office.

The story was Amy’s first big scoop, and Holt had never praised her before, not even a nod the first time she made the front page. She tried to school her face into a professional facade, though based on how much her cheeks hurt from containing her grin, she probably just looked insane.

“I can’t believe they were going to try to pin the murder on her fiancé,” she said, forcing herself to sound cool and casual.

“I doubt they were going to hold him for long.” Holt leaned forward and folded his hands under his chin. “My guess was they wanted to distract us with the fiancé, then let the story blow over for a few days before they arrested the police officer. They only arrested him today because you were asking questions.”

At that, Amy didn’t even bother to fight her grin. “I’m just happy justice will be served,” she said.

Holt nodded sagely and told her to go home. “I’ll want a follow tomorrow on this cop,” he said as she headed back to her desk to pick up her things.

Amy decided to walk home instead of taking the subway. It was late enough that the heat of the day had finally dissipated a little, and anyway, she hadn’t been outside once since getting back to the newsroom. It was nice to breathe some fresh air, such as it was in New York.

Today had been by far her most successful since joining the Bulletin staff three months ago. Honestly, it had been her first successful day, period.

At 30, Amy knew she was a bit on the old side for an entry-level job covering cops at a community newspaper like the Bulletin, but she’d just switched careers after a post-college stint as an elementary school art teacher. She’d actually been surprised when Holt had offered to put her on cops -- it wasn’t the most glamorous beat, but it was a step above general assignment. And it was a beat she genuinely loved. Of course she had aspirations to make it to The Times someday, but for the moment, she was thrilled to be exactly where she was: covering the NYPD, source of the grisliest, most sensational news in the country.

But crime was a tough beat, with especially fierce competition and tight-lipped sources and a lot of gossip and misinformation to contend with. The cops themselves were sometimes the hardest part of the job. There was so much bitter history and genuine mistrust between the NYPD and the media.

Amy had been feeling overwhelmed from her first day, and though Raymond Holt was a smart, inspiring editor in chief, he was also intimidating and she badly wanted to impress him. She’d been barely keeping up with the crimes of the day and had been starting to feel like maybe she didn’t have the spark to nail the bigger stories -- the scoops that make or break a reporter.

Until today, anyway. Amy hummed to herself as she crossed through Fort Greene Park, which was still buzzing with activity even after 10 p.m. on a Friday night, though much of the noise came from the bars and restaurants on the perimeter. Her story would already be online by now, and tomorrow it would be on the front page of the newspaper. She could hardly wait to see the reaction it would get. Even The Times would have to follow her lead.

As she headed up Franklin toward her apartment, Amy replayed the events of the day all over again. It had started with that detective. He’d had an impish smile and unruly hair, but his information had been solid. She wondered why he’d picked her out of the crowd of reporters.

Peralta. That was the name he’d responded to. She’d have to look him up sometime.

+++

“Peralta, you are an idiot.”

Rosa shoved her phone in front of Jake’s face and he jerked back instinctively, sloshing beer down his shirt and into his lap.

“Rosa, what the-”

“Read,” Rosa said, shaking the phone. He took it from her and squinted at the text she’d pulled up on the screen.

“Oh, hey. I didn’t think she’d get the story that fast,” Jake said, impressed.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Rosa snatched her phone back. “The Vulture will slaughter you if he finds out this came from you.”

Jake shrugged, though in reality the very idea of being found out tipping off a reporter made him feel slightly ill. “I just didn’t want to see that asshole get off.”

“You know they were going to arrest him anyway.”

“Yeah, but only after no one gave a shit anymore, and then at least the department could save face,” Jake said. He grabbed a napkin and blotted at his wet clothes. “I’m just tired of this bullshit.”

He knew he didn’t have to explain to Rosa the bullshit he was talking about. The Vulture had taken over the Nine-Nine almost two years ago, and their jobs had been hell ever since.

Pembroke’s stated goal was not so much about catching bad guys, but making the NYPD – and more specifically Pembroke himself – look good. In theory, those were the same goals. But somehow under the Vulture the two paths diverged, and Jake and Rosa had found themselves increasingly pressured to prioritize cases that would get positive media attention and back off of the – as Pembroke put it – garbage ones.

Most of the decent cops in the Nine-Nine had left within a year of the Vulture taking over, but somehow Jake and Rosa were still there, partnered on a lonely island surrounded by cold, unfriendly, shark- (or vulture-) infested waters.

“If you’re thinking of making a habit of this, don’t,” Rosa said, tipping her beer bottle toward Jake in a weirdly threatening way. “The Vulture will find out, and if he doesn’t, Wuntch will. It’s too risky.”

“I know.” Jake sighed, and took a long pull from his beer. “I just kind of lost it today when he actually called a press conference and fed them all lies. He knowingly arrested the wrong man and made him the headline of the day. That’s messed up, Rosa.”

Rosa nodded glumly. “Yeah, that was all kinds of fucked up.”

They drank in silence for a while, ignoring the other cops and assorted locals at Shaw’s. Jake grabbed a handful of nuts from the bowl on their table and picked out the cashews before tossing the rest in his mouth.

Approaching that reporter had been a spontaneous decision. He’d snuck out the back of the precinct to watch the press conference, knowing it was going to piss him off. When the Vulture had started spelling the fiance’s name -- to make sure the journalists got it right, of course -- something in Jake had snapped.

He’d waited until the reporters converged on him to ask their questions and then sidled up right behind the young woman in the back. Her shiny brown hair had been falling out of her bun, the loose strands curling around her neck, and her pink blouse was sticking to her back with sweat. She’d clearly been startled when he’d suddenly whispered in her ear, but she’d recovered quickly. He’d watched her approach Pembroke straight away. So she was brave, or else just new.

Jake left Shaw’s on the early side, after Rosa decided to chew him out some more. At his apartment, he showered and changed into sleep clothes and climbed into bed, then he pulled up the Bulletin story and read it to the end. She’d done good work, and Jake felt an unexpected flush of pride. Rosa was right, he’d taken a big risk -- but it had been the right thing.

He scrolled back up to the top of the story and read the byline.

‘Well,’ Jake thought, as he flipped off his phone and tucked it under his pillow, ‘it was nice working with you, Amy Santiago.’

CHAPTER 2

#b99 #b99 fic #jake and amy au #newspaper au #life writes its own stories #peraltiago

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sylleboi · 5 years

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𝕮𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖗𝖔𝖙𝖔𝖘𝖈𝖔𝖕𝖎𝖓𝖌 | 23/10/19

During the morning we went to the photography department of the school where we would start the day off there by filming our own footage to rotoscope later on. There were no restrictions as to what we were allowed to do in front of the camera and green screen, but we had to move from one side of the screen to the other. I decided to go for a gun man or James Bond type of vibe. I didn’t want to just do a simple walk or run cycle, but instead I wanted to challenge myself a little. I did this by sneaking into frame, holding my hands up as if I was holding a gun (this added a prop that I would have to draw form scratch during the process of rotoscoping) then doing a turn and running back out the frame. When recording the clips in the green screen room, I also decided to turn around and then turn back while moving to add to the difficulty of animating everything together. This is how both of them turned out:

I decided to go with the first of the two clips for my rotoscope. I did this simply because of the turn being slower and therefore making it more challenging to animate the gun to follow the movement in such a way that it won't look “out of place”.

