Global Warming

Throughout its long history, Earth has warmed and cooled time and again. Climate has changed when the planet received more or less sunlight due to subtle shifts in its orbit, as the atmosphere or surface changed, or when the Sun’s energy varied. But in the past century, another force has started to influence Earth’s climate: humanity

How does this warming compare to previous changes in Earth’s climate? How can we be certain that human-released greenhouse gases are causing the warming? How much more will the Earth warm? How will Earth respond? Answering these questions is perhaps the most significant scientific challenge of our time.

What is Global Warming?

Global warming is the unusually rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature over the past century primarily due to the greenhouse gases released as people burn fossil fuels. The global average surface temperature rose 0.6 to 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.1 to 1.6° F) between 1906 and 2005, and the rate of temperature increase has nearly doubled in the last 50 years. Temperatures are certain to go up further.

Despite ups and downs from year to year, global average surface temperature is rising. By the beginning of the 21st century, Earth’s temperature was roughly 0.5 degrees Celsius above the long-term (1951–1980) average. (NASA figure adapted from Goddard Institute for Space Studies Surface Temperature Analysis.)

Earth’s natural greenhouse effect

Earth’s temperature begins with the Sun. Roughly 30 percent of incoming sunlight is reflected back into space by bright surfaces like clouds and ice. Of the remaining 70 percent, most is absorbed by the land and ocean, and the rest is absorbed by the atmosphere. The absorbed solar energy heats our planet.

As the rocks, the air, and the seas warm, they radiate “heat” energy (thermal infrared radiation). From the surface, this energy travels into the atmosphere where much of it is absorbed by water vapor and long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.

When they absorb the energy radiating from Earth’s surface, microscopic water or greenhouse gas molecules turn into tiny heaters— like the bricks in a fireplace, they radiate heat even after the fire goes out. They radiate in all directions. The energy that radiates back toward Earth heats both the lower atmosphere and the surface, enhancing the heating they get from direct sunlight.

This absorption and radiation of heat by the atmosphere—the natural greenhouse effect—is beneficial for life on Earth. If there were no greenhouse effect, the Earth’s average surface temperature would be a very chilly -18°C (0°F) instead of the comfortable 15°C (59°F) that it is today.

See Climate and Earth’s Energy Budget to read more about how sunlight fuels Earth’s climate.

The enhanced greenhouse effect

What has scientists concerned now is that over the past 250 years, humans have been artificially raising the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate, mostly by burning fossil fuels, but also from cutting down carbon-absorbing forests. Since the Industrial Revolution began in about 1750, carbon dioxide levels have increased nearly 38 percent as of 2009 and methane levels have increased 148 percent.

Increases in concentrations of carbon dioxide (top) and methane (bottom) coincided with the start of the Industrial Revolution in about 1750. Measurements from Antarctic ice cores (green lines) combined with direct atmospheric measurements (blue lines) show the increase of both gases over time. (NASA graphs by Robert Simmon, based on data from the NOAA Paleoclimatology and Earth System Research Laboratory.)

The atmosphere today contains more greenhouse gas molecules, so more of the infrared energy emitted by the surface ends up being absorbed by the atmosphere. Since some of the extra energy from a warmer atmosphere radiates back down to the surface, Earth’s surface temperature rises. By increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases, we are making Earth’s atmosphere a more efficient greenhouse.

Doordarshan's 'piracy' spoilt India's image

The first stage of the India-Pakistan cricket series, the one-day internationals, will be over by the time you read this. It has -- barring the controversy over rigging and Shoaib Akhtar's [Images ] bowling action apart -- gone off rather well. Most media reports have reflected the enthusiasm of the Pakistani crowds. My own feelings, however, are mixed, and that because of two issues that have not received their due in the media.

The first is the manner in which Doordarshan grabbed the rights to telecast the series. Don't get me wrong, I am happy that most Indians got the chance to see some exciting matches but has the enthusiasm for this game eroded India's [Images] image in the larger world?

Let me explain what I mean with a parallel hypothesis. This, we all admit, is the Internet Age, one where familiarity with a computer is absolutely essential. The operating system that takes pride of place is Microsoft's [Images] Windows (in some flavor or the other). Would this justify some organization such as, say, the NCERT [National Council Of Educational Research Training] engaging mass copying of this software and distributing it? Would it be acceptable if NCERT agreed to pay some nominal fee to Microsoft and also agreed that it would try its best to prevent the pirated discs from being exported outside India?

