Solved by verified expert:Pls follow the instruction that I have upload in the below to revising draft 21. need 3 -5 pages long 2. The second draft is to add on the information on the first one by USING RED MARKED OUT (last time you did not follow the instruction, pls read the instruction carefully this time)
journalist_s_account_draft_2_guidelines.docx
20180221145815crime_scene_writing_.doc
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Journalist’s Account: Draft 2
Instructions for Final Draft: you wrote your first draft as a fly on the wall with no people on
the scene. Now, I want you to put your detective in the crime scene. Your excerpt will begin in
much the same place as it did in Draft 1, except now it will begin with detective entering the
crime scene (office). So in addition to showing the reader the crime scene, you will also depict
your detective viewing the crime scene. You will not describe the detective’s every single
action or thought; instead you want to use the detective as a means of emphasis, and to increase
the dramatic impact of your piece.
The Detective’s Perceptions: you have two possibilities—1) Describe the detective’s actions
“externally,” giving only what is directly observable. Any perceptions or thoughts would be
conveyed through direct “quotations” (taken from hypothetical report, interviews, or newspaper
articles). 2) Do a very close “internal” narration, going inside the detective’s head to give his
thoughts. (These perceptions also must be grounded in hypothetical “research”—report,
interviews, newspaper articles, etc.—even though that won’t be explicit spelled out in the body
of your article.)
You may decide to limit yourself to one method of showing the detective’s thoughts, or you may
use a combination of both techniques.
Examples Drawn From Our Sample Readings
External:
• “Just like with a girlfriend,” an MP sergeant described it later. “As if he was crying on
her shoulder.”
• Ivory reached the apartment at 4:10 A.M. There was, he noted, “quite a stir in the
neighborhood. People were coming to their doors, coming to the house, to see what had
happened.”
• …probably the steam iron. “We could see that from the blood spray pattern,” Gruber
explained. “So it wasn’t like people were running around and trying to get away; they
were hit when they were down, helpless.”
Internal:
• “Gruber stepped into the home. There was something unreal about this; this home simply
didn’t look like the scene of a homicide.”
• “The kitchen was crowded with candles, chips and dip, hors d’oeuvres. Gruber sniffed
and turned towards the kitchen. The oven was still on; the burners had been turned down
to simmer while pots of food cooked. Everything smelled wonderful; nothing had even
begun to burn.”
• “Hank Gruber looked toward the bay window with its curving window seat, and his chest
tightened. He forced his eyes down to the rug and saw that it was spattered in spots…”
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The investigators stepped carefully past the debris left by the Seattle Fire Department’s
Medic One crew…”
“The apartment was littered with notes. Felt and Hansen gazed around the apartment and
saw them.”
“Hansen and Felt moved around the apartment. Hansen noted a scuff on the hallway of
the kitchen area, just a slight gouge in the plasterboard, probably a bullet ricochet. He
saw an ashtray and a calendar on the dining room table. Bending to read, he felt the hairs
rise on the back of his neck.”
Other Guidelines, FAQs, & Suggestions
You may use your own name for your detective, or you can make up a fictional name for
your detective (whose age, gender, etc., need not match your own). That being said, your
detective is a mere guide to the crime scene; don’t let him become the major character
who steals the show. Do not invent a history or background for your detective, or go into
long, personal digressions about him.
Your detective can help you focus the reader’s attention and create dramatic emphasis,
but don’t overuse her. (Overuse will dilute the impact of this device.) Use your detective
sparingly and with care.
Your crime scene is much less complicated that our sample excerpts. The Fatal Vision
crime scene involved three murders, a surviving victim, and several rooms of the house,
so there were a dozen cops plus EMTs milling about. Therefore McGinniss needed to
cover a lot, including dialogue between people, and their actions, which you will not
have. Your crime scene is quite different. This is only a possible missing person’s case
and as bad as it looks, it has not even been conclusively established that a crime has taken
place.
Your detective’s job was only to visually observe and record the crime scene; therefore,
that is all that you may show her doing. (Do not have her picking things up or processing
evidence, etc.)
Some of you have asked if you can write an introduction that sets the scene or shows
your detective’s arrival. The short answer is yes, you can if you like, though it is by no
means required. If you do so, keep it to a paragraph or less. (See the Ann Rule excerpt’s
description of the neighborhood and exterior of the house for an example.) Remember:
you want to get inside that crime scene as soon as possible…
I want to stress again that you must not mention Louisa Sutton’s death. The only reason I
mentioned it was because it’s part of the rhetorical situation facing you as a journalist.
But you can’t mention it. You are writing about the crime chronologically, and at the
moment you are writing about – the discovery of the office crime scene – her death was
unknown. (You’re writing an article “excerpt”; you have to imagine that if you were
writing the entire article, you would cover the developments of the month following her
disappearance and thus eventually come to the discovery of her remains.) That being
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said, while you can’t mention her death, you can suggest the possibility that something
horrible or even fatal has happened to her.
