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Post by 江戸っ子Hakujin on Dec 4, 2017 11:10:30 GMT 9
This isn't a newsletter but I have to write about 私が気になった今年のアメリカのニュース and I'm having a super tough time trying to think of an idea...
I already talked about gun control previously so I can't talk about the shootings and I'm so tired of talking about the orange cheeto.... hollywood sex scandals/abuse might be a little too dark.... I'm at a loss for what to write... I'd prefer something positive about America (especially since last time I talked about gun control) but at this point I'm getting desperate for ideas....
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Mumblesnore
Dead Stargod
’Tis the season (for Eggnog)
Posts: 16,153
CIR Experience: Former CIR
Location: Tokyo
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Post by Mumblesnore on Dec 4, 2017 11:13:30 GMT 9
Damn there really is nothing positive, is there? What a dumpster fire of a country.
I'm thinking really hard an I can't think of anything wholesome that happened in America this year, but maybe that's just because living in Japan I only hear about the bad/dramatic stuff.
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Post by 江戸っ子Hakujin on Dec 4, 2017 11:18:04 GMT 9
Mumblesnore right? I'm wracking my brain for something.....
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Post by Dee on Dec 4, 2017 13:45:01 GMT 9
江戸っ子Hakujin , I sat here staring at your post hoping something good would come to mind for like 10 minutes, but I thought of something! You could talk about the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree
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Post by frooperyfroop on Dec 5, 2017 10:17:15 GMT 9
江戸っ子Hakujin How about the Las Vegas shooting? It's a pretty horrific incident in itself, but there were a lot of uplifting stories in the aftermath, such as how lots of people offered to donate bloob to the victims, and stories about medical personnel who risked their lives during the shooting by running around and helping victims even when they knew that they could get shot themselves (that is so brave... I don't know if I would have the guts to do that!).
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Post by 江戸っ子Hakujin on Dec 5, 2017 13:12:54 GMT 9
DeeThanks for the advice!! I think I'll use the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree when I have to write for Christmas frooperyfroopI actually didn't hear that part of the story, that's really inspiring...It's nice to know that even though there's a lot of bad in the world there's always good people too... I just ended up writing about how people helped each other after the hurricanes already though...
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sacchan
So jozu at chopsticks
Why?
Posts: 134
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Post by sacchan on May 21, 2019 12:36:42 GMT 9
Please bestow your knowledge and advice upon me oh people who know how to write.
Currently the part of my job giving me the most heartache and suffering is my monthly column. It is usually around half to three quarters of a page and the topic should relate to either BOKOKU/its relationship with Japan/international exchange or similar (I have gotten away with recipes when I was desperate before, but I do not cook often so that is also hard for me).
I specifically struggle with: -finding topics -cutting down my research time (I waste a lot of time reading things to try and think of something to write) -making the most of my topics (I can never think of anything to write even when I do have a topic) -writing for my audience (mostly older citizens who are middle/high school graduates, I have gotten complaints before that the content is too hard from my hancho)
I tried to ask but discontinuance does not seem to be an option. My soup recently proposed writing 活動報告s instead but I have to write it two months in advance. If I wrote about something that happened in May it would be published in July or August and not be as relevant. I have always been bad at writing (even in my mother tongue, my grade for kokugo was always half a point under the passing mark) and while I also profoundly dislike it, the 苦手意識 probably does not help.
How do you people deal with these issues in your duties? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Post by Dee on May 21, 2019 14:59:00 GMT 9
sacchan I don't write newsletters, but I do occasional culture presentations and have similar issues. I also struggle with coming up with good ideas of what to present about. A lot of my stuff ends up being seasonal things, like holidays, but I also end up getting a lot of my ideas after talking with Japanese co-workers/hulemdos. Sometimes the cultural stuff that you may overlook can be the most interesting. For example: American drive-thru windows (because they are everywhere), restaurant table settings and cutlery, debit cards vs credit cards. Sorry I don't have much advise for you. If you're an American CIR I can send you some of my presentations if you'd like.