There would be an immediate uproar if the above scenario took place. But that is, if you change a few names here and there, precisely what happened with regard to Doordarshan and Ten Sports. The latter had bought the television rights to the India-Pakistan series fair and square. Doordarshan had not even placed a bid because the relationship between India and Pakistan was so bad at the time that it seemed unlikely the tour would ever take place. So when the first match took place, Doordarshan's riposte was to steal the signals and broadcast them on its own.

The excuse on offer was 'public interest.' That is nonsense! 'Public interest' is about pollution of the air we breathe and the water we drink, it is about protecting the common man from the vagaries of bureaucracy, and it is trying to ensure that no child lacks access to a decent school and primary health. But when did the 'Right to Entertainment' become a Fundamental Right in the Constitution?

India is already looked down upon in sections of the developed world because of its lackadaisical approach to intellectual property rights. Does anyone believe that this piracy -- which is what Doordarshan's actions amount to -- have helped the situation? Haven't they, if anything, amounted to a handful of mud thrown on India's face?

If the brouhaha over the television rights amounted to a black mark for the Indian establishment, the other great, untold story of the series is the reaction of the Indian people at large. Not so very long ago a match between India and Pakistan was a match that could ignite riots almost at will. The communal divide was absolutely clear at such times.

I remember visiting Vadodara on one occasion when a police officer who was accompanying me -- a Sikh gentleman -- pointed in utter disgust at a Muslim shopkeeper who had put up photographs of various Pakistani cricketers. 'Can't you at least put up a picture of Syed Kirmani as well?' he barked at the trader. You could tell the religious affiliation of the owner by the pictures in his shop. In those days the police were always nervous about a riot following a match -- either because Muslims would celebrate a Pakistani victory or Hindus would demonstrate their exultation at an Indian win by taking a procession through the Muslim quarters of the city.

This time, it has all been mercifully 'incident-free' (to use the euphemism employed by the police). Barring some tension in Satara in Maharashtra [Images], all of India seemed to rejoice or mourn as one. (And even in Satara, the elders of the Muslim community stepped in to rein in the mischief-makers almost as soon as they started bursting crackers after the Indian defeat in Rawalpindi).

The police -- so I am assured by several friends in the service -- have never been so relieved. It is, of course, early days yet but this is the first time in many years that policemen have been able to sit back and actually watch cricket. This seems to be true in states across India. And this is one factor that actually does make one feel good. (Or would if it had been reported by the media!)

How to Master Report Writing

Whenever anyone talks about report writing, images of my academy class and the boring report writing segment always comes to mind. What I didn't know then, but know now, is just how important report writing really is.

As first responders, we consistently spend more time writing reports than on any other single task in law enforcement. The only thing that beats it is probably driving around patrolling our zones. And yet, beyond the academy, we get very little training in writing, period. We are just supposed to fumble through and learn other aspects of technical writing on our own. Because of this, we need to find a way of writing reports that will serve us well throughout our entire career.

As a report writing instructor, I am motivated by a school seal that belongs to the Philips Academy, better known as Andover. Andover is a prep school that was established during the American Revolution and is one of the oldest boarding schools in the country. The school seal was crafted by Paul Revere and includes the Latin phrase, "Finis Origine Pendet," which translates to the end depends on the beginning. The beginning is the focus of this commentary and it will cover the process of report writing.

Question of Style

We tend to write police reports for economy. "Detailed yet concise" becomes the battle cry for supervisors and at the same time creates a nexus for officers. In reality we write quickly so we can get to the next call only to write again. It's a convoluted method that demands a great deal but also tends to ignore some of the more technical aspects of writing. There is a middle ground, however, where technical writing and economy can meet to serve the greater good.

Experienced instructors know they can't teach report writing. By the time people come into law enforcement they either know how to write or they don't. You can't cram 12 years of school into a 40-hour block of instruction no matter how good you are. But what instructors can teach is a particular style of writing.

Style becomes the structure that helps form a quality report. If you focus elsewhere, and replace it with something more restrictive like an outline, then you miss the point altogether. For example, an outline is too rigid. It restricts your ability to maneuver. Combining elements or sections becomes more difficult. If you have ever worked a busy shift where your reports start to stack up, you understand the need to write in as tight a package as possible.

The problem is it's very hard to write concisely. Thomas Jefferson allegedly wrote a friend once and advised he was sorry for the length of his letter, as he did not have time to write a short one. You no doubt know this to be true from experience. We therefore have to strike a balance between writing a novel like "War and Peace" and Dave Smith persona Buck Savage's infamous short report "Saw drunk arrested same."

