View a FREE sample

This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 3: Chapter 9, "Living the News" through Chapter 12, "That Is So Last Year".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In Chapter 6, "Source Code," Foster talks about the change in value over time of a reporter's eyewitness testimony. What does Foster call this change in value?
(a) The transfer of source validity.
(b) The economy of information.
(c) The price of detail.
(d) The decline of presence.

2. The section of this book called "What's Going on Around Here?" is what part of the book?
(a) A foreward.
(b) A preface.
(c) The introduction.
(d) An appendix.

3. In Chapter 2, "The Ecology of the Nonfiction Biosphere," what does Foster say is the point of having a variety of media sources?
(a) Accuracy.
(b) Depth of coverage.
(c) Appealing to different readers.
(d) Time.

4. In Chapter 8, "Bringing the News," one of the main points that Foster wants to make about All the President's Men is what?
(a) Woodward and Bernstein faced serious obstacles in investigating the Watergate story.
(b) Woodward and Bernstein used too many anonymous sources.
(c) All the President's Men is a work of nonfiction.
(d) It is unusual for people to write about themselves in the third person.

5. In Chapter 7, "All in How You Look at Things," Foster discusses Pollan's How to Change Your Mind as an example of what?
(a) Why self-help books can use many non-chronological structures.
(b) Science writing that does not use chronological order.
(c) Why self-help books are better off using a chronological structure.
(d) Science writing that begins in media res.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is being discussed in Chapter 10, "From the Inside Out," when Foster says that the "form and tone of the essay must fit the writer like a suit" (144)?

2. In Chapter 5, "It May Just Be Me, But..." what does Foster say about offering equal space and analysis to opposing arguments?

3. In Chapter 2, "The Ecology of the Nonfiction Biosphere," what does Foster say is the difference between "hard news" and "soft news"?

4. In Chapter 12, "Life from the Inside," why does Foster think Ambrose chose Merriwether Lewis's perspective for his history Undaunted Courage?

5. In Chapter 6, "Source Code," what does Foster call the "gold standard" of sources (63)?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 454 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample