The National Center on Disability and Journalism (NCDJ) at Arizona State University has released a one-of-a-kind style guide for journalists and professionals who report or write about people living with disabilities.

The guide offers information and advice on nearly 70 commonly used words or terms — from “able-bodied” to “confined to a wheelchair.” It is being released to coincide with the United Nations’ International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Thursday, Dec. 3. The day of observance aims to promote an understanding of disability issues and mobilize support for the dignity, rights and well-being of persons with disabilities. The National Center on Disability and Journalism at ASU has released a style guide for journalists and professionals who report or write about people living with disabilities. Download Full Image

Headquartered at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the NCDJ is a national organization that provides support and guidance to journalists and communicators as they cover people with disabilities.

The new style guide greatly expands on one developed by the NCDJ in 2010, said Kristin Gilger, the center’s director and associate dean of the Cronkite School.

“The language of disability keeps changing, and there are so many different opinions about what words and phrases should be used that there’s a real need for an authoritative, neutral source of guidance and information,” she said.

Gilger said disability can be a difficult topic to cover for journalists, many of whom are unfamiliar with current debates over language choices and what might be considered offensive. For example, many in the disability community object to the use of disabled as an adjective. They prefer “a person with a disability” as opposed to “a disabled person.”

“That distinction may seem subtle until you understand that people naturally want to be people first,” Gilger said. “Being disabled is only part of their identity.”

The style guide strives to balance the need for sensitivity and accuracy against the journalistic mandate for language that is clear and easily understood by a general audience, Gilger said.

In addition to offering recommendations on language choices, the guide provides a brief background on each word or term and touches on instances in which disability organizations disagree on usage. It also notes whether the word or term is addressed in the Associated Press Stylebook, widely used by journalists around the world as a guide to writing. Two-thirds of the entries in the NCDJ guide are not covered in the AP Stylebook.

Along with the guide, the NCDJ also has created a companion piece, “Terms to Avoid When Writing About Disability.” The article offers advice to communicators on why they should avoid using terms such as “epileptic fit” or “senile” and directs them to more neutral language.

Tim McGuire, Cronkite’s Frank Russell Chair for the Business of Journalism who is the author of a memoir on living with a physical disability and raising a child with Down syndrome, said he thinks the guide is incredibly valuable for journalists and writers.

“Nobody else can provide this same kind of comprehensiveness on disability language,” said McGuire, who is the former longtime editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and serves as an NCDJ advisory board member.

The NCDJ was founded in 1998 in San Francisco as the Disability Media Project to raise awareness of how the news media cover people with disabilities. The organization was renamed in 2000 and moved to the Cronkite School in 2009.

NCDJ’s disability style guide is available on the organization’s website or as a printable PDF.

Does the holiday season put you in a reflective mood? Will winter break give you some unstructured time to jot your ideas and stories down? Is “become a published author” on your bucket list?

If so, there’s a writing and design contest coming up with your name on it. ASU students, Tempe high school students and adult residents, and Tempe Public Library cardholders are invited to enter the second annual Tempe Community Writing and Cover Design Contest, co-sponsored by ASU and the Tempe Public Library. Submissions will be accepted between Jan. 11-Feb. 15, and winners published in volume two of "The Tempe Writer's Forum." Photo by Andy DeLisle/ASU Download Full Image

ASU students and Tempe community writers and graphic designers looking for an outlet to publish their creative work have two-and-a-half months to get their submissions in shape for the second annual Tempe Community Writing and Cover Design Contest.

The contest, which will accept entries from Jan. 11-Feb. 15, was launched a year ago as a collaboration between Arizona State University’s College of Letters and Sciences, the writing programs in the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Tempe Public Library.

“We had a fantastic response for the first contest, receiving 190 writing submissions — many from ASU students,” said Tempe Public Library adult-services librarian Jill Brenner, who teamed up with Jeanne Hanrahan, faculty associate and liaison for ASU Academic Success Programs, to organize the contest.

Last year’s winning contributions included imaginative, expressive poetry; fiction that ran the continuum from funny to fear-inducing; and memoir writing that took readers into some of life’s most fragile emotional spaces — from nurturing premature babies to health, to helping hospice patients die with grace.

This year’s contest is again open to all ASU students, Tempe residents and Tempe Library cardholders.

Writers may submit one work of their choosing in either poetry, short fiction or creative nonfiction (including essays and memoir). Entries are read anonymously, and an award winner will be chosen in each genre for the three entry categories: high school student, college student (undergraduate or graduate) and community adult.  

Designers are invited to prepare one 9.5- by 6.5-inch vertical color design for the resulting spiral-bound publication.

In addition to having their work published in volume two of the printed Tempe Writer’s Forum and on the library’s website, the winners will be celebrated at a reception event at Tempe Public Library on April 13, 2016.

The following weekend, ASU and the Tempe Public Library are partnering to co-host the first-ever Tempe Book Festival, bringing together local authors, booksellers and others for a day of panel discussions, book signings and fun activities for all ages.

