Recently there has been problems with drinking within fraternity houses and parties. There are numerous amounts of people who are concerned with the drinking these days because it is leading students to the hospital with alcohol poisoning or even death.
This past weekend there were three student who were admitted to the hospital at different times after fraternity parties. All three of these students were attending a fraternity party at Alpha Beta Zeta when a number of witnesses said they saw them consuming alcohol. The amount of alcohol consumption was not stated, however it did lead to these three students with being diagnosed with alcohol poisoning.
With all of these alcohol incidents occurring mainly within fraternity parties, the University is starting to take action. Two weeks ago the University President Harvey Smithville banned alcohol from fraternity houses located on campus property or within campus environs. He stated, “Any fraternity in which members have alcohol will be immediately suspended. A second offense within a year will result in banning of the fraternity for five years.
However fraternities are not too happy with this new rule. They feel that these suspensions should not happen just because of a few people messing up. One of the fraternity brothers stated, ” I am shocked that this incident has occured. I believed that everyone adhering to the University’s policy. However, I do not beleive that the entire fraternity should be held responsible for the actions of a few. I am going to ask President Smithville to reconsider his suspension of the ABZs.” The current consequence with the ABZ fraternity is still under evaluation with a suspsension.
February 26, 2010 @ 10:26 am
1. Your lead is very vague and not newsy. Find the news — the three students hospitalized — and then later bring in the “bigger questions” the news raises.
2. Your quotes are redundant in some cases, repeating information you’ve already given us — i.e. the “entire fraternity should be held responsible…” quote.
3. You need to do a better job of attributing information. What is the name and position of the fraternity brother? How do you organize a quote and the speaker’s name, according to the Stovall? Who claimed the students were at a frat party? Reread the Stovall section on quotes in chapter 5.
February 26, 2010 @ 2:49 pm
Overall, I feel like you got the main idea of the article across, but missed some important details.
1.) The lead should be more about the students who were injured and the Fraternity that was suspended. I feel like that is the more important news here.
2.)Watch grammar mistakes. For instance, the quote from Smithville is missing end quotation marks.
3.)Also, be careful with accuracy. The quote that you attributed as a brother of the fraternity was actually the interfraternity president, giving his quote much more credibility and importance.
Overall, good job getting the main ideas across, but I feel like with more names, specific information, etc., this story could be great. Nice work 🙂