For the last three weeks I have been working on my Final major project and in that time I feel that I have had some success. First of all I have clarified my three articles, so I know exactly what I am now covering in my investigation. I also went and saw Dan Scutt, who is our Journalism librarian if you like who can help me with different reading resources and interviewees.

I made an appointment to go and see Dan as I was just struggling with other potential interviewees for my third story on hybrid vehicles. He was very helpful and I manged to find a vast amount of people who I could talk to for my articles. I have currently contacted four people and have had four responses and all giving me quotes and answers, so I have learnt that there are people out there who are interested in the topic and are willing to help me with my investigation.

Last week I had my presentation, which I presented to my supervisor (Martin Buckley) and second set of eyes (Chris Richards). I produced a 20 slide, 10 minute PowerPoint presentation, which covered what I would be covering in my Final major project, why I chose the subject, who I will be writing for, potential interviewees, hypothesis, egal and ethcial considerations and even a fishbone sturcuture of how I am willing to plan my three articles.

I decided to bring in a couple of example magazine for whom I’d be writing for (AutoExpress and AutoCar) as this shows that I am keen to learn more about the topic and that I do read their publications, also I won’t lie, but I was nervous about presenting because even though I had done a mock presentation in front of Martin a couple of weeks ago, some small criticisms like, make it look more attractive and stop stretching out your images made me really want to improve my presentation to the best it can be.

I felt that my presentation went well, I do find when I’m put on the spot and under pressure that I do talk very fast and I get confused with my language and Martin did pick up on that. I also went slightly over 10 minutes as another thing I find when I’m nervous is I talk too much and get sidetracked with what I’m talking about. I struggled with answering thew questions because they were unexpected and I was thinking that the questions that they would have asked me would be do with how do electric and hydrogen cars work? and not with the the circulation on my publications are, especially when the figures are not available online.

But despite some criticism, I achieved a 68 or B1 which is very good, I was a little bit disappointed that I didn’t achieve a first which is 74, but I wasn’t far short and knowing that I had done my best is fine by me.

For the Christmas holidays I intend to carry on contacting further interviewees to start building on my second and third story.

This week I have managed to contact four of my potential interviewees and I have had all four respond. One, I am still waiting for answers but she has agreed to answer my questions. One thing I found was that, one of my interviewees didn’t respond, but with a polite reminder e-mail I had answers from him within an hour which is quite interesting to behold for future interviewees.

My presentation is going well and I have listened to Martin’s advice from last week when I did a mock presentation in front of the class. I need to add more slides with less information and the idea is for the viewers to quickly glance at the screen and focus back to me. The whole point is for me to present and demonstrate my knowledge and expertise in my final major project. I have included more photos and less info to make the presentation stand out a bit more and I am hoping to present my final major project pitch to Martin and another member of staff by 5th December. Overall, this week I have made a lot of progress with my final major project.

This week I started my first presentation, which is due to be handed in on the 5th December. I started a few slides, but Martin said that I need to cut the bullet points down for each slide to around 7-8 words on each line. This is to make my presentation short and straight to the point, so that when presenting, my audience look at me for a majority of the time. I have contacted a few of my interviewees and had responses, which is a really positive start.

I decided to contact the interviewees for my first story, which is a local angle on the infrastructure and investment into electric cars in Hampshire i.e. Portsmouth and Southampton. My first interviewee is based in Portsmouth and the motoring magazine I’m writing for (CarDealer) is also based in Portsmouth, so this has great links to the story. I have also had a response from an electric car owner who is a former journalist and publisher, I will be talking to her in the next couple of days about living with an electric car in Hampshire and what are the positives and negatives.

This week I completed near enough my project pitch. I covered everything I wanted to know and investigate whilst finding out enough information for when I come to present my first presentation on the 4th December. Martin, my supervisor and lecturer had a look at my project pitch, he wanted me to look at my syntax, as he was saying that I was writing without knowing the meaning and I could if I was going into the profession be brought down on it, or in some cases liable for misrepresented information. An example in my project pitch was when I said ‘this is contributing to climate change’. This doesn’t make sense and it is very misleading to think that cars are helping the earth’s climate to cool down. It would have been better for me to have said ‘in a bid to reduce the chances of climate change’. I should have read back my work more thoroughly, because if I had, he wouldn’t have picked out this silly mistake.