I didn’t find the time during college hours to actually do the rotoscope for this, so I did it at home using my own program (Krita) and my drawing tablet.

The process was relatively simple; I took the video and took a screenshot of each frame as I went, dragging the screen grab onto the canvas and began tracing my figure. As I went, I also drew in the gun for each frame, lining it up with the position with my hands.

To keep the appearance of the gun consistent I copied most of the frames, up until I came to the part where I had to change the perspective of which the gun is seen from (during the turn).

Once I had finished the whole rotoscope this is what I was left with:

The finished amount of frames came to 66. Quite a high number for such a short animation, but I didn’t want to take away from the fluidity and smoothness. Now I could have just left it here, but I wanted to do some more experimenting. I tried out filling in the clothes with some texture to create a more interesting looking sequence, but half way through I decided to go back to the original linework since I just wasn’t happy with how it was turning out, but here was that in motion:

Instead I did a bit of brainstorming, thinking about what I could do to improve what I had already made. Here’s the mindmap of the brainstorm that I did:

So as you can see, I ended up wanting to experiment with depth, leading me to be doing something to the background. Most of the mind map is based off visual language. I found using this as the root for my brainstorm really useful due to the way you can interpret each term differently to whatever the context is. I will definitely be doing this again and experiment with it further in the future.

I had also settled on wanting to keep it monochrome (misspelling in mind map) and more specifically drawing towards the style of the classic black & white manga comic book style. Based on this, what immediately popped into my mind was this program I recall trying out years and years ago called Medi Bang Paint Pro, or as I think it was used to called; Medi Bang. I was probably around 12 or 13 when I first downloaded it, but I didn't know what I was doing what so ever, so I quickly gave up. For a long time it wasn’t compatible with Mac up until recently; so I decided to take a shot and download it again. The program is free; but that wasn’t the main reason to why I wanted to try out this program again in particular. It has a lot of great tools for drawing and building comic pages, and I thought “What would it look like if I made a background inspired by traditional manga?”- so that’s what I did.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to pull it off at first, so I did a little test run beforehand and I really liked the result:

So the way that I did this was by taking a picture (that I unfortunately have lost now) and then proceeding by changing the levels of the picture, playing around with it until it’s primarily just blacks and whites. With a brush tool I began cleaning everything up a little by either erasing unwanted bits or adding additional linework just to emphasise on the subject and shapes within the drawing. I added leaves and other vegetation with some pre-made brushes that came with the program. The last step was to add a screentone of a clouded sky to add a bit of texture, shading and general interest to the whole piece, and voila! Done. This technique is super quick and efficient for creating backgrounds for comics of this style, though I still prefer when everything is painted by hand. The screentone has a very recognisable style to it and is quite often used in manga’s. One of the ones that come to mind for me is Berserk. I have always loved the artwork of that comic series; it’s the kind of art that you could stare at for hours on end and not get bored with. When looking at the artwork from the series, you can clearly see the technique of screentones are being used to create a lot of additional detail to each panel.

Here are some examples of some screentones:

In this example, it has been used for the background. A screentone with blobs lightly shaded has been added to almost create some sort of mist, changing the whole mood and feel of the panel very effectively.

Like mentioned before, in Berserk, the screentones are mostly used as an extra bit of atmospheric detail, rather than being used for any of the shading which is all hand drawn. In this example, it has been used for the lettering/type and again for the background. It creates a gritty and sort of dirty effect, emphasising how he is in a battlefield with monsters around him; definitely not a place you could call “clean”.

In this example, different kinds of sceentones have been used in each panel. In the panel to the left, the opaque stripes are a type of screentone very often used to indicate either speed, focal point or action of some kind. Not only that, but at the bottom of the panel a softer pattern of screentone has been used to create the look of dirt or sand, again with a gritty texture to emphasise on the fact that the character, Guts, is inferior at this moment.

In this super epic and intense illustration, you can again see the great use of screentones, most notably used for the background yet again. It really helps to create a strong feel to each illustration. The use of tone is especially important in manga or comics, since it so often is done in just black & white, so you have no use of colour; this is where screentones come in as a great tool to use for just this.

So, with all of this brainstorming and researching done, and by using the same technique as I did when doing the “test”, I began drawing. I used this picture which I recall taking somewhere on the border to Germany as the base image:

I chose this because it has that “street” vibe to it, which I thought could be cool with the whole theme of “gun man”. Very edgy, very edgy indeed.

This gif above shows loosely the process of the piece from start to finish. It was mostly just me playing around and figuring out all the tools of the program, but it was quite fun to put together.

With the background now complete, I put it into my rotoscope, went over each frame and painted the shape of myself in the animation white and was finally finished with the final rotoscope; being the third version or option that I did.

I am very happy with how it turned out in the end, and I have definitely learnt masses with this exercise of rotoscoping something that that I have filmed myself. I think if I were to further improve on this, I’d definitely consider animating the background itself (birds flying or leaves rustling), or maybe even try shading the subject somehow, taking inspiration from manga’s such as Berserk or any of Junji Ito’s work.

I decided to try out asking a few of my peers in the class what their opinion was on the final rotoscope. The feedback that I received was purely positive; the people I asked said they couldn't think of any particular way of improving the finished product. They said it both looked great as well as it answered what the task was questioning and challenging us to do.

To me, this really shows and proves that the work I have done here is successful work that I can be proud of and take what I have learnt through doing this task with me for the future, without doubting if what I have learnt is of quality.

✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

As a little extra note, here are the same frames (frame 23) in the three different versions:

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athenasdragon · 6 years

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Essay Writing Strategy

It’s the end of the semester, we’re all burned out and overworked, and that essay prompt has been sitting on your desk for two weeks. Just thinking about writing it makes your chest get tight and your fingers itch to reach for your phone instead. I get it. Take a deep breath.

When I have an essay that I absolutely do NOT want to write, I split it into three tasks, each of which can be done in approximately 1 to 2 hours (depending on what parts you find easiest/how well you know the source material/how long the essay is). I do one per day over three days to make essays a lot less stressful. This works best for literature essays of about 3 to 10 pages, but I’m sure you can adapt it if you need.

Brainstorm & outline: write the prompt at the top of a sheet of paper, then brain dump everything you remember talking or reading about that relates to that topic. For example, if the prompt is about juxtaposition in Paradise Lost, you might list “speeches in hell and heaven” and “Adam & Eve: change in dialogue style after the fall.” Look for something that ties these ideas together and cobble together a thesis (don’t worry, you can refine it later). Grab another sheet of paper and put that at the top of a list or in the middle of a mind map or however you prefer to outline. Group together the things you’ll want to talk about and list them in order. Benefits: this is a very manageable task to do on Day 1. You’ll feel accomplished for starting, which will make the rest easier, but it’s not scary at all. Just brainstorming and general ideas! When you’re done with that, you can kick back and watch Netflix–or study for your other finals.

