IJ/Reflective analysis

 

What topic the student had chosen

 

Why? And was it a progressive/successful investigation

 

The topic I’d chosen for my investigative journalism piece was about Neuroplasticity and how it can be utilised (if it can be utilised) to restore (even heighten) skills that can be learned or brought back up if damage occurs in the brain.

 

 

 My piece also examines the ability of the brain’s plasticity during the ages of 10-50 and if plasticity can be used to help elderly people who possibly suffer from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease or something leisure based such as learning or relearning how to play the piano.

 

Achievement and challenges through the process?

 

Achievements

I managed to achieve gathering a very good interview with an expert neurologist at St Georges’s hospital, this helped me gain a better angle of where I wanted to go with the story. The neurologist really went into detail in answering my questions, he mentioned something regarding the matter that I did disagree with in solitary, which I wanted to add to the angle of the story.

 

CHALLENGES

The challenges through the process were gathering the data analysis, getting an interview or even footage from an elderly person or gaining content regarding their perspective of the matter. This was hard because I didn’t really know where to start at the time and was more focused on getting footage of a neurologist in action which wasn’t a very smart direction to look as I was punching above my weight to what I could get as content with the time I had to submit the work.

 

It would’ve been convenient to find an interview with an elderly person who could express their experience with neurologic disease or even someone looking after them.

 

I  didn’t comprehend the format of the journalistic piece, I wrote my first initial draft as a normal news story which wasn’t the instructions for the assessment.

 

The data was hard for me to gather as I didn’t know where to start, maybe a survey poll on social media.

 

The reason for this is due to me not thinking through exactly how I could make my own data for the topic.

 

How do I find my interviews?

 

I started by searching for specialists in the neurologist field, rang some neuroscience departments and ask if anyone was available in their departments to set up an interview, I’m doing for a university project.

 

After getting no word back I decided to go to St Georges’s hospital to see if any neuroscientists were available to set up an interview in their free time during the week.

 

I managed to find someone who was finishing work and leaving, they took the time to listen to what I had to say and were intrigued, at that moment he decided to give me an interview in the hospital before leaving as I had my questions ready on my phone.

 

What would you have changed?

 

Choosing a topic that wasn’t conducive to the task at hand, might’ve needed more resources and time, and should’ve simplified or done a topic more accessible.