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Senior Portfolio Instructions & Requirements Fall 2016

The purpose of the portfolio is to demonstrate to a jury of department faculty in your professional option what you have learned to do well during your time here, and whether or not you are ready to graduate. But portfolios also have another valuable and practical purpose for you: When you graduate, you cannot expect to be hired as a professional communicator if you can’t prove that you can do the work. The Portfolio: Your current resume should be the very first document in your portfolio. No cover letter, of course. Cover letters vary, depending on what kind of job you’re seeking, and where you’re applying. Look on-line at the department website (http://www.siue.edu/MASSCOMM/internship.html) for a handout explaining in detail how to write good resumes and cover letters. Next should be an index page: Headings on the index should correspond to labeled (printed, not handwritten) tab dividers that you will place at the beginning of each section of your portfolio. These tab dividers should protrude from the edge of the pages. Please note that, except as noted, what follows are not inclusive lists: just examples. Guidelines and requirements for each professional option: In discussing minimum numbers of examples of your work in the paragraphs below, please note: If you don’t supply the minimum number, your portfolio will automatically fall below the passing grade of 70. So consider the minimum number of examples just that: the minimum. To avoid the minimum grade, provide more than the minimum number of pieces. However, don’t go overboard and include EVERYTHNG you’ve produced. There is no magic number, but if you notice you have more than 25 pieces, you may want to ask yourself if all of those are really necessary. Your portfolio work can come from anywhere – classes, internships, jobs, previous schools, and things you created on your own. If using internship work, be sure to have permission to use it, and be sure it’s something you had considerable creative control over. Be sure to include some context for what the judge is seeing. For example, what was the assignment? What were you attempting? Especially for design work, what software did you use to create this? This is especially important for any type of group work. Be sure the judge knows exactly what your role was. Also, if you contributed to only a part of a group project, include only the part of the project that you produced. A good way to do this is to precede the piece with a brief description of the project and your role in it. Never take credit for someone else’s work. Once you’re found out, no one will want to work with you.

� Print Journalism: Your selection of original, byline stories (Alestle, other campus publications, professional newspapers and magazines) should demonstrate your skill and diversity. Ten of your bylined stories is the minimum. These stories should be grouped by publication and/or type (e.g., hard news, feature). If you have produced layouts, either for publications or in class, these additional proofs of your competence should be displayed in a separate, tabbed section labeled something like “layout and design.” The same

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applies to broadcast news copy or newscast scripts. Multimedia news examples can be shown by printing the opening page in color and referring the reader to a disc or website for the entire work. Including the Web addresses of your design work currently to be found on the Internet is helpful, too. Photocopies of byline stories should be neatly formatted on 8 1/2 by 11 paper and should include the publication's folio on that page. If it’s page one, the folio is usually included in the masthead. So reduce the size and include the newspaper’s masthead and folio on the page. Byline stories published in the paper but downloaded from a publication’s website are discouraged, because they can so easily be falsified. Employers know this and give little credit to this method of presentation. Of course, if your story only appears on the paper’s website, such as the weekly edition of the Alestle that’s published online, you of course may still use it. But be sure to state in your port narrative that printed-out stories from the web were published in the weekly Alestle web edition. For those stories that are in regular print, get in the habit, as you go, of clipping and cleanly photocopying your good work from the printed version of the paper and saving them in a safe place. Published photographs should also be formatted as cleanly as your stories. Present broadcast news story scripts or newscast scripts in a separate, tabbed section. If you’ve also studied or worked in broadcast news, feel free to include a radio or TV news demo reel, on disk or online. See formatting instructions for a demo reel below. In addition to the ten published byline stories mentioned earlier, you may also choose to include in your portfolio a separate, tabbed section featuring the best stories you wrote for class assignments. Unlike your ten byline stories, these, of course, can be unpublished. You could include those written for Feature Writing, Public Affairs Reporting, rewrites from fact sheets, wire rewrites, and other class assignments. Identify rewrites clearly as rewrite exercises, and put them in a separate, tabbed section of your portfolio, and don’t use too many of them.