Details & quotes: pull up a blank document that will someday be your essay. Fill in the rough outline you wrote out yesterday. Now that you can rearrange and edit to your heart’s content, start filling in more specific details. Go back through your notes and find those bullet points like “speeches in hell include lots of uncertainty, whereas speeches in heaven are more assured because of divine providence.” Make a few sweeps through, adding more detail each time. Now take a break, grab a snack, and come back to start combing for quotes that relate to some of your more specific points. Just type them into your document next to the appropriate argument and list the page/line number so you can find them later. If you need to tweak your thesis now that you know all your arguments, this is the time. Benefits: you don’t have to focus on the actual language of your writing–in fact, if you’d rather put “Satan is a dumbass who thinks he can get around divine providence” as a bullet point, knock yourself out. Just get the ideas there. It won’t take as long as you think when you’re not also agonizing over a thesaurus.

Write: uh oh, it’s the day before the deadline. Crunch time! Except not, because look at this sweet ass gift you gave yourself: a fully-detailed outline, complete with supporting quotes! Everything is already listed out in order. Just translate your notes and fragments into complete sentences. You can do this directly in your outline, if you prefer, or by pulling up a second document alongside and transferring things over. Benefits: you’re not just staring at a blank page and all your notes for the semester, stressed about getting 2000 words before 2PM tomorrow. Instead, you know exactly what you’re going to say; you just have to say it.

Other tips:

Each time you sit down to work, set a timer for a length of time you think you can reasonably focus without checking your phone or social media. For me, that’s about 45 minutes, but whether you do 5 minutes or 90, stick to it! No matter where you are when the timer goes off, stop, stretch, get water, and give yourself ten minutes or so to scroll Tumblr. Sometimes it helps to jump to a different project for the next 45 minutes, then take another break, then come back to your essay.

Turning in a bad essay is better for your grade than turning in nothing. If it comes down to the deadline and you can’t get an extension, just turn in what you have. The difference between half credit and no credit will help your grade a lot.

If you didn’t read the book when you were supposed to and don’t know it at all, add a Step 0 to the beginning of this list. Read the SparkNotes first, then get through as much of the book as you can. Same goes for papers where you have to do your own research; after some general brainstorming, add a step for finding sources, then be ready to revisit your outline in light of whatever you find. Save yourself a headache by putting sources in the proper format as you find them instead of frantically running them through Easy Bib 5 minutes before the deadline!

#college #finals #writing tips #essays #mine #study tips

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thelmasirby32 · 4 years

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Five quick and easy ways to make surveys more effective for content marketing

30-second summary:

When writing a survey, clarify your objectives before you start writing questions—time spent writing a strategy is well worth it if it means you didn’t forget a vital question (or include an irrelevant one).

Don’t get stuck in your old habits when writing surveys—keep trying new things.

Phrase questions in a way to get the most specific and clear answers from your survey respondents. Get granular.

When writing surveys, draw connections. How might one question relate to other areas of people’s lives?

Fractl’s Creative Strategist shares five powerful ways and details on how you can create successful surveys.

In my (sometimes) humble opinion, well-written surveys can be a reliable and effective method of generating newsworthy content.

Surveys allow you to deeply explore personal beliefs and behaviors. They can be tweaked and tailored specifically for your goals, and they appeal to our seemingly universal need to care way too much about what other people think.

I’ve written a lot of surveys in my time at Fractl, and all that experience has taught me plenty of lessons. So, here are five tips that you can employ today to make your next survey a winner.

Tip #1: Embrace the opportunity of survey creation

As content creators, we get paid to be curious, and that’s awesome. Running a survey is a unique opportunity — don’t waste the chance to ask questions worth asking.

We take for granted that our respondents open up about their deep thoughts and personal experiences, maybe even ones they haven’t shared with anybody else. You can write better surveys by simply appreciating that.

Here’s how I like to think of it: Do you want to think up some questions and find out how basically all of society would answer them? If you asked that to just about anybody, I’ll bet they’d take you upon it.

The point is simple: It’s pretty freaking cool to find out how thousands of people think, feel, and behave.

When you’re engaged, your findings will be more engaging.

Tip #2: Draft a survey brief and actually use it

A well-developed campaign brief is the absolute most important part of any project. A survey brief provides structure and strategic direction for your survey. By immersing yourself in the topic, you’ll yield better, more insightful questions.

Let’s dive into each one of those elements a little further.

Survey structure

Here’s something I thought I’d never say: All of those English teachers were right. Every essay did need an outline, and so does every survey.

(I still don’t believe them that the green light over the river was a carefully crafted metaphor for something-or-other, but that’s a discussion for another article.)

Outlining your survey will give you a clear path to follow. This allows you to focus on the more interesting, nuanced aspects of your topic. Having structure, perhaps counterintuitively, actually makes it easier to improvise and take chances.

Strategic direction

Clients aren’t paying us to write surveys because they know we enjoy it, they’re paying us because we achieve their goals.

Drafting a brief will help you clarify your objectives and strategize how to meet them. Referencing that brief throughout the process will keep your survey and your goals aligned.

For example, we often have the goal to build brand awareness for a client. We do this by earning media coverage through the content we create.

When we run surveys that serve as the foundation of our content, we have to consider what journalists (and their audiences) will find interesting. If we don’t keep this in mind, we won’t meet our goals.

Immersion in the topic

A brief isn’t just about planning and outlining; it’s about digging into the topic and sparking curiosity.

This allows you to get the obvious angles out of the way and tap into what’s really newsworthy: a novel, personal, unexpected, nuanced, and humanistic takes on a topic (no matter how common it may seem).

My writing process for a brief typically follows a simple formula:

Research and contemplate the topic: Think about it while your boss sits next to you wondering why you’ve done nothing but stare at your computer for 10 minutes.

Take as many notes as you can: In fact, takes notes as quickly and as incoherently (in my case) as possible. Brainstorm, ask open-ended questions, get lost in the rabbit hole, and get as many thoughts onto the page as possible.

Go back into your notes and make sense of them: Condense them into a clear and ordered outline of the angles you intend to explore.

Leave it and come back: Tweak a few things, give it a spit shine, and send it over to your boss or client for feedback.

By the time you get to your actual survey, you’ll have immersed yourself in the topic. You’ll also have a clear understanding of what you hope to achieve, and you’ll have a detailed, strategic plan.

Tip #3: Be specific when writing survey questions

Specificity doesn’t just ensure clarity and accuracy. It enables you to ask targeted, insightful questions.

“It’s not what you said, Dad, it’s how you said it.” – me, all the time

Choose your words — and your questions — carefully. Detailed, nuanced perspectives make topics more interesting, more relatable, and more newsworthy. Specificity is how you get that.

There are a lot of areas where you can employ specificity to write better surveys, but I’ll focus on the most important: How to ask your questions and set up potential answers.

Examples

Here’s an example: “How many times per week do you shower?”