On the whole though, Martin seemed pretty impressed with my work, which gave me great confidence and made me prepare for my first presentation. This weekend I will start the process of contacting some of my possible interviewees. My first interviewees I will contact will be for my first article which is the local angle towards electric cars and the infrastructure across Hampshire and Dorset. I will be contacting Cllr Steve Leggett, cabinet member for green city in Southampton, Katie Heskett, electric car owner and former journalist and publisher and Ryan Carter, environmentalist in Southampton.

This week I have been focusing on getting my project pitch done, this is primarily due to me wanting to get everything done in enough time for me to plan and structure my project over the coming months. Martin my supervisor told he wants my project pitch done by the end of this week and if so, I can then go through it with him and we and tweak it where necessary, so it can link and I make a good presentation for him in December. He also this week wanted me to go a look for further contacts, I have found people in research for hydrogen fuel cells. They are professor Robert Steinberger at the University of Birmingham and Mike Copson, who is the business development manager for hydrogen at Shell. These are two possible contacts for my hydrogen story who will be targeted towards an AutoExpress audience.

For my first story, I am targeting at a local audience and angle, hence why I’m looking into Hampshire and Dorset’s electric car infrastructure and I have found Councillor Steve Leggett, who is the Cabinet member for green city in Southampton. He would be a great interviewee at a local angle as he would know where all of the charging points and future points are being places and what else cities like Southampton are doing to contribute to the electric revolution. I am writing this story in the style of my work experience magazine, which is CarDealer.

This week I have been writing up my project pitch as I want to start early on my project so I can time, plan and structure my way through my final year of University. I have decided for my three print articles that I would focus mainly on electric and hydrogen cars. The first article would focus on a local angle towards Hampshire and Dorset on what is being done in terms of infrastructure for alternative fuelled cars, I have also found a couple of possible interviewee’s for this article including a councillor for Hampshire dealing with the environment and what is being down to help electric car owners in Hampshire. There is also an Environmentalist I found in Southampton and I know an owner of an electric car, so she would be a great person to talk to about charging times, range anxiety, prices and what her electric car is like to live with.

I am aiming my target audience at an Autoexpress audience and judging by their features and stories they have around 1,000-1,500 words per article and around 2-3 interviewee’s per article. Martin my lecturer said to me this week in a 1-1 tutorial session that I can aim for a first for my major project which gives me great confidence and shows that Martin believes in me, that if I push myself to my best ability I will succeed.

My second article will focus on hydrogen cars, why they haven’t really caught on with private buyers, why there are so few hydrogen filling stations in the UK and what goes into producing them.

I have decided for my final major project that I would research on a topic that really gets me interested, and one topic in particular is emissions with cars, more specific electric and hydrogen cars. We are told that they are the future, but are they? I want to find out more about these cars, they are becoming more popular on Britain’s roads, but with a 1.7% on new car sales going to electric and only two hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on sale today, is there something we don’t know and why they are still not as popular as traditional internal combustion engined cars.

I haven’t quite decided the angle I want to tackle to tell my audience something they don’t know, but I am prepared to find out something that I don’t know myself. I want to clarify with my lecturer Martin first on what route to go down, because I want my final major project to demonstrate my expertise and knowledge in this sector. I am doing a three main print articles as the profession I want to go down is motoring journalism , which focuses on a lot of print base production, and by creating three main print articles with images and interviewee’s will show to my future employer the skills I have to fulfil in my career and they would expect.

Currently in my research, I have looked into the infrastructure and market for alternative fuelled cars. Even though we have more electric chargering points than petrol stations, the problem is that they are inconvieniently placed, making journeys more anxious for electric car driver’s. Hydrogen on the other hand is lacking in filling stations with only 17 in operation in the UK. In Germany, there are currently 60 hydrogen filling stations, so is the UK just not up to speed with the rest of Europe tackling the rise in low-emission cars?

Another problem alternative fuelled cars are having to face are their running costs, or shall I say, lacking in running costs. Petrol and diesel car owners pay road tax and fuel tax, but electric and hydrogen cars, they don’t produce any emissions, meaning no road tax and no fuel is needed apart from hydrogen which doesn’t comply with tax yet. This shows that the government are receiving no money from these eco-conscious car owner’s, so instead the government have suggested a pay-per-mile scheme in which you will pay tax on how far your journey is. The longer the journey, the more tax you’ll pay. This complies to all car owner’s electric, hydrogen, petrol, diesel and hybrid.