Journalistic Approach

We write to inform, not to impress. The first step involves using the journalistic approach. You need to answer who, what, when, where, why, and how. It sounds counterintuitive, but it's where police officers fail the most. And it's not because we don't have the information but because we haven't organized the information we do have to our advantage.

A highly effective report writing structure goes like this: how the officer got the call, what the complainant/witness/victim said, what the officer observed, and what the officer did. Adhering to this structure allows any first responder to tackle any initial investigation with ease.

Managerial Skills

A manager's job is varied and complex. Managers need certain skills to perform the duties and activities associated with being a manager. What type of skills does a manager need? Research by Robert L. Katz found that managers needed three essential skills. These are technical skills, human skills and conceptual skills. Technical skills include knowledge of and proficiency in a certain specialized field, such as engineering, computers, financial and managerial accounting, or manufacturing. These skills are more important at lower levels of management since these managers are dealing directly with employees doing the organization's work. Human skills involve the ability to work well with other people both individually and in a group. Because managers deal directly with people, this skill is crucial! Managers with good human skills are able to get the best out of their people. They know how to communicate, motivate, lead, and inspire enthusiasm and trust. These skills are equally important at all levels of management. Finally conceptual skills are the skills managers must have to think and conceptualize about abstract and complex situations. Using these skills managers must be able to see the organization as a whole, understand the relationship among various subunits, and visualize how the organization fits into its broader environment. These skills are most important at top level management.

A professional association of practicing managers, the American Management Association, has identified important skills for managers that encompass conceptual, communication, effectiveness, and interpersonal aspects. These are briefly described below

Conceptual Skills:

 Ability to use information to solve business problems, identification of opportunities for innovation, recognizing problem areas and implementing solutions, selecting critical information from masses of data, understanding the business users of technology, understanding the organization's business model.

Communication Skills: Ability to transform ideas into words and actions, credibility among colleagues, peers, and subordinates, listening and asking questions, presentation skills and spoken format, presentation skills; written and graphic formats

Effectiveness Skills:

Contributing to corporate mission/departmental objectives, customer focus, multitasking; working at multiple tasks at parallel, negotiating skills, project management, reviewing operations and implementing improvements, setting and maintaining performance standards internally and externally, setting priorities for attention and activity, time management.

Interpersonal Skills:

 Coaching and mentoring skills, diversity skills; working with diverse people and culture, networking within the organization, networking outside the organization, working in teams; cooperation and commitment.

In today's demanding and dynamic workplace, employees who are invaluable to an organization must be willing to constantly upgrade their skills and take on extra work outside their own specific job areas. There is no doubt that skills will continue to be an important way of describing what a manager does.

Part 1: WRITE A RESUME THAT GENERATES RESULTS

This award-winning guide to resume writing will teach you to write a resume equal to one done by a top-notch professional writer. It offers examples, format choices, help writing the objective, the summary and other sections, as well as samples of excellent resume writing. It is the most trusted resume-writing guide on the planet, used by more than a million people each year.

Writing a great resume does not necessarily mean you should follow the rules you hear through the grapevine. It does not have to be one page or follow a specific resume format. Every resume is a one-of-a-kind marketing communication. It should be appropriate to your situation and do exactly what you want it to do. Instead of a bunch of rules and tips, we are going to cut to the chase in this brief guide and offer you the most basic principles of writing a highly effective resume.

Who are we to be telling you how to write your resume? As part of our career consulting practice, we have coached and advised Fortune 500 C.E.O.s, senior members of the last few presidential administrations, thousands of mid and early career professionals, artists, technical people and others in nearly every field of endeavor.

Our specialty at Rockport Institute Career Change is working with clients who want to choose or change to a new career, one they will love; work that makes full use of their talents, fits their personality, their values, and is also practical. Our staff has been commended for excellence by two U.S. presidents. Our first book, The Pathfinder: How to choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success was a top-10 national bestseller. That is our one and only specialty. If you think you may be in the wrong career, check out our website or read reviews of our books on amazon.com.

Are you an executive or professional looking for an extraordinary, professionally written resume? As authors of this, the world’s most widely used, regularly updated guide to resume writing since 1995, we can connect you with the very best expert resume writers. Send us an email. We’ll get right back to you.