7) The Cheese Factor: remember that your goal is to emulate the high quality journalism
we’ve read from the Best American Crime Writing series. When trying to create emotion
in the reader, it is very easy to resort to melodrama and, for a lack of a better word,
cheese. You want to engage your readers’ emotions, but you don’t want to be corny or
resort to overblown schmaltz. This can seem like a shortcut to genuine emotion, so it’s
an easy trap to fall into. And I will acknowledge that some of the raw material I’ve given
you to work with – the missing bride-to-be—easily lends itself to melodrama. But you
want to aim for something more subtle and restrained, while still grabbing the reader
emotionally.
Remember Your Overall Goals:
Your goals are the same as draft 1. The only difference with this draft is that you have more
available tools that you can use to accomplish these goals. 1) Bring the crime scene to life for the
reader. 2) Help the reader see Louisa Sutton as a real person. 3) Try to engender an emotional
response or connection.
Draft 2 Tools That Can Help You Achieve Your Goals:
1) Thoughtful use of your detective.
2) “Exploding the Moment” exercise: use this technique to create a dramatic close-up or
slow motion moment. (Can be used to suggest the significance of an area of the crime
scene, or Sutton’s character, or to engage the reader’s emotions.)
3) As we discussed in class, not only can your detective have a presence (that she was trying
to avoid in her detective’s report) but your journalist’s voice or persona may also shine
through at times, despite the fact that the journalist won’t use “I”. For an example of this,
see Ann Rule’s “The Last Letter” on pages 444, 445, & 447—the “impeccably furnished”
apartment, the “irony” of the children and flower pictures, the “contradictions” of the
“Guns, flowers, blood, love notes.” If you do decide to let your journalist’s unique
perspective peek through at times, like the use of your detective, do so sparingly.
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Running head: JOURNALIST’S ACCOUNT`
The Journalist’s Account`
Name
Institution
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JOURNALIST’S ACCOUNT`
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The Journalist’s Account`
Draft One
The twenty square meters office room that Professor Louisa Sutton shared with her
colleague before her disappearance three months ago is a typical used by the university
professors of an American tertiary institution. The desk is located in the corner that lies between
the west and south walls of the room. On top of the desk was a computer printer, the victim’s
purple purse, twenty-one books that were neatly arranged in a horizontal position around the
printer. Also, on the desk of the late thirty-two-year-old writing instructor at the American
University was the porcelain sculpture of the head of a medieval woman that was bloodstained
with a strand of hair that could have made it an object of interest for the investigators. Three
medieval porcelain objects were found on the desk untouched, as well as the elephant heads.
These objects and several others on the desk of the middle-aged university professor highlight
her personality and character that would be described in subsequent sections of this article.
While they might serve as clues to the cause of the disappearance and death of the victim, the
can provide information about her interests and desires regarding the type of life she lived before
her death.
A purse with the “bride to be” inscription on the desk of the desk and the white shopping
bag that contained the “Dessy Group,” “Bridesmaids,” and Pantone Wedding that hung on the
back of the door illustrated the stage of preparation for the wedding of the middle-aged
university professor. Yes, she was about to be married to her young lover who must have served
in one of the foreign missions abroad due to the background of his image on one of the two
photo frames that were upturned on the desk. Also, she must have been in the middle of
preparation for the event before she was attacked from behind by the person that is responsible
JOURNALIST’S ACCOUNT`
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for the bloodstains on the table and eventual death. It must have a struggle between the victim
and her assailant as the upturned chair and claws of blood on her desk. Although this is not is the
official account from the police department of what happened, an examination of the crime scene
affirmed this assertion despite the ongoing investigation by the homicide unit of the police
department.
The personalized wedding invitations cards that were arranged on the desk remained
intact as the books that held them together while the scattered notes, upturned teacup, and photo
frame showed the sign of struggle between the victim and potential assailants. However, the
struggle must have begun while she was seated at her desk working because of the position of
the chair on the floor and the red marks on the desk that showed how the hand was dragged from
its initial position. On the floor close to the upturned chair were several sheets of paper that with
blood stains and the remains of her laptop computer. The nature of the damage of the computer
and blood markings on the paper sheets that were laying on the floor represented the victim’s
struggle with her the person or people that tried to kill her.
One of the things that were clear from the position of the desk, computer printer, and
well-arranged stack of books showed that the attack on the victim was from behind thereby
giving her little time to react or respond to the incident. The position of the blood marks on table
and paper items showed evidence of a struggle between the Louisa and the suspect, as the
potential impact from the left side of the body. An additional potential conclusion from the
images from the crime scene is that the injury must have been inflicted in the neck region
because of the shattered pieces of jewelry on the floor of the room near the upturned chair. The
presence of the black printer ink cartridge with bloodstains on it that are similar to the ones on
the paper materials and the porcelain sculpture on the desk should guide investigators on the
JOURNALIST’S ACCOUNT`
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events that occurred before the death of the young university professor. Also, the bookshelf and
two-seater sofa near the desk of the professor appeared intact, which showed that the struggle
between the victim and the person or people responsible for her death happened within the area
of her desk only.
