My personal experience of what I did
Back in September, when I returned to university for my third year, I was made aware in my lectures for the module Sports portfolio 2 that 120 hours of work would need to be completed by May 9, whether in person at the workplace or online in the forms of remote working, which I have since become accustomed to due to the challenges that have come with covid-19 in the last few years. After considering what kind of placements, I wanted to pursue, I contacted Gareth Rogers, whom I was previously acquainted with and had done some work with in second year. I was pleased to learn that Gareth could provide me an 8-week placement, with him overseeing it with the chance for some of my work being featured on the FAW Trust website. I was a little concerned about starting the placement since I hadn’t written for someone in a while and felt I was out of practise. However, I was assigned to do an interview with Neil Taylor, a Welsh international and former Premier League footballer. I was given free rein to write the piece in whatever style I wanted and for as long I desired, which I believe Gareth did really well, especially since it was my first piece. He could see what I was capable of when I was allowed to do what I wanted with something. I ended up producing a 6–700-word quotes piece at first, but I subsequently converted it to a longer winded piece that was more readable, and once it was published on the FAW website, I was really quite proud of that accomplishment.
The feedback I received and my responses to it
I always appreciate constructive criticism on how I can improve the current piece I’m working on or what I should remember to do in the future to avoid running into the same problems. “I’ve had a go with this, mostly to put it in our style, but I wonder if you could do a bit more research on Neil Taylor and turn it into a nice long-read,” Gareth said. Attempt 1,000 words, be creative, and let me know how it goes.” My response was, of course, to take another look at the piece and try to enhance it to the quality Gareth desired. The post ended up being a lengthier read and much improved as a consequence of solid constructive feedback from Gareth and me appropriately reacting to it.
The skills I learnt or further developed
I believe that one of the new abilities I learned while working on this essay was how to write in many styles. Obviously, each journalist has their own particular style that is unique to them, or they may follow the writing style of a company, which, again, has many styles. In this situation, I learned how to write in the FAW style, which was useful because I’d need to write in that manner for the remainder of the placement. I improved my research abilities by going out and diving more into Neil Taylor’s career, discovering stuff I didn’t know about him to add to the post and make it more engaging. I also improved my interviewing and time management abilities. Working to a schedule has always been something I’ve found difficult, so accomplishing everything on time was beneficial for me in this regard. Overall, I consider my first few weeks on placement with the FAW to be a success. I got my work published and received positive comments, which I used to improve my future work.
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