If you’re me, the answer is “not enough, according to my wife,” but if you’re most people, that question could be interpreted in more than one way. Are you asking how many total showers a person takes in a week, or how many days out of the week that person showers? Are you asking about this week, last week, or whatever random week they might be thinking of?

Some better ways to ask this would be: “In a typical week, how many total showers do you take?” You could also ask more specific questions like, “What’s the longest amount of days that you’ve gone without a shower?” or “In your opinion, to what extent is it acceptable to skip a daily shower occasionally?”

When it comes to providing answer choices, I often aim for the option that will give me the most actionable, most specific data. You can’t unmix paint, so give yourself a good palette instead of a few pre-mixed colors. You can always bucket, convert, and manipulate your detailed data later.

For example: Don’t ask for age ranges. Ask for ages. Do you plan on using age ranges? Great, it’ll take you 10 seconds to make them later if you have each age. Income brackets? No. Why? Ask for income and create your income brackets later, after you’ve done all the interesting things (average, median, percentiles, and more…) that income brackets wouldn’t have let you do.

By phrasing your questions specifically and thinking about how you’ll use the answers, you’ll avoid confusion and being too vague. You’ll also be able to ask more targeted questions. Have you ever done X? Have you ever considered X (even if you haven’t done it)? Have a clear idea of why you’re including each question, and what specifically you hope to do with it.

Tip #4: Get personal

A survey is where the personal and the universal break even.

By tapping into the emotional, humanistic potential of your surveys, you can generate takeaways that truly resonate with a greater audience.

There are plenty of ways to write a newsworthy survey, but to me, surveys are the most interesting when they explore the human condition — when they reveal something about who we really are, why we do things, and how the world affects us.

So how do we do that? By opening up the clock and seeing what makes it tick.

Ask follow-up questions:

Don’t just ask for answers; ask about those answers. People told you that they do X? Great. How does that make them feel? Is there someone in their life who wishes they didn’t do X? How does that affect their relationships? How does X affect their health? Their life satisfaction? How do they feel about people who don’t do X?

Get personal

Surveys are interesting because they tell us about ourselves. Personal takeaways are more unique and are more likely to resonate with the audience on an emotional level. What people do is interesting, but it’s not as interesting as the reasons why they do it, how it impacts their lives or the way that doing it makes them feel. Tip: If you’re getting really personal, you can make the question optional so people don’t feel uncomfortable having to answer.

Embrace nuance and ambivalence

Everything is complicated and (almost) nothing is black and white. Use your surveys to explore the underlying complexity behind people’s beliefs and behaviors. Measure ambivalence by asking respondents if they acknowledge any points that contradict their beliefs or if they ever second-guess or feel guilty about a behavior. Tap into the inherent nuance of most topics by asking questions about its underlying causes or hidden effects.

Let’s take student loan forgiveness, for example. Many people who support loan forgiveness can believe it’s unfair to some people. At the same time, plenty of those who oppose it might acknowledge that it would benefit people, but that other concerns are more important.

By exploring the layers of complexity, we give the topic a fair and detailed perspective, while also uncovering interesting, newsworthy takeaways.

Draw connections

Explore cause and effect. Ask yourself how the topic might impact other areas of people’s lives. Ask yourself how their perspectives on your topic might correlate to other beliefs and behaviors.

Draw connections between people’s perspectives on your topic and their behaviors: Is it making your life better or worse? What are you doing to deal with it? How has it impacted your relationships? What do you think is causing it? Do you think it’s good/bad? Do you think it’s important?

Ask questions that people haven’t asked yet. It’s really that simple. It’s not easy, but it’s simple.

Tip #5: Try new things

Do we all get stuck in our habits? Absolutely. Do rhetorical questions seem to be one of mine? Clearly. Is it important to break out of them? Not this time for me, apparently, but yes!

Try new things in your surveys and on your survey platform, and you might be surprised at how much you’re able to pull off.

Some helpful ideas

If you don’t know what to try, here are some ideas:

Open a blank template on your survey platform and play around with it. Look at each feature as a tool and ask what you might be able to do with it. Find a question format that you haven’t used yet, and look for settings that you usually just scroll past.

Tweak the settings. For example: Carry responses forward but ask people about the choices they didn’t select. Ask them why they didn’t select them, or how they feel about people who might’ve.

Use your answers in a different way. For example: Count the number of selections each respondent made in a select-all question, then create groups based on those counts. Create new demographics using one (or several) of your questions, and break your other results down by those.

Strategically divide your sample. For example: Split your respondents into two groups and ask them complementary questions. One group, for example, could report on their habits while the other group reports on their perceptions of those habits.

You may not move forward with every experiment, but it can certainly open your eyes to new ideas.

Conclusion

I do have to add the caveat that self-reported information has its limitations. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t explore fascinating subject matters and gain more insight into public perception and behavior.

Approach survey creation with curiosity, attention to detail, and a sense of experimentation, and your chances of creating compelling content will increase dramatically.

John Bernasconi is a Creative Strategist at Fractl. When he’s not probing anonymous survey respondents about their innermost feelings, you’ll probably find him out in the garage covered in sawdust or in the kitchen (still covered in sawdust).

The post Five quick and easy ways to make surveys more effective for content marketing appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

from Digital Marketing News https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2020/08/03/five-quick-and-easy-ways-to-make-surveys-more-effective-for-content-marketing/

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litlovelang-blog · 5 years

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A Fantastic First Day in Secondary ELA

It’s the first day of high school. As a student, you meet anywhere from 4-8 teachers that day. Everyone is the same - they greet you, seat you, read the rules to you, and regurgitate their boring, overpopulated syllabus to you. High school is obviously a BORE!

Although it took me several years to understand, I’m now a firm believer in classroom first impressions. Your first day of class should set the tone for YOUR classroom for the rest of the year. If you are not a “stand in front of the room and lecture” kind of teacher, don’t be that teacher on the first day! If you want your students to be able to interact with each other throughout the year, a silent first day is not the way to go.

My Freshmen & Sophomore English classes are communal daily. There is always instruction, inquiry, practice, collaboration, assessment, and reflection. Even though the first day comes with its required “housekeeping,” there is no reason the structure can’t mimic a typical day in your classroom. Here is how I do it.

Greet students the door

Greeting students is not only a way to create a warm, loving environment, its also mandatory at many schools. On the first day of school, I shake every student’s hand and ask their name. This creates the culture I desire - one that accepts students and shows that I’m truly interested in them.

Have a Collaborative Do Now! Activity Posted

Students will see a Do Now! activity daily when they enter my classroom, so why not set the tone early? By implementing this on the first day, it provides me the opportunity to mention in passing that there will be an assignment posted daily that should be completed as soon as students enter the room. I also get the opportunity to praise those who recognized that there was an assignment and started it without direct direction from me. Throughout the year, my Do Now! activities focus on grammar, vocabulary, or writing instruction, but on the first day, I plan a low-stakes, collaborative activity. Making nameplates is a fun way to get students out of their desks (to get supplies) and brainstorming with each other (for some of the requirements).