This guide is especially for people looking for a job in the United States. In the U.S., the rules of job hunting are much more relaxed than they are in Europe and Asia. You can do a lot more active personal marketing in your resume here. You may have to tone down our advice a few notches and use a more traditional, conservative format accepted in your field if you live elsewhere or are in law, academia or a technical engineering, computer or scientific field. But even when your presentation must fit a narrow set of rules, you can still use the principles we will present to make your presentation more effective than your competition's.

THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD

The good news is that, with a little extra effort, you can create a resume that makes you stand out as a superior candidate for a job you are seeking. Not one resume in a hundred follows the principles that stir the interest of prospective employers. So, even if you face fierce competition, with a well written resume you should be invited to interview more often than many people more qualified than you.

The bad news is that your present resume is probably much more inadequate than you now realize. You will have to learn how to think and write in a style that will be completely new to you.

To understand what I mean, let's take a look at the purpose of your resume. Why do you have a resume in the first place? What is it supposed to do for you?

Here's an imaginary scenario. You apply for a job that seems absolutely perfect for you. You send your resume with a cover letter to the prospective employer. Plenty of other people think the job sounds great too and apply for the job. A few days later, the employer is staring at a pile of several hundred resumes. Several hundred? you ask. Isn't that an inflated number? Not really. A job offer often attracts between 100 and 1000 resumes these days, so you are facing a great deal of competition.

Back to the fantasy and the prospective employer staring at the huge stack of resumes: This person isn't any more excited about going through this pile of dry, boring documents than you would be. But they have to do it, so they dig in. After a few minutes, they are getting sleepy. They are not really focusing any more. Then, they run across your resume. As soon as they start reading it, they perk up. The more they read the more interested, awake and turned on they become.

Most resumes in the pile have only gotten a quick glance. But yours gets read, from beginning to end. Then, it gets put on top of the tiny pile of resumes that make the first cut. These are the people who will be asked in to interview. In this mini resume writing guide, what we hope to do is to give you the basic tools to take this out of the realm of fantasy and into your everyday life.

THE NUMBER ONE PURPOSE OF A RESUME

The resume is a tool with one specific purpose: to win an interview. If it does what the fantasy resume did, it works. If it doesn't, it isn't an effective resume. A resume is an advertisement, nothing more, nothing less.

A great resume doesn't just tell them what you have done but makes the same assertion that all good ads do: If you buy this product, you will get these specific, direct benefits. It presents you in the best light. It convinces the employer that you have what it takes to be successful in this new position or career.

It is so pleasing to the eye that the reader is enticed to pick it up and read it. It "whets the appetite," stimulates interest in meeting you and learning more about you. It inspires the prospective employer to pick up the phone and ask you to come in for an interview.

OTHER POSSIBLE REASONS TO HAVE A RESUME

To pass the employer's screening process (requisite educational level, number years' experience, etc.), to give basic facts which might favorably influence the employer (companies worked for, political affiliations, racial minority, etc.). To provide contact information: an up-to-date address and a telephone number (a telephone number which will always be answered during business hours).

To establish you as a professional person with high standards and excellent writing skills, based on the fact that the resume is so well done (clear, well-organized, well-written, well-designed, of the highest professional grades of printing and paper). For persons in the art, advertising, marketing, or writing professions, the resume can serve as a sample of their skills.

To have something to give to potential employers, your job-hunting contacts and professional references, to provide background information, to give out in "informational interviews" with the request for a critique (a concrete creative way to cultivate the support of this new person), to send a contact as an excuse for follow-up contact, and to keep in your briefcase to give to people you meet casually - as another form of "business card."

To use as a covering piece or addendum to another form of job application, as part of a grant or contract proposal, as an accompaniment to graduate school or other application.

To put in an employer's personnel files.

To help you clarify your direction, qualifications, and strengths, boost your confidence, or to start the process of committing to a job or career change.

WHAT IT ISN'T

It is a mistake to think of your resume as a history of your past, as a personal statement or as some sort of self expression. Sure, most of the content of any resume is focused on your job history. But write from the intention to create interest, to persuade the employer to call you. If you write with that goal, your final product will be very different than if you write to inform or catalog your job history.

Most people write a resume because everyone knows that you have to have one to get a job. They write their resume grudgingly, to fulfill this obligation. Writing the resume is only slightly above filling out income tax forms in the hierarchy of worldly delights. If you realize that a great resume can be your ticket to getting exactly the job you want, you may be able to muster some genuine enthusiasm for creating a real masterpiece, rather than the feeble products most people turn out.

WHAT IF I'M NOT SURE OF MY JOB TARGET?