“We hope that whole families will come out to celebrate books and the joy of reading,” said Brenner, who anticipates that the festival will also become an annual event.

To organize the festival, she and Hanrahan have joined forces with ASU interdisciplinary studies faculty member and poet Kelly Nelson, who served as a consultant and judge for last year’s community writing contest.

“Nether Jill nor I knew anything at all about writing contests when this project began,” Hanrahan said. “We received excellent advice and guidance from Kelly throughout the process as well as from Trish Murphy, founding editor of Superstition Review. 

“We emphasize at ASU the importance of being socially embedded and the wonderful momentum that builds when we engage with a spirit of community and collaboration,” she continued. “Working with the library staff and my ASU colleagues on this project has been a beautiful example of that in action and truly gratifying.”

“Last year’s contest celebration at the library was a great community event,” noted Duane Roen, dean of the College of Letters and Sciences and vice provost for ASU’s Polytechnic campus. “Award winners read from their works, with family members and friends to cheer them on, and many of the ASU faculty and staff members who enthusiastically served as reviewers were in the audience as well.”

Roen enjoys offering a series of community workshops at Tempe Public Library throughout the year to inspire family-history writing, part of the outreach work of ASU’s Project for Writing and Recording Family History based on the Polytechnic campus.

“I hope faculty and staff across ASU take time to encourage their students to submit a piece of writing or a cover design,” he said. “Whether they win or not, students benefit from sharing their stories and creative work.”

The Tempe Book Festival will take place from 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Saturday, April 16, 2016, at the Tempe Public Library. Additional details and full submission guidelines for the writing and cover design contest can be found at the City of Tempe website. 

Arizona State University, in partnership with Mayo Clinic in Arizona, has announced the recipients of the 2016 ASU-Mayo Seed Grant Program. The program funds critical joint research projects in the health field led by scientists from both ASU and Mayo Clinic. The awardees this year are making innovative strides in the treatment of cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart failure and infectious diseases, as well as advancing nanobody technology and health-care practices.

Sethuraman Panchanathan, ASU’s senior vice president of Knowledge Enterprise Development said, “These grants are awarded to interdisciplinary researchers collaborating in a partnership of the utmost importance; they are making important and groundbreaking strides in the medical field which will benefit our community both locally and globally.”   Download Full Image

The intent of the seed-grant program is to give new research projects a kick-start and allow them to attract additional funding from external sources. The program has resulted in 71 successful collaborations since 2004, supporting interdisciplinary and translational joint research projects between Mayo Clinic Arizona and ASU. Teams receive $50,000 for a one-year project that must achieve clear milestones to be considered successful.

The collaborations draw from the major strengths of each organization — ASU's recognized leadership in research and its advanced programs in engineering, health-care delivery, and biotechnology, and Mayo's extensive clinical experience, medical education programs and its vertical integration of research spanning basic science, laboratory-based clinical investigation, clinical trials and population sciences.

2016 ASU-Mayo Seed Grant projects and principal investigators

Understanding the mechanisms that cause Alzheimer’s disease:
David Brafman, assistant professor, ASU School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering; Richard Caselli, Mayo Clinic professor of neurology, Consultant Department of Neurology

Improving rehabilitative medicine for heart failure patients:
Jared Dickinson, assistant professor, ASU School of Nutrition and Health Promotion's Exercise and Health Program; Farouk Mookadam, Mayo Clinic professor of medicine, Consultant Department of Cardiovascular Diseases

Developing monitoring methods to assess risk of infection using duodenoscopes:
Joshua LaBaer, director, Center for Personalized Diagnostics, ASU professor of chemistry and biochemistry, Biodesign Institute; Rahul Pannala, Mayo Clinic assistant professor, Consultant Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Improving the accuracy of breast cancer screening:
Teresa Wu, professor of industrial engineering, ASU School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems; Bhavika K. Patel, Mayo Clinic assistant professor of radiology, Division of Breast Imaging, Department of Radiology

Understanding synaptic dysfunction’s role in Parkinson’s disease:
Lih-Fen Lue, research professor, ASU Biodesign NDRC; John Caviness, Mayo Clinic professor of neurology, Consultant Department of Neurology

Developing a diamond junction device to improve monitoring of cancer therapy:
Robert Nemanich, professor, ASU Department of Physics; Martin Bues, Mayo Clinic assistant professor of radiation oncology, SAC – Radiation Oncology

Generating selective nanobodies that effect human A2A adenosine receptor (A2AAR) structure and function:
Wei Liu, assistant professor, ASU chemistry and biochemistry; James R. Thompson, Mayo Clinic assistant professor of biophysics, Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering

Transform US health-care delivery using behavioral economics:
Ellen Green, assistant professor, ASU College of Health Solutions; David Etzioni, Mayo Clinic associate professor of surgery, Department of Colon Rectal Surgery

Learn more about past seed grant recipients.

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