Get my nameplate instructions and template on TPT! https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/All-About-You-Nameplate-4710179

Another benefit of the nameplates: I have students put their nameplates on their desks for the first couple weeks of school so I can memorize them.

Walk Around the Room

While students complete their nameplates, I walk around the room (something I do in my class without fail - I’m not a “front of the room” kind of teacher). I take roll by checking their nameplates, I ask questions about the symbols they chose to represent themselves; I try to make a connection to each student. AND...I take notes on those interactions. A short conversation now can give me tidbits of information that help me remember students’ names and can provide a connection between the student and myself in the future.

The Must-Do’s

Unfortunately, my school requires teachers to read certain pages out of the handbook each period on the first day. I try to sandwich those “housekeeping” tasks in between MY plans. That way, I’m doing what the administration wants, but I’m not sacrificing the establishment of my classroom culture.

Syllabus Overview

I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH - DO NOT SPEND TIME ON CLASSROOM RULES & PROCEDURES ON THE FIRST DAY!

No high school student wants to sit through that 4-8 times on the first day of school! I have a Rules & Procedures Scavenger Hunt that I give students on the 2nd or 3rd day of class that gets them moving around the classroom while discovering my policies & procedures. That said, students need to know a little bit about you and the supplies needed for the class. Years ago, I abandoned my dated, text-only syllabus and crafted a graphic, creative syllabus each year.

Comment below if you’d like to receive a FREE link to my Canva-created syllabus to edit for yourself!

I spend a few minutes going over those items plus my expectations for the class. NO MORE THAN 10 MINUTES - OR YOU WILL LOSE THEM! As the first grade of the class, I ask students to read the rest of the syllabus for homework and bring it back signed the next class period. This encourages students and parents to read through the syllabus on their own and that means you don’t have to waste precious time reading it to them! Want to take it a step further? Create a quick Google Form to quiz them on the important points on the syllabus the next class period!

Assignment

Whether or not you have time to complete an assignment of the first day of school will depend on the length of your class period. If you have 80 minutes or more, you may opt for a quick assignment to peak student interest and set the pace of learning for your classroom. My go-to first-day assignment is the reverse poem, “Lost Generation” by Jonathan Reed. (Assignment coming to TPT soon!) In the first reading, students read the poem top to bottom and it sounds as though the poet has no hope in his generation. If read from bottom to top, the tone of the poem completely changes. This is one of my favorite assignments of the entire year and one of the most memorable assignments for my students. It piques their interest because the reverse nature of the poem completely blows their mind. I also use this to begin introducing basic annotation techniques, including my annotation kits (blog post on those coming soon).

Wrap Up

With any time left after the assignment, I work in a casual whole-class discussion about the poem and about how they can relate it to their generation. To reflect, we talk about the discussion process and my expectations for future discussions including how they individually contributed to the discussion.

In conclusion, not only does this planning set the pace of your classroom, but it also takes the focus off of you. I realized early in my career that a room of 33 teenagers staring at you can be intimidating. This approach allows me to mingle with my students more individually on the first day of school and takes some of the first-day jitters away from me.

#secondaryela #high school english #firstdayofschool #lessonplanning #syllabus #poetry #litlovelang

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kennethherrerablog · 5 years

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Job Seekers: Here’s a Step-by-Step Guide on How to Write a Good Resume

Hiring practices may have changed a bit in the past few years, but one thing has stayed the same: Resumes are a must during a job hunt, and a quality one is a very big deal for job seekers.

These sacred documents represent the whole of your working life. They’re your first introduction to prospective employers and can make or break your chances of getting a job.

If you’re wondering how to write a resume, there are some important details to keep in mind. Use this blueprint to create a great resume that gets you noticed.

Choose Your Format

First off, decide whether you are applying for a job that requires a CV (curriculum vitae) versus a resume. Don’t know the difference? Here’s a quick rundown.

Resume or CV?

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about resumes, but what about CVs — and what’s the difference? In short, quite a bit.

Your Curriculum Vitae

You can throw out many of the do’s, don’ts and tips we’ve mentioned when it comes to crafting a CV. This is a static document — as in you won’t be changing it up across industries as you would with a resume — that should cover your work and educational history in excruciating detail.

“Your CV only changes as your accomplishments grow,” said Loren Margolis, CEO of Training & Leadership Success. “Whereas, your resume should be modified often and tailored for each company and job to which you apply.”

You might associate CVs with academics — not very flashy, but chock-full of information. They can include everything from research and teaching experience, references to book chapters, memberships in professional organizations and conference-speaking engagements.

They can generally be as long as necessary to cover your professional career. And really, if you’re reading this, there’s a 99% chance you’ll write a resume for your job rather than a CV.

Start Formatting

Free online resume templates that let you fill in the blanks are an option, but you get what you pay for — which is to say, not much.

Artists, graphic designers and other visually creative professionals may want to use their resume to highlight their creative talents. In that vein, there are services, such as VisualCV, that create a custom template for you to work from — and recruiters won’t find it among Microsoft Word’s.

Otherwise, keep things simple.

Hiring managers are interested in your skills and experience, not fancy fonts or formatting. Use a standard font like Arial or Tahoma, and keep the layout simple with lots of white space and margins no larger than one inch.

In one of the most popular posts of all time on the jobs subreddit, Colin McIntosh, a former recruiter and current CEO at bedding company Sheets & Giggles, provided a simple template that should help you get started.

“I knew people were hungry for good free formats, so I expected it to be maybe the top post of the day, but I never expected this type of reception,” said McIntosh. “A year later, I still get emails and PMs every single day about that post, and it really recreated my favorite feeling from when I was a recruiter — helping other people land dream jobs.”

Create Your Content

Staring at a blank Word document can be daunting. Getting started is sometimes the hardest part, but we’ve got you covered.

Start With a Brainstorming Session

The best way to get those creative juices flowing is by asking yourself a series of questions about your accomplishments, said Jessica Hernandez, founder of Great Resumes Fast.These include:

What are you most proud of in your professional career?

How did you add value — efficiency, cost-savings or just happiness — to the companies at which you previously worked?

Take notes on each of these questions for each of those positions you previously held. This will give you a starting point once you’re ready to put pen to paper (er, fingertips to keyboard.)

“If you can answer those questions under each job you’ve held, you’re going to get a lot of meat on your resume,” Hernandez said.

“You can also ask others what they think about you,” she said.

And make sure you can explain in plain English what you actually did at each previous job; clarity is king for recruiters. Try to shy away from wishy-washy, jargon-laden phrases like “added synergy.”

As you’re taking notes, keep each description and accomplishment short, roughly a line. Margolis said recruiters will spend as little as six seconds reading your resume.

Reach Out

Don’t be shy. Make a connection at the company where you plan to apply to get a general idea about what the firm is looking for in that particular job. The best way to do this is through LinkedIn, said Margolis.

This will help you customize your resume as you apply for jobs across industries. Plus, you can get an idea of what keywords to include throughout your resume. (We’ll get to those later.)

Get Started

Once you have all your notes handy, a nifty template to work from and a 48-ounce cup of coffee, you’re ready to get started.