� Electronic Journalism students must present no fewer than ten separate examples of radio or television news story scripts that have actually aired. They can be from WSIE-FM, SIUE Global Village or from your work at other broadcast stations. The key here is that these scripts should be your original reporting, not rewrites of other people’s stories. Copy style for work done on your internship should conform to the style of that broadcast station news department, and should be separated by tabs in the portfolio from your work done in courses here at SIUE. Work done for all SIUE Mass Comm courses must be presented in department broadcast style. See below for details. These examples of your copy should include the dates the stories aired and the name/s of the station/s or show/s. Remember that this copy must be your original reporting, not rewrites of AP wire service, web page, newspaper or other news sources. As noted above for your print journalism colleagues, you may also include a tabbed section of your portfolio with copy you have written for class assignments in MC 330, 331, 332, 333 or other TVR courses. All copy for this section should be formatted in departmental style, as found on the Mass Comm. Dept. website at: http://www.siue.edu/MASSCOMM. Electronic journalism students must also submit either a TV or a radio demo reel on CD/DVD or online. See below for instructions on how to format and present radio and TV demo reels. You may include both radio and TV demo reels in your portfolio, but you must submit one or the other. Note: It is strongly recommended that both radio and TV news students spend no less than one year reporting the news downstairs at WSIE-FM. Besides the priceless experience (it’s like an internship), you can even get a part-time job at WSIE, so it’s utterly ridiculous for anyone who aspires to a career in broadcast news to skip it.

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� TV-Radio students must present no fewer than ten separate examples of broadcast news,

commercial or PSA copy and/or other scripts, written in the department-approved broadcast style. (Examples of short radio copy such as radio liners, short news stories, promos, etc., must fill up one complete page to equal one of your required minimum number of stories.) All of these ten pieces of copy must be your original work, not rewrites of wire service, newspaper, web or anyone else’s copy. Among all of these examples, you must submit at least one commercial or a PSA. With the exception of work done on your internship or in part-time professional work, all broadcast copy must be formatted in departmental style. Go to http://www.siue.edu/MASSCOMM to download department style models. All TV-R students must submit either a video or a radio demo reel CD/DVD or online link. See below for instructions and for video or audio demo reels. You may turn in both radio and TV reels, but you must submit one or the other.

� Media Advertising portfolios must contain at least ten different “ads” (in this case “ads”

can mean print ads, billboards, direct mail pieces, flyers, and any other form of promotional material). Your ten ads must include both print ads and broadcast commercial scripts. You must also include at least one TV commercial storyboard and at least one ad campaign proposal. Any group project in your portfolio should be preceded in your narrative by a description of the entire project, an explanation of the different parts of the project, and then a clear statement of what you personally contributed to the project. Then include the portion of the campaign that you authored. Consider including media plans plus any other creative work. Keeping in mind that your objective is to show the variety of skills/experience you possess, here’s how you should organize your portfolio: After your resume and table of contents, group your materials. Order them according to the golden rule for portfolios: your best and most job-appropriate materials first. Besides what you must include, as noted in the paragraph above, other examples for advertising students can include:

� Campaigns Individual Ads Proposals � Media Plans TV Storyboards Newsletters � Brochures Feature/News Stories Press Releases � Radio/TV Commercial Scripts (must be in MC formats) � Layout and Design – Some material may focus more on design so a segment

labeled Layout and Design may be suitable. � Any media products produced at your internship

� Corporate and Institutional students must include no fewer than ten examples of

corporate or institutional media products. These examples of your work could include layouts and multimedia products, video and audio productions, feature stories, newsletters, media kits, news releases, speeches and any other writing projects you created for MC 422. In addition, other kinds of media products listed above for the other professional options can be presented. Also, students must submit one of the following:

A. A video and/or audio demo reel on a CD/DVD or online; or B. An interactive website you’ve created; or C. A section of your portfolio devoted to a significant amount of

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your print publication layouts.

