Journalistic Practice: Caption Writing

Here are six illustrations with accompanying notes. Write captions of no more than 45 words for each of the first five illustrations.

Print out your work (using the Print button on your browser's toolbar) and hand it in to your instructor.


1			SmokeFree Educational Services The SmokeFree Educational Services has sponsored a contest for grade-school students in the city. The contest was directed at having the students show the risks and dangers of smoking. Students were to submit cartoons that they had drawn, and the winning entries would be made into posters that would be distributed throughout the city school system. This is one of the winning entries. It was drawn by Craig Perrino of Public School No. 50.




2			Bob Thayer, The Providence Journal As part of a photo essay on a local beauty school, the Arthur Angelo School of Cosmetology and Design, Bob Thayer took this photo for the Sunday Providence Journal Magazine. Student Karen Zajac is maneuvering a mannequin head into position for her lesson in coiffure management. The School has 200 trainees who learn how to give manicures and pedicures, put life into tired faces and make hair full and glamorous.




3			Mike Roemer Every summer thousands of motorcyclists all over the country polish and tune up their bikes for the long drive to the Black Hills of South Dakota where they gather in the small town of Sturgis for a week of partying, serious biker talk and forays into the hills and valleys. The elegantly designed motorcycles are matched by the varied, gaudy and sometimes revealing costumes of the bikers and their friends.




4			The Library of Congress Next week on the campus of Mallory College a series of talks, seminars and exhibits will highlight the celebration of Martin Luther King Day. James Gregory, chairman of the College Afro-American Studies Department, will speak on "King's Legacy" Monday at 8 p.m. in the campus auditorium to open the week-long celebration. Following his talk, a reception will be held to open a photo-exhibition, "Martin Luther King: A Message for All Times." This photo from the collection of the Library of Congress is one of the 45 photographs that will be on display.




5			Betty Tichich, Houston Chronicle In many Mexican-American communities, when a girl reaches the age of 15 a celebration is held called the quinceañera. Several young women take part in the celebration that begins with services in church and continues with a lavish party that can attract as many as 800 friends and relatives of the women, who wear gowns that are often imported from specialty clothing stores in Mexico. This is the celebration when a girl becomes a woman, said the mother of Anabell Garza, shown here putting on makeup before the family leaves for church. Some families spend thousands of dollars on the event. For young women from families with limited incomes, sponsors pick up the expenses.




6			Here are some excerpts from a talk by George Q. Banks, director of the Freeport Welfare Department, at Journalism Day at Mallory College. Your editor tells you to make the caption cover the event, that there will be no story. He allows you 75 words: Increasingly, the media are entertainment and scandal oriented. In 1977, four of Time magazine's covers featured entertainment or a celebrity. Twenty years later, Time devoted twice as many covers to these subjects. Last year, the word "sex" appeared 14 times on the cover of Glamour magazine and 26 on the cover of Cosmopolitan. The real story, the real scandal is the condition of the poor. The United States has a larger percentage of children in poverty (22 percent) than any other industrialized nation. The proportion of children who die before they are five years old is higher than Cuba's and equal to Jamaica's. Our infant mortality rate is the highest in the western world. But we need not look too far for child poverty. Freeport--as you can see from this photograph--has its own pockets of poverty where children face a dim future. Surely, the media can devote some of their attention to reality instead of subjecting us to a constant din of entertainment, sex and the so-called heroes who play basketball, baseball and football.

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