Your resume should contain several important components. But keep in mind there is disagreement in the HR and recruiting world about what to include and exclude. We’ll give you a rundown of all the components, and you can decide.

One very important thing to remember: You should keep this document to one page, McIntosh said. Remember, recruiters are going to give you less than 10 seconds to make an impression with your resume.

Contact Information

Feature your name and contact information at the top of the page.

Start with your name, followed by your phone number and email address. If you have a LinkedIn profile or professional online portfolio, be sure to include that as well.

But wait! This is an area you can use a little hack to avoid any unconscious bias that recruiters may have. Use you first initial instead of your full first name and it should help overcome any potential gender bias that could come out when a recruiter is scanning your resume.

Still, you’ll want to use your full name when emailing with a human resources manager or applying online.

Also, if this is a position in a new city, you might want to leave off your current address or include a note that you are planning to move to the city in which the job is located. That way, you can avoid being passed over due to an employer worried about covering moving expenses.

Objective

We’re going to tell you how to write a resume objective, but know this first: There is some debate in the resume-writing and HR world about whether you need an objective at the top of the document.

McIntosh said to skip it and get right to your accomplishments and job descriptions.

But, if that connection you made over LinkedIn advises you to use an objective, make it short.

Write a paragraph — two or three sentences at most — highlighting the type of work you’re looking for. Be sure to mention skills and talents that make you perfect for the job. This goes at the top of the document, usually separated by a line.

Work Experience

List your current job (if applicable) first, followed by all previous jobs in reverse chronological order.

Each job should include:

Name and address of the company where you worked

Your job title

Dates of employment

Your job responsibilities*

Your accomplishments in the position

See those bullet points above? They should be all over your resume. Use them for your accomplishments, job descriptions and the education and skills sections, described below. They’ll help recruiters scan your resume quickly.

If you have no work experience, don’t leave this section blank or eliminate it. McIntosh suggested listing your position during any downtime as an independent consultant, under which you explain in a bullet point that you needed some flexibility for personal matters.

“No one will ask about the personal matters, and you can just hand wave it away as ‘some family items that needed to be sorted out’ if they do,” he said in a follow-up Reddit post.

Additionally, you can use the section to highlight skills you’ve developed during college or while doing volunteer work.

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the skills you list on your resume need to be the direct result of a previous professional position. As long as you can successfully demonstrate those abilities, go ahead and list them. It really doesn’t matter where you learned them,” recommends The Everygirl’s Kat Boogaard.

Education

In this section, include any community colleges, universities, trade schools or technical colleges you’ve attended. Begin with your most recent school and work backwards.

For each school, be sure to provide:

The name, city and state of the school

Any degrees or certifications you received

Recruiters we spoke to highlighted another trend in resume-writing to overcome any age-related bias: Leave off the graduation dates.

“Protect yourself, and do not put graduation dates on your resume,” Hernandez said. “It’s pointless to do so.”

Note: If your degree is in progress, add the expected date of completion to let prospective employers know you’re still working on it.

Honors and Community Experience

This section captures extracurricular activities that don’t fit into the previous sections. For example:

Academic or work-related awards

Membership in clubs or organizations like Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts, 4-H or debate club

Volunteer community service

Greek life leadership

Additional Skills

Here’s where to highlight skills and talents that set you apart from other job seekers, including:

Fluency in more than one language

Typing speed

Experience in specific software

Experience with public speaking

List the programs and skills without any qualifiers, such as “proficient,” “experienced” or “skilled in.”

Personal Interests

McIntosh recommends including a section in which you list your personal interests, such as:

Hobbies

Favorite TV shows or movies

Favorite books or authors

This will give something with which you can connect with your recruiter, provided they have the same interests.

A Word About Keywords

Now that you have the basic format of the resume down, let’s talk about keywords — or how robots will likely be responsible for your employment future (sort of.)

Many companies ask job candidates to apply online and upload resumes to their website. Resumes are often electronically scanned for particular keywords to quickly weed out unqualified applicants.

“Your resume keywords should include specific job requirements, including your skills, competencies, relevant credentials and previous positions and employers,” says career expert Alison Doyle. “Essentially, keywords should be words that, at a glance, will show the hiring manager that you are a good fit for the job.”

To help you find the keywords relevant to a position you’re pursuing, print out a copy of the job description. Then highlight the words or phrases you see pop up several times throughout the document. Finally, circle the ones you have in common and sprinkle them throughout your resume.

Do’s and Don’ts While Writing Your Resume

As we keep saying, recruiters give you 10 or fewer seconds when scanning your resume and deciding whether to start the interview process. Here are some quick do’s and don’t while writing your resume.

Do!

Keep it to one page. Margolis said that rule is a bit outdated and you can likely get away with 1 1/2 pages, but striving to keep your resume brief will help you tease out your most impressive accomplishments.

Include hyperlinks to your online resume or portfolio. This used to be a big no-no, but with modern PDFs, you can easily link to other personal information. This will help keep your actual resume short as well.

Always use PDFs when emailing your resume. It’s universal, and there’s nothing that will get your resume trashed faster than sending a document that’s incompatible with a recruiter’s computer.

Include as much white space as possible. Make your resume easy on the eyes and simple for HR professionals to quickly scan.

Use action verbs such as “built” or “launched.”

Don’t!

Don’t use an inappropriate or outdated email address. Said McIntosh: “Delete your Hotmail with extreme prejudice.”

Don’t overdo it with keywords. As you sprinkle keywords throughout your resume, be sure they don’t make the content sound stilted or awkward. Look for ways to work them in naturally; don’t force it.

Don’t use a fancy font. Stick to the basics. McIntosh said he’s on a Garamond kick lately.

Don’t blast your resume out indiscriminately. Make sure you tweak it based on the position you’re applying for — and remember to reach out over LinkedIn, if possible.

Don’t use personal pronouns like “I” or “me.” Basically, Margolis said, you need to write like a caveman and leave the pronouns out.

Oh, and remember to check out our 31 awesome tips to make your resume shine.

Final Touches

Once you’ve created your resume, it’s not ready to hand to a hiring manager until you do these three things:

1. Proofread Your Work

It’s not enough to simply run your resume through a spellchecker because they don’t always catch every mistake.

Print a copy of your resume, then read through it slowly several times to make sure it’s error-free. Blow up the font to help catch every problem.

2. Show It to a Friend

Share your resume with someone you trust to get some honest feedback on how it looks. Have the person read it to you out loud to take in the content in a new way.

3. Convert It to a PDF

Write your resume in whatever software application works best for you, but convert it to a PDF file before you send it to a hiring manager. If your word processing software doesn’t include a conversion feature, there are plenty of free online services to choose from.

PDF file formats are almost universally preferred during the hiring process, and they protect your resume’s content from being accidentally altered once it leaves your hands.

Once your resume is ready for prime time, write up a cover letter (they’re more important than you think) and start sending it to job prospects.

Happy job hunting!

