1. How much detail is needed for each news story? Enough for the reader to understand both what was reported and also your analysis of the story. How much is enough? How much is too much? I would suggest limiting the description of each story to 2-3 sentences.
2. I suggest you use a traditional introduction to identify the background (time, place, station identification, and date) of the news broadcast and something about your analysis or evaluation. The introduction can also contain a sentence or two to introduce an important point or theme from your analysis. You might want to introduce yourself in the intro - a couple sentences (but no more than this) so the readers know if you watch TV all the time, or never watch the news, or prefer certain newspaper or TV stations or radio stations. (See number 3).
3. Do you regularly watch TV news? Why or why not? This is probably worth putting in the paper so your readers can understand something about your general perspective on TV news. Do you get news from other sources? Do you think the program you watched covered the most important events of the day? Why? Someone, somewhere actually decides what is broadcast every night. On what basis do you think "they" decide what gets broadcast? Do you think there is much difference between various local and national news broadcast? If they are similar, how can this be explained? Conspiracy??? If they are different, then how can the differences be explained?
4. Here is just an observation, and not necessarily a suggestion: Some people choose (perhaps unconsciously) to focus on the content of the news broadcast without mentioning the news anchors or local reporters. Other papers mention the content of a news broadcast, but also focus on the race, age, sex, and appearance of the broadcasters and as well as the people covered or quoted in different stories. Those papers are interesting because they raised issues that some people might take for granted. Writing any paper involves choosing between many different options, but often our choices are made unconsciously, without considering alternatives. The more a writer is aware of different angles, perspectives, organizational strategies, etc. then choices about writing become more conscious.
5. You don't have to present the news reports chronologically. You could present them according to theme. For example, one thematic paragraph could discuss the news reports on governmental decisions; another paragraph could discuss the electoral news; another paragraph might report on international issues; perhaps there could be a paragraph on crime-related stories. After the news reports are organized into themes, then your analysis can also be organized into similar themes. For example, you can analyze each theme in a separate paragraph. This might provide some better overall organization to your paper.
6. How about discussing the graphics that accompany each story? After all, the biggest difference between TV and radio news (maybe) is the pictures, so are the pictures worth describing? Does a story become more "newsworthy" when it is accompanied by photos? Even TV news stories which don't have any photos always seem to get accompanied by graphics, even when the graphics are seemingly unnecessary or irrelevant.
   
   

Preparation for paper #2

After you've chosen your question, you can begin writing your paper. Write a paragraph to explain why you chose this question, and why you think this will be an interesting question to ask. Write another paragraph or two to predict the results for this survey. For example, predict if men will answer this question differently than women; predict if older people will answer differently from younger; predict if answers will correspond to ethnicity or race; predict if married people will have different answers than single and divorced people; make any predictions that might correspond to physical appearance or marital status or anything else. Or you can combine your predictions and say something like, "I expect older white men to be against legalizing marijuana, while most older women and almost all younger people will be in favor of it." I'm obviously making up these examples, but when you find a question that interests you, then spend a little time trying to decide how different groups of people might answer this question. Your predictions should be based on the people you are expecting to survey. If you aren't planning to interview any Spanish-speakers, then don't predict how Spanish speakers will answer this question. If you aren't planning to survey any young people, then don't make any predictions for young people's answers.

The next step is to conduct the survey. There are forms below to help you compile your results. As you conduct the survey, you should note each person's answer on the form. The name does not need to be the full name, just something so you can keep track of the people you've talked to.

After the survey is completed, add up the totals and fill in the appropriate categories in the second form. You are looking for patterns according to age, ethnicity, sex, marital status, occupation, etc. If there are patterns, such as all (or even the majority) women saying yes, or all older people saying no, or all married people saying maybe, then that is interesting and should be reported. Will there be such patterns? I don't know, but that's one of the things to look for.

When you report the results of your survey, you'll want to report the raw numbers - the total number of YES, NO, MAYBE, and I DON'T KNOW. In addition, you'll want to report any patterns you have discovered.

In the section of your paper before the report on the results of your survey, there should be several sentences to explain the methodology of your survey. For example, you should explain where you found people to survey. In the office or factory or studio? In the streets? On campuses and cafeterias and coffee shops? Did you ask only people you knew? Did you ask family members or friends or old lovers or ministers or rabbis or monks or people on the bus? Just tell us how you went about asking people this question.

After writing up the results of your survey, tell us about anything interesting or new you learned. This can be anything you discovered as a result of doing this survey. Maybe you discovered that doing surveys was a lot of fun. Maybe you discovered that men hated to be surveyed and women loved it, or visa versa. Who knows what you'll discover here?

In the final paper to write up this survey, don't forget to include a section on whether or not your predictions were fulfilled. Did you get the responses you had predicted? If not, why not?

Finally, in your conclusion write something about the validity of your survey. Was this a valid, accurate cross-section of the American population, or of the Chicago population, or of any other population. If you did this survey again (don't worry - you don't have to) what would you do differently?

An outline of the survey might look something like this:

1. Introduction - My question and the reasons I chose it

2. My predictions

3. My system for finding people to survey

4. An analysis of the results of that survey and a comparison to my predictions

5. Things I learned from this survey

6. Conclusion - validity, things to do differently, etc.

There are other ways to organize your final paper, and the most important thing is to include all these sections in whatever order seems effective to you.

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	Name	Answer	Age	Ethnic Group	Marital Status	Sex
1	.	.	.	.	.	.
2	.	.	.	.	.	.
3	.	.	.	.	.	.
4	.	.	.	.	.	.
5	.	.	.	.	.	.
6	.	.	.	.	.	.
7	.	.	.	.	.	.
8	.	.	.	.	.	.
9	.	.	.	.	.	.
10	.	.	.	.	.	.
11	.	.	.	.	.	.
12	.	.	.	.	.	.
13	.	.	.	.	.	.
14	.	.	.	.	.	.
15	.	.	.	.	.	.

You can change the categories above and below however you like.

	Yes	No	Don't know	Maybe
Total	.	.	.	.
Females	.	.	.	.
Males	.	.	.	.
Older females (define)	.	.	.	.
Younger fmales (define)	.	.	.	.
Older males	.	.	.	.
Younger males	.	.	.	.
Ethnic group	.	.	.	.
Ethnic group	.	.	.	.
Ethnic group	.	.	.	.
Other	.	.	.	.
Other	.	.	.	.
Other	.	.	.	.

Questions for Surveys

1. Do you believe that teachers in elementary school should be allowed to use corporal punishment?
2. Do you think the death penalty deters crime or lowers the crime rate?
3. Do you believe that women should have the same rights to work and get an education that men have?
4. Do you think there is too much prejudice against minorities in the USA?
5. Do you believe that people should only marry someone of the same race and ethnic background?
6. If parents do not approve of a child's boyfriend or girlfriend, should the child break up with the boyfriend or girlfriend?
7. Should college be free for every person who wants to attend?
8. Do you think it's OK for a 17 year old girl to get married?
9. Do you think it's OK for a 17 year old guy to get married?
10. Should students get paid for going to school?
11. Should students work while they are attending college?
12. Do you think that watching television affects the way people act and think?
13. Should the age for getting a drivers' license be raised to 18?
14. Should the age for drinking alcohol be lowered to 18?
15. Is it OK for a 19 year old to have a beer or two to relax?
16. Should smoking marijuana be legalized so people don't go to jail for it?
17. Does television make children and adults more violent?
18. Do you think it's OK for a man and woman to live together before getting married?
19. Should the relatives of immigrants in the USA be allowed to move to this country?