JUPITER CHRISTIAN SCHOOL – “The Beak” newspaper that you are reading right now may seem simple, but there is actually a bigger process that goes into it. From formatting by Mr. Fields to rough drafts to final drafts it can definitely seem like an extensive process sometimes.

During the article writing process, we start with a rough draft which is essentially the version of the article that hasn’t yet been revised. “Writing a rough draft is basically writing the main article but with typos and errors before Mr. Fields helps us fix them,” says Mary Scott, a reporter for “The Beak”. After the rough draft comes the final draft. These are essentially the finalized versions of each of the articles in the newspaper before it is laid out. Completing the final draft of an article includes peer revision where we all look at the different articles on the board and review them. The articles are checked for misspellings and other errors to make them the best versions that they can possibly be.

After all the articles in “The Beak” are fully written and ready to be published, the newspaper needs to be formatted. This is when Mr. Fields, our Director of Student Publications, puts all of the articles into an easy to read format. “We don’t format the paper, but thankfully Mr. Fields does a good job of doing it for us,” says Mary Scott. When formatting the paper, Mr. Fields must make enough spacing for each article in order to make it look neat as well as double checking that everything is written precisely.

Once our beloved newspaper is formatted, we have to bring the final newspapers to our interviewees to make sure it is all up to code and that everything is just as they want. “I think we do this to make sure everything is factual so we don’t mess with people or say anything they wouldn’t want us to,” Mary Scott explained. Finally, after this process which normally takes 1-2 weeks, our newspaper gets published, most of the time the newspaper is published digitally but once a quarter we get all our articles published physically for everyone to grab and read.

That’s everything that has to be done to make sure “The Beak” is the easy to read, factual, and organized newspaper that you are reading right now!