Alex Mahadevan is a data journalist at The Penny Hoarder. Lisa McGreevy contributed to this post.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

Job Seekers: Here’s a Step-by-Step Guide on How to Write a Good Resume published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

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iat313sfu-blog · 5 years

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Deliverable #5: Script

Scene one: Jessica Woo & Erin Lee & Anto Liang & Emily Brown (Introduction scene)

FADE IN:

INT. SECOND FLOOR - 7:00 PM. NIGHT

Show characters

Erin just finished class and is now heading to the computer lab.

Jessica is just coming out from the washroom, and heading to the Mezzanine to buy coffee.

Anto is working on her assignment in the Mezzanine.

Emily is drinking water in front of the water dispenser.

Scene two: Justin Wang & Erin Lee (Crime scene)

FADE IN:

INT. COMPUTER LAB - 7:45 PM. NIGHT

A student without conscious is found in the computer lab.

JUSTIN (shock as he finds a student unconscious in the room) An unconscious student found in the computer lab. Call detective right now, investigation needed!

JUSTIN (pat Erin’s face as he tries to wake up the girl) Hello, are you alright?

ERIN (No response)

JUSTIN (Looks around, make sure everything stays in place.) Waits for a detective to come.

Scene three: Detective & Anto Liang

FADE IN

INT. THE MEZZAINE (near the Blenz Coffee Shop) - 8:00 PM. NIGHT

Anto is working on her assignment in the Mezzaine. DETECTIVE Hello, are you the friend of Erin?

ANTO Yes, I am. Who are you? (A perplexed look)

DETECTIVE I am a detective. Your friend Erin was found unconscious in the computer lab, and someone stole her assignment. I come here to find the thief.

ANTO What?! OMG! Is she Okay? Shocking face

DETECTIVE She is fine right now. You are one of the suspects as you were around this area at the time.

ANTO Of course, What can I do for you?

DETECTIVE I need to know the relationship between Erin and you.

ANTO It’s simple. I am the classmate of Erin from IAT233 Spatial Design, but I always skip class to play game which impacts my grade. Embarrassed The lucky thing is Erin is one of Russell’s favorite student, so I always ask her for her notes. Erin is a very nice person. (Happy)

DETECTIVE Okay. Can you also tell me what you’ve been doing from 6pm to 7pm.

ANTO I was doing my assignments in Mezz. I had another assignment due tmr, which I just started yesterday. I was working on it since 4pm, right after my class.

DETECTIVE Okay, Thank you for your cooperation. (Detective looks at Anto’s assignment and personal stuff when he is leaving.)

Scene four: Detective & Jessica Woo

FADE IN INT. THE MEZZAINE (near the Blenz Coffee Shop) - 8:10 P.M. NIGHT Jessica is on the phone replying to text messages in the Mezzaine. Detective walks towards Jessica. DETECTIVE Hi, are you one of Erin’s friend?

JESSICA (looks up in baffle) Yes, what’s up?

DETECTIVE I am a detective and your friend Erin got attacked and is now unconscious. I want to ask you a few questions.

JESSICA (wide eyes and in shock) Oh my god! YES! Of course! Is she alright?

DETECTIVE We are not sure at the moment. But someone stole her assignments and I am trying to find out who. You are one of the suspect now since you were near the crime scene at the time it happened.

JESSICA Okay, YES! You can ask me any questions you want!

DETECTIVE What were you doing from 6 p.m to 7.pm?

JESSICA I was… uh… just finishing my assignment in the mezz.

DETECTIVE Oh. What assignment were you working on? (peeks at Jessica’s phone and proceeds)

JESSICA Oh, I was researching for IAT 233, I am taking that class with Erin!!!!

DETECTIVE How is your relationship with Erin?

JESSICA Well, I’ve known her since high school. She has always been my best friend!

DETECTIVE Do you know anyone that is jealous of her work?

JESSICA Uhm…… not that I know of. Erin is very friendly to everyone, I don’t think she would have any enemy at school. DETECTIVE UHmm… Did you see anyone suspicious in the area?

JESSICA No… I was really focused in my assignment. I didn’t pay attention who passed by.

DETECTIVE OH I see. What are you still doing at school now?

JESSICA oh uh, I am just waiting for my friend to pick me up. If you have any new lead, please let me know.

DETECTIVE Yeah, I will let you know. Thanks for your help.

Scene five: Detective & Emily Brown

FADE IN: INT. THE SFU SURREY STUDYROOM - 8: 25 PM. NIGHT

DETECTIVE Hi, Sorry to bother you. Are you Emily?

EMILY …….. (Remain silent and give the detective side eyes)

DETECTIVE Actually, I am a detective. I need to confirm that you are Emily.

EMILY (hesitantly) Yes … I am Emily…. DETECTIVE (looks her in the eyes) I need to ask you some questions about the incident that happened in the computer lab.

EMILY Did something happened in the computer lab?

DETECTIVE Okay, Emily. Your friend Erin was found unconscious in the computer lab and someone stole her assignment. We need your help to find a thief.

EMILY (Looks at the detective in shock) Sure!

DETECTIVE So, what is the relationship between Erin and you?

EMILY I met her in IAT 102 class and I am her first SFU friend.

DETECTIVE When was the last time you saw her?

EMILY Actually, I like to stay at school and work alone so the last time I saw her was yesterday. She was also working on her 233 assignment.

DETECTIVE Was there Anyone suspicious around her lately?

EMILY Nope.

DETECTIVE Nothing at all? Please think about it again.

EMILY No! (with firm) I already told her before. Don’t become close with SFU’s students because they are so stupid. She is such a nice person and everyone loves her. I don’t know how this happened.

DETECTIVE What were you doing from 6pm to 7pm?

EMILY I was in the lab until now to finish my 233 project. I just had dinner like 10 min ago and on my way back to the lab to finish my project.

DETECTIVE Okay. Thanks for your help. If you have any clue about the case, please let me know.

Scene six: Detective & Erin Lee (Recovery, and general questions)

FADE IN:

INT. ONE OF THE IRROGATION ROOM, THE DAY AFTER INCIDENT

Shows text on phone : Erin’s conscious is recovered. Come to room ####. INT. THE SFU SURREY ROOM -11:00 AM. DAY.

Erin sitting on a chair, looks tired. DETECTIVE How do you feel right now? Is it okay if I ask you some questions right now?

ERIN (faintly) I’m getting better, thank you. I will try to answer them. I still feel a bit light-headed and don’t remember much from last night.

DETECTIVE No worries. Just try to tell me as much as possible. Everything helps. Can you explain what happened yesterday?

ERIN So, I was researching some information for my 233 assignment in the computer lab and I had my earphones on. And all of a sudden someone just walked to me and gave me something. I have no idea what happened next.

DETECTIVE Did you see the face? or anyone you suspect?

ERIN (frowning) I am actually not sure, I didn’t see the face. And I can’t think of anyone that would intentionally hurt me. I have a pretty good relationship will all of my classmates.

DETECTIVE We currently have three suspects: Emily, Jessica and Anto. Are you close with them? ERIN (defensively) Yes, they are all my close friends. I don’t think they would do anything to hurt me! DETECTIVE mhmmm… got that!