Demo reels could include projects produced in such courses as MC 431 or for SIUE Global Village, or portions of longer-length corporate projects. See the Media Advertising Professional Option standards above for how to properly identify and differentiate work done by yourself in a group project. Projects such as campaign proposals should be placed in a separate section of your portfolio.

Tips for a Better Portfolio Proofread EVERYTHING, and then have a friend, relative, anyone proofread everything again. Make your portfolio as easy as to read/judge/understand as possible. The judge shouldn’t have any questions after looking at your portfolio. Never include anything with an instructor’s grades, comments, etc. Fix any problems an instructor has noted, then print a new, clean copy. For anything with color, such as ads or design work, consider getting these pages professionally printed at an office supply store on nice paper. You’ll be amazed at how big of a difference there is between an inkjet printed ad on regular paper versus a laser printed ad on nice paper. It’s the difference between looking like an amateur and a professional. For demo reels, you have the option of turning in a DVD. However, save yourself the hassle and upload your reel online. It’s less work for you and for the judge (new Macs don’t come with built-in drives). Host your reel on your own website or on a professional site like Vimeo.com instead of YouTube. The minimum number of pieces is mentioned. There is no maximum, but be careful not to overdo it. There comes a point where you can have too much in your portfolio. Part of showing that you’re a professional is knowing what to include and what NOT to include. A smaller collection of great material is much better than a larger collection including mediocre (or bad) material. EXTREMELY careful when putting projects written by a group into your portfolio. These have a tendency to include a lot of spelling and grammar errors. Even though you may not have specifically written a section, any errors in it will be attributed to you since it’s in your portfolio. If you’re including anything from two or three years ago, you may want to edit/re-write it. You’re probably better now than you were then, so something that started off as an ok idea in 204 may be able to be freshened up into something better. Some interns will work for ad agencies, P.R. agencies, etc., and may have the opportunity to write copy or do layouts for clients. Taking such copy and/or layouts with you when you leave and using them in your portfolio has some risks, unless you do it with permission and with your supervisor’s prior knowledge. If copy/layouts are already published in the media, there’s probably no problem. But if any of this work has not yet been published, you could get into big trouble if you put it in your portfolio or on your personal website. How do you set up the order for the elements in your portfolio? Here’s an example for an advertising portfolio: Resume, Index, Advertising Campaign, Individual Ads, Layout & Design, Broadcast Scripts, Storyboards, Internship.

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Present your work in a classy-looking three-ring, binder, something that at least looks like leather. They can be purchased from places like Target, Office Max, or Amazon. Remember again: put your best foot forward. Pop for the price of a nice package to sell yourself. Make sure you follow the Mass Comm format for scripts and storyboards. You may need to reformat some of your work. Be sure every script is consistent (except scripts created at an internship – these would be in whatever format the internship uses).

Present no “bare (unplasticized) pages”: Insert each individual page into its own plastic, see-through sheet. This way, after it’s been handled by faculty and perhaps a potential employer or two, these examples of your hard work will still appear clean. To handle a large publication, use Photoshop or InDesign to shrink the pages and put them onto one page (as long as it’s still legible). How you present your work is up to you, but one way that works very well is to have your Narrative (a brief paragraph about the following piece) on the left page with the actual work on the right page. This allows the reader to get an understanding of what exactly they’ll be looking at next. Be consistent in your style of presentation. Make it as convenient and pleasant as possible for them to examine your work. If you’re not posting your demo reel online, be sure that your CD/ DVD works in both PCs and Macs as well as DVD players. Also, do not use label stickers, as some DVD players will not them. For demo reels, be sure you say what you did. For example, if you directed a commercial but someone else shot it, be sure to mention that. While this specificity is not necessary when you present a reel to a potential employer, it is necessary for our portfolio judging. If another student puts the shot you claimed on his/her reel, the judge will assume someone is lying about it, and you will be called on to explain yourself. Again, never take credit for someone else’s work.

