{"id":"career-cold-email-local-newspaper","audience":"high-school","category":"career","technique":"tone","track":"writing","title":"Email a local editor about a summer internship, briefly","free":false,"task":"You want a summer internship at your town newspaper, which doesn't advertise one. Get an email under 100 words, plain text, to the editor who handles community news, with a subject line starting \"Subject:\". Link one clip, ask for a 15-minute chat rather than a job, and say you can work unpaid only through the school's credit program, which only you know about. Sign off exactly \"Thanks, Ruby Chen\".","materialLabel":"Your notes (attached to your prompt automatically)","material":"MY NOTES (Ruby Chen, 11th grade, Fairview High)\n\nThe paper: Elkford Gazette, weekly, 6 staff\n- Editor-in-chief: Martin Hale (does politics and the front page)\n- Community editor: Dana Ortiz (school news, local events, the Saturday \"Neighbors\" page)\n- Their site says \"We don't have a formal internship program\"\n\nMe:\n- writer for the Fairview Falcon (school paper), 2 years, 14 articles\n- best clip: my story on the cafeteria composting program, fairviewfalcon.example/compost\n- also wrote a review of the spring musical, it was fine\n- I took Journalism 1 (A) and I'm in Journalism 2 now\n\nAsk: shadow or help with the Neighbors page this summer\n- I can only do June and July (August is band camp)","rules":[{"type":"maxWords","max":100},{"type":"plainText"}],"mistakes":[{"title":"Writing to the wrong editor","why":"The AI writes to the editor-in-chief, the first name it sees.","fix":"Add: \"Write to Dana Ortiz, the community editor.\"","checks":["r0"]},{"title":"Asking for too much","why":"The AI asks for an internship outright, which is easy to say no to when none exists.","fix":"Add: \"Ask for a 15-minute chat, and link my compost story.\"","checks":["r1"]},{"title":"Leaving out the credit program","why":"The AI can't know your school offers credit, and an editor may worry about paying you.","fix":"Add: \"Say I can work unpaid through my school's credit program.\"","checks":["r2"]},{"title":"Trusting the AI to count words","why":"AI is bad at counting. Ask for a total and it often lands 20% over.","fix":"Cap each part: \"5 sentences, each under 16 words.\"","checks":["maxWords"]},{"title":"Forgetting where it's going","why":"AI adds bold and headings that show up as stray symbols in an email.","fix":"Add: \"Plain text, no bold, no headings.\"","checks":["plainText"]}],"promptHints":[{"label":"Picks the right editor","patterns":["dana","ortiz","community editor"]},{"label":"Makes a small ask","patterns":["15.?min","chat","coffee","not a job"]},{"label":"Mentions the credit program","patterns":["credit","unpaid"]},{"label":"Links a clip","patterns":["link","clip","compost"]},{"label":"Sets a length limit","patterns":["\\d+\\s*words","word (limit|count)","under \\d+"]}],"hint":"Cold emails work when they go to the right person with a small ask. Tell the AI who, the ask, the clip, and what only you know about the credit program.","rubricLabels":["The greeting is to Ms. Ortiz or Dana Ortiz (not Martin Hale), and the first line starts with 'Subject:'","Includes the compost story link and asks for a 15-minute chat, not a job offer","Says Ruby can work unpaid through her school's credit program, and ends with 'Thanks, Ruby Chen' (on one line or split over two)"]}