Scene seven : Detecive brainstorming the evidence

Sitting in a room alone, facing the window

INT. SFU ROOM - 3:00 PM. DAY

Detective stares at the evidence laying on the desk which will lead him to the thief.

DETECTIVE (looks puzzled) (thinking to himself) Hmmmm… there was only some research materials shown on her computer at the time the incident happened….. And her chat history was shown on there… (picks up the printed out conversation from Erin’s facebook) DETECTIVE (says out loud) WOW, she must be busy trying to mainatin her schoolwork and social life. The most recent chats are Jessica, Anto and Emily. (Looks over Jessica’s chat) huh…… interesting Erin mentioned Jessica had stolen her artworks in high school before here. But I am not sure if she joking or not. (Looks over Anto’s chat) everything is pretty normal here…… (Looks over Emily’s chat) mhmm… Erin does not talk to Emily as much as she talks to Jessica and Anto. But they are best friends… aren’t they? Takes a deep breathe and ponder around the room. DETECTIVE Let’s see… there is also an undialed phone number left on her screen… what was it again…? (scrabbling everywhere to find the number on his desk) AH HAAAA! There it is! 604-778-0605? (types number into phone) VOICE (over the phone) Herrooooo! DETECTIVE (in a serious tone) Hi! This is xx, do you know Erin Lee? VOICE (over the phone) Ehhhhh …. Yes that is my sister! What is going on? DETECTIVE (relieved) Ah, I see. Don’t worry mam, I am just investigating who drugegd your sister yesterday night. Thank you for your cooperation! VOICE (over the phone) WAIT… what ? my sister got drugged?? DETECTIVE Yes mam, Don’t worry, I will solve the case very soon! Good day!

(look at water bottle for a second, but didn’t think much) (thinking to himself)

So this number is useless.. only leads to Erin’s sister. Let’s move on to the next clue… Ah.. the next one will be her artwork portfolio.. (scrabble around his desk to look for the folder)

(say out loud) OK… let’s see what we got here

(a few minutes later) hmmmm… this Erin is really good at graphic designs (flips to the next page) Ehhhh?? What does this sticky note say here…

(shows the sticky note) Do this assignment for me, I will pay you! Otherwise, I will destroy you.

(in shock) Wow .. this must be the thief that attacked Erin! Now… who has the motive to do that….? I will look at the last evidence first…

(grabs the usb and plug into the computer) Let’s see what we have here….

(opens folder) Oh okay, the digital file of Erin’s works.

(scoll through) a folder named “Jessica and work”...?

(thinking in his head) could this be about the incident in High School that Erin mentioned about?

(clicks on the folder) (shows Jessica posing with the artwork supposedly belonged to Erin) ahh …. so it was true…. Jessica was stole Erin’s artwork before…. How are they still friends now …

(closes folder and move on to the next one) Where is that 233 folder everyone’s been talking about.

(clicks on the 233 project folder) what is this..? This document is named “I told you so”

(excited as more clues appear) (clicks on the document and read the contents out loud) Thank you for your help ERIN. I told you what would happen to you when you don’t help me. I thought we were friends. I guess I am not as good as those bitches around you huh.

(says out loudly) AH HAAA! They were friends. The thief knew Erin all along….

(glances at water bottle again, hold it in hand and look closely) (think in his head) Wait… does Emily have the same water bottle too…? looks like it…..

(says out loudly) mhmmmm….. I need to ask Erin more questions.

Scene eight: Detective & Erin Lee (QUESTIONS)

FADE IN: INT. ONE OF THE IRROGATION ROOM, THE DAY AFTER INCIDENT

DETECTIVE (Q1) Does any of your friends feel jealous on you? Any possibilities?

ERIN Hmmm… Let me think. I know Emily does not have much friends in school so she wants me to hang out with her all the time. But I only have so much time, and I am busy doing schoolworks and meeting other friends as well. I think she has always been jealous of me, but not sure if it is the good reason for her to commit the crime….

DETECTIVE (Q2) Did you ever had any conflicts with the suspects?? Like any minor one?

ERIN Actually, Jessica had stole my USB back in the high school before. She said she had no time to do her homework, so stealing my usb was the one and only choice. But It is more than five years ago and we are really good friend now.

(Pause for a second)

Oh, recently, Anto is asking me a lot of questions. She never comes to the class and keep asking me for help on assignments. I told her to just come to the lecture, and she seems frustrated somehow. Ah! I saw her yesterday when I was working on my assignment in the computer lab. She came to me to ask about the project again.

DETECTIVE (Q3) Are any of your friends behave differently?

ERIN Hmmm.. not really….. Wait, actually, Emily is acting a bit differently recently. She doesn’t talk to me as much as before. I waved at her on the other day, and she just ignored me. She didn’t want me to get along with other siat students, so I think she got mad at me somehow. I don't know why Emily hates all the siat students tho when she is one herself…

Script nine: Anto Liang, Jessica Woo & Erin Lee (Ending scene - Find the right thief)

FADE IN INT. SECOND FLOOR – 11 AM. MORNING, Two days after the incident Erin is walking alone in the hallway with her assignments.

JESSICA Hey, Erin. Wait for me! (Runs toward to Erin from somewhere.)

ERIN Oh…Hi, Jessica.

JESSICA Are you ok? I heard you were attacked the other night.

ERIN Yes, I am fine. I feel better today.

JESSICA That’s good to hear!

ANTO Hi guys. (Walks toward to Jessica and Erin)

ERIN & JESSICA Hi!

ANTO Good to see you in school today, Erin. I was so worried about you yesterday.

ERIN Thanks.

ANTO Oh right, did you get your assignments back?

ERIN Yes, the detective helped me to find the assignments and who stole it.

ANTO Great! Oh, my class is almost starting, I must go now. See you guys next time. (Checks the phone time and runs away.)

ERIN & JESSICA See you.

JESSICA Who stole your assignments by the way?

ERIN Emily…

JESSICA WHAT?! The first friend you had in SFU? (Surprised) How could she do this to you? You were her friend! (Angry)

ERIN (lost in thoughts) I don’t know….. Anyways, It’s over now. Let’s go for lunch.

JESSICA Ya, let’s go. FADE OUT

Scene ten: Emily Brown & Erin Lee (Ending scene – Find the wrong thief)

FADE IN INT. SECOND FLOOR – 11 AM. MORNING,Two days after the incident

Emily is looking at her published assignment in the hallway.

EMILY (Smiling happily)

ERIN Emily!!!(Angry) (Runs and holds Emily’s shoulder from the back)

EMILY Hi Erin. How are you? I heard someone stole your assignment. (Turns around)

ERIN Shut up! You are the thief! You are the one who stole my assignment!

EMILY What are you talking about? (Confused)

ERIN Look! This is what my designed! This is my assignment! (Points at the assignment in the hallway)

EMILY No, this is my design. There is my name on it. (Calmed) You should go home and take a rest. (Walks away with a smirk)

ERIN You…. FADE OUT

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