Professor Louisa Sutton is a thirty- year old writing instructor at AU and is engaged to be
married to the man that appeared in the photo frame that was vividly displayed on her desk. She
is at the stage of life and career where she is meant to be happiest and achieved several major
milestones. As a beautiful academic, Professor Sutton is interested in check another important
box in the checklist of the things to do in life. She would have been married to a young man that
is the same age as her and an assumed patriot of the nation thereby completing the dream of
becoming a successful woman. Also, her charming personality and dedication to her passion
must have been the source of attraction for the military officer that planned to spend the rest of
his life with her.
Meanwhile, the victim’s level of intelligence cannot be questioned since she is a
professor of writing at a young age of thirty-two years despite the challenges and
unattractiveness of the discipline. She must be emotionally mature to handle the demands of
marriage and lecturing at the university to have made the decision to settle down. Also, the
information on the six yellow sticky notes on the six different advertisements showed a woman
that is organized and committed to ensuring that her first opportunity at marriage is a fulfilling
one. According to the daily notes and schedules on the materials, she was actively involved in
preparation for the wedding ceremony and must have desired one that is reflective of her fantasy
and desires as a young woman that is marrying her prince charming. Life must have beautiful for
JOURNALIST’S ACCOUNT`
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Professor Sutton before her death because she has a successful career and ready to move to its
next stage of probably starting a family with her husband.
Furthermore, a look at this crime scene showed that the real motive of the killer is
difficult to understand. What does him or her stands to gain from the death of an individual that
is contributing to the development and growth of our society? Is this a crime of passion or
jealousy or just the outcome of a power struggle within university community? Although all
these scenarios are possible sources of information from the investigating officers involved in the
resolution of this crime, my examination of this particular scene showed that the death of
Professor Sutton could have been caused by any of these reasons and several others that remain
unclear. However, what is clear is that this murder is an unusual one since the only clue at the
same is the footmarks of the shoes of the suspect. While this evidence might be a strong one and
valuable piece of information for the police, it might be several months or even years to narrow
the shoe marks to a list of potential suspects.
In my years of crime reporting, I have never been filled with the kind of emotions that I
felt when I entered the office of Professor Sutton to gain insights into the factors responsible for
her death. Normally, the presence of weeping friends and relatives are the sources of these
feelings during my presence at the scene of a homicide or murder, but their absence, in this case,
makes it more traumatizing and difficult to bear. Although I am younger than this victim, it is
impossible not to relate to the items and materials at her desk and others on the floor. For
example, the wedding materials reminded me of the efforts and time invested in the preparation
for my dream wedding. Also, it highlighted the importance of the desire of the bride to make the
day a perfect one that is filled with joy and happiness in ways that allow her to live every
moment as they occur. Therefore, the sadness of seeing those dreams taken away from her and
JOURNALIST’S ACCOUNT`
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friends and family is too much for anyone to bear. Personally, I must confess that the images of
the blood stains on the items on the floor would traumatize me for a very long time.
The list of books on her desk showed a woman that is interested in the literary works of
female writers and other authors from the classic era. She was interested in Victorian literature
that depicted the role of women from different perspectives thereby creating a provocative,
informative and illuminating opinion of the plights of their different characters. Although a
visitor to the crime scene cannot ascertain whether these books are instructional materials for the
university or a representation of her interests in the classic, the twenty-one books are enough for
me to understand the character and personality of Professor Sutton. For example, the Madwoman
in the Attic belonged to the category of works that criticized most of the practices of the
twentieth-century and illustrated their impact on the role of women during the era. Therefore, our
victim is not just a lover of this genre of literature but a researcher into the ideas and concepts
contained in them.
A further examination of the materials at the crime scene showed that the deceased was
an animal lover since she had the photo of two dogs and willing to spend the rest of her life with
a man with similar interest. Also, she must have been a lover of Shakespearean romance because
the theme of the wedding invitation is based on this genre of literature. Interestingly, this is not
surprising when one considers the fact that the collection of the twenty books on her desk
included those written by authors in the romance genre. Although these materials could also
represent her area of specialization in the arts and literature, the print and DVD version of the
Pride and Prejudice showed a woman with a very romantic person that believed in childhood
fantasies and dreams.
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While police investigation continued into the identity of the person that murdered this
young and beautiful academic, it is difficult for us to ascertain the cause of the crime and the
event that led to her death. However, information from the personal and work items that are
located at the scene of the incident highlighted a woman that was social, likable and excited by
the opportunity to exchange her marital vows with her husband. She never allowed her
responsibilities and duties to her employers deter her from planning and fulfilling the childhood
fantasies of her wedding ceremony. The invitations were addressed to specific individuals, the
bridesmaids were selected, and she continues to plan her schedules in ways that would allow her
to become an integral part of her wedding ceremony.
…
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