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Post by leinyann on May 21, 2019 15:12:32 GMT 9
sacchan I have a monthly column too, and yours sounds a lot like how mine is like! Unfortunately, I don’t really have any good advice since I’m struggling with it too…both my pred and grand-pred are also from Australia, so making sure my topics don’t overlap with theirs too much has been kind of hard haha Most of the time I write something relating to the current season/seasonal events.Asking co-workers has kind of helped too, I tried asking them if there is anything they want to know about and used that as content. I was struggling to fill in the word count so one day, I decided to do a photo section in my column where I talk about a photo I took in our city that month too (sometimes I cheat by using an old photo but no one needs to know that ^^)
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Post by thelatter on May 21, 2019 15:40:30 GMT 9
I've been writing monthly columns (in JPN and ENG) for the town magazine for almost three years and been putting together a newsletter (also in JPN and ENG) for almost a year so I think I could be of some help. I usually make a schedule of topics for the next few months to half a year. Sometimes I write about my experiences in Japan and how they compare to my home state, my culture and common misconceptions about it, and other stuff. Most recently I wrote about baths hue. I tend to look back at my predecessors' (I have 12. 14 if you count my first placement) articles to see if I like any of their topics if my well's running dry. I gauge how long it has been since they've written about the topic before adding it to my schedule. If the article isfrom the last 2 or so years I won't write about it. If I decide to use their topic, I take a different approach to it so as to avoid being stale. I don't have my deparmtnet breathing down my neck about the difficulty or content of my articles so I don't know really what to do about that... Length wise, however, I have to keep it to 330 words or so in English and around 650 characters in JPN. Generally, I stick to a 4~5 paragraph format and try to not sound long winded, but still include a variety of content focused on the topic. Think of a main topic and then write down some key words related to it. Base your paragraphs off those key words and find information that can connect themto each other and transition well into each other. Then at the end, add a cute comment about the content or some kind of personal flavor, i.e. editorialize the article, but not overly so. It's not news, it's a personal column. Keep it casual. I don't like reporting on what I do unless it's something special that doesn't happen that often. Do not worry about relevancy in relation to time. It doesn't matter that it happened a few months ago (as long as it happened within the year or last 2~3 months). I put in a school visit that happened in March in this month's magazine. But this article is IN ADDITION to the scheduled monthly article and on the same page, so it has to be way less and only in Japanese (100 characters probably). I just recently started writing these HOUKOKU, but I interchange it with small articles introducing interesting locations from our sister city (also in Japanese, also only 100ish characters). The article writing is one of the easier (and definitely more stable) part of my job so I don't mind it. Writing an article takes time depending on the person, however. I can take a whole day sometimes to write both the ENG and JPN versions. And that's when I flying through it. If you need references you can check the back issues of the town magazine for my current town, or the CIR articles from my previous town.
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Post by Ham on May 22, 2019 11:21:46 GMT 9
sacchan R U me? Literally all of those (except the difficulty one) are the same issues I have. Here's what I've been doing: - I keep an excel spreadsheet with all of the article topics used by myself and my two preds - I also toss in there any ideas that I think *might* be usable. Not all are - for example one that's been sitting there is the fact that in the US, eggs are always put next to the dairy, and they're almost always referred to together. I haven't thought up a way to make a full article out of it yet, but the thing is that sometimes you come back a month or two later and suddenly it clicks and you have an idea how to flesh it out - As for topics, usually I source my topics from: ・ideas gleaned from procrastinating on the internet ・things I'm into at the moment (recently, I was looking up a lot of medieval recipes so I wrote an article about some of the weird things that were judged to be 'fish' back in the old days) ・Things you miss about home (festivals, holidays, foods, customs) ・Random stuff in the news (I saw an article about how the first named storm in the US has appeared, so I might write about the custom of naming tropical storms and hurricanes we have over there) ・Odd things about Japan that you're not used to (the way Japanese people drive, for example, is a topic idea sitting in my spreadsheet) (I use my soup/coworkers as a sounding board for these a lot, and usually start by asking 'So, I was curious about X...') ・Stereotypes about your home country (I wouldn't actually explicitly mention the stereotype, but for example I have an idea bouncing around that comes from the experience of being surprised when I first went over to a hulemdo's house for dinner in high school and his family said a prayer before eating, and using this to segue into how multicultural the US is) This can go either way, either by explaining that X-JIN don't actually Y, or confirming that YAPPALI X-JIN really do Y ・Random things that I've been asked about ・Linguistics (why, in English, is October the 10th month, not the 8th month?) One article I did that went over particularly well was on Japanese loanwords. Everyone knows GAILAIGO but not a lot of people, I think, know about Japanese words that have made it into other languages Phew, sorry, that was a lot, but I hope some of it helps. Also, my articles are generally in the 700-800 word range.
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Post by applecider on May 22, 2019 11:30:46 GMT 9
KOSSORI taking ideas from this thread for my own articles...
My coworker and I switch off every month so I only have to do it every other month but I've definitely run into this problem before (I don't need to write in English though) and then just start writing once I've desperately thought up a theme. Usually it ends up to do with things that are happening in the month/time it'll be published (mine are also written a month in advance), so in April I wrote a bit about how it's the new school year in Japan and new things changing over which spun off into contrasting it with my US university experiences... Then for June I wrote something about Father's Day but the focus became about how a lot of people have hulemdos they call the "dad-hulemdo" (and mom-hulemdo in passing).