Additional Standards for Demo Reels

Demo Reels should never be longer than 6 minutes. And don’t think about showing entire productions, other than really, really good commercials. The best demo reels display the finest portions of all your productions, edited together in an attractive, entertaining, skillful way. You should “tease” viewers, just giving them a taste of the various kinds of video products you are capable of producing. However, this doesn’t mean that you should cut together a simple montage of otherwise disconnected images set to music. This doesn’t tell a potential employer anything about whether or not you can tell a story, whether it’s news, feature documentary, corporate or a commercial. So, for example, if you’re editing a news or feature package or a marketing video for use in your demo reel, give the audience a minute or less, and then fade out, dissolve to something else. This is what we mean by “just a taste.” If you can come up with a cool After Effects transition between pieces, consider using it throughout your demo reel. Don’t use a bunch of different ones: that can be a turn-off. But if you use at least one transition that has to come from a program like After Effects, it shows a sharp production manager – without having to say a word – that you have advanced chops in editing.

Audio levels should be consistent throughout the reel.

The only time randomly- edited video montages set to music would be appropriate would be if you are applying for a job just as a videographer, and the job description is clear that directing (read storytelling) skills are not required. However, on better-balanced reels as described above, a very, very short (less than a minute) montage at the end after showing “tastes” of completed

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works is acceptable, if it’s cleverly and creatively edited.

Demo Reels for radio news should feature you reading copy you have written in a short, local newscast (two minutes or less), plus selected clips from a few radio documentaries you produced and clips from one or more interviews you’ve conducted. Be sure to liberally pepper your news stories with very short actualities (sound bites). Usually these demo reels are five minutes in length or less, and absolutely no longer than eight minutes. Online senior portfolio:

Yes, it’s perfectly acceptable to turn in a portfolio created entirely on your personal website. Simply email your portfolio’s URL, along with your name, concentration area and any required password to jomorri@siue.edu and cobyers@siue.edu.

Warning: If your link does not work, meaning your portfolio website can’t be found, you will fail. Also, if links within the website don’t work, your grade will be negatively affected.

To make it easier for the judge, set up the website so that documents open when clicked on, rather than automatically downloading. Again, you want to make it as easy as possible for the judge to grade your portfolio.

A successful online portfolio must display all of the same media products and materials that are required of those turning in a paper portfolio. This includes whatever explanations needed for someone unfamiliar with SIUE and your work to understand what they are looking at or reading. There should be no difference between materials posted on your website and behind plastic in a paper portfolio, except that online, you will be displaying an additional skill: your ability to design an easy-to-navigate, easy to understand website showing off your good work.

A caveat: Some students lose many points or even fail the portfolio because of the poor technical quality of their demo reels or portfolio websites. Major problem areas for video include uneven audio levels and flash (black) framers, poor choices regarding where to cut and a lack of creativity. Audio reel problems include poor levels, unedited air checks, poor announcing skills and a lack of skillful, creative editing. Remember that faculty and potential employers are interested in both the content and the quality and creativity that went into putting your reel together. Just remember the weak points your professors noted in your production course assignments and fix them. And remember, the same professors who showed you how to improve your productions will be the people grading your portfolio now. They expect to see -- and hear – major improvement. Don’t just turn in the same mediocre stuff you got a “C” for. Turn a “C” into an “A” and then include it. Final Notes Whether you turn in an online portfolio or a physical portfolio, it wouldn’t hurt to have both. A website with your work (or just having your demo reel online) allows you to quickly and easily send it to potential employers. However, especially for work that will end up in a physical format (like print ads), it’s nice to be able to bring a physical portfolio into a job interview. It allows the interviewer a chance to flip through it while asking you questions, and it allows you to quickly point out relevant work. And finally, remember: Something worth doing is worth doing well.