COMM 313: Editorial Processes
Broadsheet computerized pagination exercise

You're section editor for a weekly broadsheet features page. As your newspaper circulates mostly on regional college campuses, you aim for the student/faculty audience.

What you'll learn:
• How to work with broadsheet size.
• How to choose type styles to make an attractive layout.
• How to choose stories and headlines appropriate to the publication's audience.

Instructions:
1. Open New document. In dialogue box choose Custom, and set up a broadsheet newspaper page. Dimensions: 133p by 81p, tall format, turn off double-sided. Margins 6p all around. Set up 6-column grid: 6 col, 2 p between each col. Be sure you have a broadsheet layout before continuing!

2. In Preferences, Units & Increments dialogue box, change vertical ruler to Inches. This allows you to measure in column inches.

3. Lay in advertisements: Taste of India 6X4 (six col by four col inches); Old Broadway 4X4; Concordia Language Villages, 4X4. Draw single 1 pt rules to indicate the ads, just as you did for the dummy sheets, and write names and sizes on the blocks in 24 pt type. (Your advertising staff will put in the ads later.)

4. On your disk, set up a New Folder, entitled broadsheet. Drag stories and photo in from class server, "broadsheet" file folder, or download the material below:

Food
Lake
Comm stats
ND stats
Sleep
Writing

Photo:
Students

5. Bring each story into MS Word to run a spell check (or spell check in InDesign), and decide which stories you'll want to use based on content. Edit stories. You may wish to set up one team member as "slot person" (copy editor), another as "rim person" (headline writer), and a third as "graphics editor" (makeup editor).

Use your editorial judgment: choose the stories you think would work best for your section and your readers. Some may be inappropriate for your "news mix." You don't have to use every story available. Lay in stories as you wish, leaving room for headlines. Keep a Copy Control Sheet as we did earlier to indicate your placement choices. You may add a page and jump stories. Note: think modular layout (rectangles). Use bf (boldface) for bylines and jumplines. You may need to cut to fit, but cut judiciously, not just lopping off the bottom! You should have at least three stories on the page.

You'll very likely wish to use the photo, if it fits your layout, but it's up to you. Crop if necessary. Cutline: Graduate students at North Dakota State University, Fargo, come from around the country and around the world.

6. Write heds. Hed at the top of page (probably under a longer story) should be at least 60-1 or 48-2. Avoid making heds too small, which will not look attractive on a broadsheet page, unless a story is only four or five col in. Of course, sizes also suggest the importance of the story.

7. Be sure to leave enough space between elements! Leave 3 p between heds and text for larger heads (above 36 pt); leave 2 p between heds and text for smaller heds (below 36 pt). Avoid using Auto leading for multiline heds larger than 18 pt., as the space looks unattractively large. Set solid often looks more attractive. Highlight the headline, choose leading (upper right A/A in Character palette), and narrow the leading to bring lines of head closer together.

8. Style heds and text as you wish, but each should be from a different family, or look quite different from each other, for contrast. Use the same typeface for all heds, but add contrast by trying bf, ital, decks, kickers, condensed, expanded, varied sizes, etc. Body text should be no larger than 10 pt, and avoid choosing monospaced type such as Courier, New York, Chicago or Monoco. (Fonts named after cities are generally screen fonts, and not designed for printing.)

9. Proofread your layout. Hand in assignment for grading by e-mailing it to me as a PDF attachment, ross.collins@ndsu.edu. Be sure to save it under your names, add your names somewhere to the layout, or add your names to the body of the e-mail, so I know it's yours.

12. Hand in Copy Control Sheet separately.