Burton St. John's Other Projects
Here you'll find examples of various long and short format non-fiction pieces.
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Short articles
Some storylines call for shorter pieces. With three decades of experience writing short articles, you'll find below some examples of my writing.
To discuss your story ideas, contact me at webspinner1@verizon.net
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As the contributing writer for a school of nursing magazine, who wrote all the stories for the publication, I had the privilege of meeting a wide range of individuals (nursing providers, nursing educators, and patients) who provided first-person accounts of how they met the challenges of today's complicated health care system. To see the range of stories I developed, go to the ODU School of Nursing Magazine site.
One of the biggest challenges in telling someone's story is to do it well within the space confines of an especially short piece. Below you'll see how I accomplished this regarding a person who had a very big story.
Reports
A good story often involves the effective marshalling of evidence. For over thirty years, I've been using reports to communicate evidence to clients' audiences in an understandable format . Many of these reports are held in confidence by my clients, but you'll find an example below.
To discuss your story idea, and what format can work best for you, contact me at webspinner1@verizon.net
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HAMPTON ROADS RESILIENT REGION REALITY CHECK
This report detailed how more than 130 people (government officials, non-profit workers, businesspeople, and residents) saw the story of climate change affecting the greater Norfolk/Virginia Beach area. Here is the report.
Points of view
A good story requires more than simply the facts -- it must have a compelling point of view. Below you'll see some examples of my writing approach in this area.
To discuss how to best convey your point of view through a story, contact me at webspinner1@verizon.net
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An international magazine was interested in how ethics could be seen as central to public relations work, and I was glad to help tell this particular story. Here's the full piece at Communication Director.
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Proposed changes to the U.S.'s health care system meant for-profit health care companies needed to embark on extensive risk and crisis communication. In this piece, I use both my professional and academic backgrounds to offer a brisk analysis of these companies' efforts. You'll find it at The Conversation.
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Part of knowing good stories is having an eye and ear for what journalists are doing. I wrote this piece for a major daily on how journalism needs to adjust its practices. You can find it here.
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