If you are hunting for a job but are not sure you are on a career path that is perfect for you, you are probably going to wind up doing something that doesn't fit you very well, that you are not going to find fulfilling, and that you will most likely leave within five years. Doesn't sound like much of a life to me. How about you? Are you willing to keep putting up with pinning your fate on the random turnings of the wheel?

3 Ways to Create Highly Valuable Blog Content

Do you struggle coming up with content ideas for your blog?

Or maybe you create plenty of blog posts, but they get few views and even less engagement?

If you find that creating engaging content is challenging, keep reading.

This article will identify some of the best tips, tools and tactics for creating blog content that helps grow your business.

#1: Be the resource your customers really need

What’s your ideal customer’s biggest problem? Your blog is not about your business, it’s about your customers.

If you want to attract and engage your prospects and lead them down the sales funnel, you need to focus on them and their problems.

The more you create content that helps your prospects succeed, the more engaged they’ll become with your blog.

So how do you know what your audience is struggling with?

Ask.

If you’ve been in business for a while, chances are you already know a lot of what your customers are struggling with.

But if you’re starting from scratch or you want to uncover more opportunities where you can help your customers, consider creating a survey using a free tool like Survey Monkey or Google Docs.

Extract the “keywords” that drive the questions.

Once you have a list of the problems your customers face, you’ll start to notice some recurring phrases.

Maybe it’s “public speaking,” or “college admissions” or “dating advice.” (If it’s all three, you may want to narrow your focus.)

Grab one of those phrases, brainstorm a few alternatives and head on over to Google’s Adword Keyword Tool.

Plug your phrases into the box, choose “exact match” and hit “search.”

Google will return your keyword phrases plus a number of related phrases. It will also show you how many people have searched for each phrase in the last 30 days, and how competitive those phrases are (at least in the pay-per-click arena; a good indicator of how difficult it may be to rank well for these phrases).

The Global and Local Monthly Searches columns will give you insight into how much interest there is in a specific keyword. Focus on phrases that have high search volume for your blog posts.

Once you’ve identified your most promising keywords, go to Google Insights for Search. While there are some amazing reports you can generate from Insights, scroll right down to the bottom and look at Top Searches and Rising Searches.

Top Searches will give you a sense of what people are searching for now, while Rising Searches will give you a sense of what the next big search terms will be.

Creating valuable content before it becomes mainstream can give an incredible boost to your blog traffic. Other bloggers will tend to cite your work when they post related content (creating inbound links to your blog), and search engines will often reward your post because of its longevity.

I’ve seen this on my blog and website when I’ve written on a topic before it’s really caught on. An article I wrote back in 2008 entitled how to Use Twitter for Business still attracts over 250 new prospects per month to our site more than four years after I wrote it!

Would your business benefit from getting in front of 3,000 new prospects a year who had never heard of your company before?

You should also plug your best keywords into Google Alerts (that’s the last Google plug, I promise!).

Every day, Google will deliver news stories, blog posts and even tweets to your inbox about your best keywords. Those are all the seeds of great content posts your ideal customer is interested in.

#2: Answer the unanswered questions

People often come to the web to seek answers and advice. Your audience is no different.

Answering their questions in your blog is a great way to attract and engage them.

Email

It’s likely that you get emails from your current customer base looking for advice.

Stop answering them!

OK, that’s not exactly what I mean. But don’t answer them right away.

Instead, when someone asks you a question that you feel others are likely struggling with, that’s a perfect opportunity to create a “Dear Abby”–style post.

Whether it’s “Why can’t I post to my Face book page as myself?” or “How can a B2B company use Interest? “, you can create content that will help attract your ideal customer.

Think about it: If one person is asking you that question, how many other hundreds or thousands who don’t have a resource to turn to are using Google or Bing? And Google (usually) won’t answer the question; they’ll just refer the searcher to an authoritative source… like your blog.

Unless it was a question about bedwetting and you used their name, chances are they’ll be proud they asked such an intelligent question. Bonus: you’re (re)introducing them to your blog.

#3: Find the questions your customers are asking

Next, you need to figure out what your customers want to know now. Do some research to find the questions they’re asking?

Quora, Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers.

These are just a few of the popular Q&A sites on the web today. People pose questions at these sites in all types of categories, from parenting to management, home repair to manufacturing.

But just because a question is asked (and even answered) doesn’t mean that the topic is closed. Chances are you have a better, more nuanced or just different answer to the question.

Take the question and make it your own on your blog.