The articles are about one page single spaced for me.
EDIT I posted while actually forgetting the whole reason I wanted to post in the first place, but while it hasn't happened to me yet (because I haven't done it... yet.) they really discouraged anything that they thought might be slightly "controversial", like my coworker once wanted to write about her experiences growing up with divorced parents and having a stepmother but apparently it was shot down. The article wasn't even negative or anything it was framed like just another thing that happens and it gave her a different (not negative) way of growing up and she thought it might be a good way of letting kids who've experienced the same thing seeing something relatable... Anyway that turned into a ramble but she was annoyed and so was I on her behalf >>
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Post by 𝑜𝓇𝒾𝒽𝒾𝓂𝑒 on May 22, 2019 11:51:55 GMT 9
EDIT I posted while actually forgetting the whole reason I wanted to post in the first place, but while it hasn't happened to me yet (because I haven't done it... yet.) they really discouraged anything that they thought might be slightly "controversial", like my coworker once wanted to write about her experiences growing up with divorced parents and having a stepmother but apparently it was shot down. The article wasn't even negative or anything it was framed like just another thing that happens and it gave her a different (not negative) way of growing up and she thought it might be a good way of letting kids who've experienced the same thing seeing something relatable... Anyway that turned into a ramble but she was annoyed and so was I on her behalf >> That's annoying that it was shot down, I feel like that would have been a good article too, especially since the whole point is talking about different cultures or just broadening peoples' views or knowledge of things beyond the norm =/
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sacchan
So jozu at chopsticks
Why?
Posts: 134
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Post by sacchan on May 22, 2019 15:59:09 GMT 9
TL;DR Thank you for all the responses! Dee Thank you. I should try to talk to my co-workers about this more. They always try to skirt the topic (this has become our collective nightmare)... I am not American but I think seeing others' material is always useful and I am quite interested to see your presentations as I also have to make those. I would be honored if you would send some my way leinyann Thank you. Ah, yeah. I have the same issue, both my preds are also from the same place as me. The photo idea is actually quite interesting, I wonder if they would let me do that. thelatter Thank you. Interestingly enough, I have around 30 KOHOSHI where other CIRs have columns bookmarked and 精華町 was one of them. I just looked at it the other day while searching for this month's topic. Revisiting a topic that one of my preds already talked about is quite a good idea. I will try that. Writing down keywords is also a good way to get the brain turning, thank you for your suggestions and the links. I usually take 1 full day to research, 1 full day to write the article and half a day to edit it and make corrections...I'm really slow. Ham Thank you. I'm pretty sure we were once in the same place, so that is unlikely. Ah, how do you keep it organized? I tried making a word table with topics divided by relevant months and topic and every time I open it I want to close it... I can never find anything. Same with previous columns, it is just a long list organized by month and year. That is quite interesting actually, I now want to read your columns ahah I got an idea for a topic while reading this so thank you for that too! I'm glad that I'm not the only one struggling with this, although your solutions seem much more effective than mine. It became the study. applecider Thank you. Ah, I have written about "controversial" things before, namely how people stare at foreigners in the deep inaka, and why while I know that they have no bad intentions that is uncomfortable and alienating. I think I only got away with that because I was back home when they had to edit the article. I wouldn't have thought that something like what you mentioned would be considered controversial, that sucks that they wouldn't let her write about it.
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Post by Dee on Oct 3, 2019 14:40:36 GMT 9
What software do you guys use to make your newsletters? I'm creating a KOKUSAI KORYU proposal letter to send out to other geoparks, and want to make it fun and colorful looking, but I don't have access to like Adobe Illustrator. Is there free software you would recommend?
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Post by miscreative on Oct 3, 2019 14:46:04 GMT 9
We use microsoft word
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Post by thelatter on Oct 3, 2019 15:04:27 GMT 9
What software do you guys use to make your newsletters? I'm creating a KOKUSAI KORYU proposal letter to send out to other geoparks, and want to make it fun and colorful looking, but I don't have access to like Adobe Illustrator. Is there free software you would recommend? I use Publisher for our newsletter. But I have a feeling that program is kinda rare?
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Post by Dee on Oct 3, 2019 15:08:16 GMT 9
We use microsoft word That's what I'm trying to use too, but I thought there might be an easier method. hue
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Post by Ham on Oct 3, 2019 18:06:54 GMT 9
I use Scribus. It's free and open-source, although there's a bit of a learning curve. I find it's versatile enough for my needs.
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