Lincoln-Douglas Debate Newspaper Reflection

I am satisfied with final product of our newspaper article covering the seventh debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. I believe my best individual contribution to the newspaper article was my section of writing. My section covered Lincoln’s view of the Dred Scott case, whether he had publically complained about the case decision or if Stephen Douglas was simply making false accusations in order to mislead the public of Lincoln’s views of slavery. I feel that my lede is strong enough to capture the attention of the reader, yet it does not drone off into a run-on sentence. I was able to trim several quotes that I originally did not understand, and incorporated them sensibly in my writing.

Another element of the article that I am proud of is my caption for my picture. My caption: Lincoln and Douglas "Duke it out" in the seventh round of debates for the title of Illinois Senator. Lincoln withstood Douglas' Dred Scott cheap shot, and reaffirmed his views regarding slavery. The picture that I chose was a political cartoon of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas boxing in an arena; my caption perfectly described the picture and related it to my specific section of writing.

Although there are many elements of the newspaper that I am proud of, there are some aspects of the poster that I believe could be improved. One of the first areas of the newspaper that I noticed could be improved was the spacing between different sections of text. It seemed like all three of our article did not have enough separation from each other, the different articles seemed crowded together. This could have easily been avoided if we had taken a little more time to space out the different sections or repositioned each section slightly up.

Another area of the newspaper that we could have improved was the spatial relationship between the pictures and writing. I believe that the pictures accounted for too much space of the newspaper, the majority of the newspaper should consist of the actual written articles. I believe our final product would have look more professional if we had simply reduced the dimensions of the newspaper, allowing the text to account for the majority of the space and the images to be scaled down.

I believe that this project was very challenging due to the limited amount of time we were granted, however I believe that the time constraints motivated me to work at a faster and more efficient rate. On the very first day of this project I realized that I had to quickly choose the topic of my writing; I chose to write about Lincoln’s opinion of the Dred Scott case. I used more time to research my topic and my draft than I had originally hoped, but I believe that doing so was a good investment towards the newspaper.

Prior to this project, I had very little experience using the application InDesign, I was learning some of the basics of the program while designing the newspaper. I did not let my inexperience with the program discourage my efforts to produce a final product that I could proudly display. I managed my time well while designing the newspaper, trying not to concern myself too much with the fine details but more so the general organization and flow of the articles. I leaped out of my comfort zone, but I confidently landed on my feet.