Hum 212-02 and 06
Fall 2003
Second Written Assignment
Your second paper will be evaluated for, among other things, adherence to the assignment, clarity of
expression and organization, grammar, logic of argument, originality, use of evidence and citation, and
evidence of careful and deep thought.
Your second paper will consist of an analysis of the presentation of news in a variety of online news
sources from around the world. You will compare the treatment of the news in American news sources
with the treatment in foreign news sources in English. You should draw upon the skills you developed in
English 101 in writing rhetorical and contextual analyses. Your comparison can take a number of forms.
You should not summarize news stories but should, rather, briefly describe how they are treated in the news
sources. Treatment includes coverage (what news gets reported and what does not), placement (where
stories are placed on the news sources and what that placement indicates about the importance the news
source assigns to the story), range (whether the story is treated separately from other stories or related to
other stories) and interpretation (judgments made about the story and its significance reflected in the
language of the article). Your comparison should lead to interpretation, and you should not shy away from
evaluation.
Choose no more than three news sources and six stories for comparison. Only one should be American.
The other two should come from foreign sources. Follow the news cycle for a week to get an
understanding of the similarities and differences in treatment of news. Draw your news sources from those
at the URL below:
http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/kevin.binfield/newssites.htm
Please use a brief parenthetical method of inline citation containing the name of the news source and the
date – e.g., (Guardian, 25 October 2003). Provide, also, a final list of works cited; each entry should
include the name of the news source, the date of the story, and the URL of the article, as you will find in
your English 101/102 handbook, Keys for Writers.
The paper will be due in class on 24 November 2003.
