In a college course, you may be assigned to adapt an paper that you have already written for delivery to a listening audience. Student writer Sam Jacobs made important adjustments as he prepared a speaking script from his essay on citizen journalism during Hurricane Katrina. Compare Jacobs’s first paragraph of his essay with the opening lines for his presentation.

FIRST PARAGRAPH OF ESSAY

“All the news that’s fit to print,” the motto of the New York Times since 1896, plays with the word fit, asserting that a news story must be newsworthy and must not exceed the limits of the printed page. The increase in online news consumption, however, challenges both meanings of the word fit, allowing producers and consumers alike to rethink who decides which topics are worth covering and how extensive that coverage should be. Any cultural shift usually means that something is lost, but in this case there are clear gains. The shift from print to online news provides unprecedented opportunities for readers to become more engaged with the news, to hold journalists accountable, and to participate as producers, not simply as consumers.

OPENING OF ORAL PRESENTATION