My intention going into this project, when I first thought up the idea as my proposal in the rhetorical analysis essay, was for the refugee feature stories to go on the website and be a way for the potential volunteers and donors to understand more about the individuals NICE helps and the work they do in the refugee community. However after our interview with Amadar she asked where the interview would go and we told her NICE’s website and she seemed pleased that she would be able to see it there, so I must amend my idea of audience to include the refugees themselves. I am sure that if someone were featured in a profile, his or her friends in the refugee community would love to read it as well.
In writing the story, I tried to stick to the facts of what Amadar had told us as much as possible. That is, I tried not to infer anything that she may not have intended. The story’s first draft included a few of these inferences, so I tried to change them into more factual statements when I did the second draft. One of my group members then thought the story would benefit from more direct quotes from the interview in places where we had simply paraphrased. I think this was a good final choice for the writing process. While it may have taken away some of the color and flair of the writing, it allowed Amadar to speak directly to the reader.
This is what is most important, especially since the profile is short and the interview questions were basic. That was another thing that affected how I wrote the story. Kathy pared down our original interview questions to the most basic ones. This was fine, of course, but I had originally thought the profiles would be more in depth. However, her edits changed my mind. This did not need to be a serious journalistic piece delving into someone’s private past, but rather a brief and happy glimpse at the new lives of the refugees NICE helps.
Read the refugee feature stories here