Keyword Questions

This is one of my favorite tools for filling a blog with engaging questions, whether you’re a long-time blogger or just starting out.

Keyword Questions queries Word Tracker’s search engine partners to find questions that have been posed with your keywords in them.

I’ve found that using broad terms for this tool provides the best results. In other words, use “golf” rather than “golf tips.”

Competitors’ FAQs

You remember FAQs, right? Those pages on a website that are covered in dust bunnies, having not been updated since 1997?

Your competition has left some great questions up on their site with out-of-date answers on them. Your job is to find those musty old questions, shake them off and breathe new life into them.

In no way am I suggesting stealing from your competitors! Frequently asked questions are by definition frequently asked. Tweak the question and answer it from your own perspective, based on your experience, in your own voice.

Comment Sections

Comments on a blog post often ask follow-up questions to the original post. Unfortunately, many of these questions go unanswered. Even when they do garner a response, that answer is buried in the comments, difficult to find and share with others.

If someone asks a good follow-up question in the comment section of your own blog, consider creating a new blog post as a response and linking to it in your reply.

Also, popular industry blogs will often generate more comments than the blogger can keep up with. Check out the comment section on popular blog posts and see if there are some great questions being asked that you can answer on your own blog.

Whether you’re pulling questions from emails, Q&A sites, Keyword Questions, competitors’ FAQs or a comments section, you’re providing a service to your audience as long as you’re creating a fresh perspective on their challenges.

Plus, your blog posts will make the answers easier to find, read and share than if they were buried in a Q&A site or hidden in an email exchange.

Takeaways

If you want to attract and engage a loyal audience to your blog, you need to be continually creating content that is of interest to them, not necessarily of interest to you.

By researching your keywords, digging a little deeper and uncovering the questions your ideal customer is asking, you can build a blog that builds your business.

You’re Turn

What do you think?

What tips, tactics or techniques have you used to create content that engages your audience? Let us know in the comments box below. Who knows? Maybe it will inspire you or another reader to create even more compelling content for a future blog post!

WHAT DOCUMENTARY STORYTELLERS CAN LEARN FROM SCREENWRITERS

WHAT DOCUMENTARY STORYTELLERS CAN LEARN FROM SCREENWRITERS

As the recent box office success of films like Supersize Me ($11.5 million, 2004), Mad Hot Ballroom ($6.3 million, 2005) and March of the Penguins ($77.4 million, 2005) lure more documentary filmmakers to seek a traditionally risky theatrical release, audiences are lured too, by the promise that non-fiction cinema can tell stories that are as dramatic and entertaining as feature films. This trend, which began when the acclaimed 1994 film Hoop Dreams began its $7.8 million run, has accelerated in the past five years with the success of films like Capturing the Friedmans (2003), Tupac:  Resurrection (2003), and Enron:  The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005). All of these well-crafted documentaries borrow from the plot devices of fiction films. Whether the story-driven documentary will eclipse the essay-driven format is debatable, but one thing is clear:  commissioning editors from stations like HBO, the Sundance Channel and Showtime want stories.

Whereas screenwriters are free to dream up plot twists for a three-act story, documentary filmmakers must design scenes based on what was actually filmed in real life.  These two constraints-”what was filmed” and “real life”–present special challenges.  Whether a documentary editor is using a three-act storyboard or some other narrative design, how does she stay true to actual happenings when she must persuade and contort them into climaxes and plot turns?  This article will outline the principles of classic three-act narrative structure as taught by professional screenwriters, and it will examine how documentary filmmakers can adapt these structural demands to the randomness of real life.

WHAT A STORY IS NOT

Documentaries do not fit tidily into three acts.  Having said that, devising a narrative arc does not mean dividing the film into three parts, and then arbitrarily labeling each part an act.  The first, second and third acts look remarkably different from one another, and each fulfills a unique and specific purpose in composing the story. Keep in mind that a story, in the screenwriter’s sense of the word, is not a profile (for example, a film about an eccentric uncle who farms nuts), a condition (human rights abuses in Haiti), a phenomenon (the popularity of multi-player video games) or a point of view (social security should be privatized).  Simply stated, a story chronicles the efforts of the main character to achieve his or her heart’s desire in the face of opposition.  Screenwriters understand that defining the “hero’s quest” is the foremost dramatic requirement of a three-act structure.  Act One sets up the protagonist’s desire (boy meets girl), Act Two presents obstacles that thwart the goal (boy loses girl), and in the final act, the climax reveals whether or not the protagonist achieves his heart’s desire (boy wins girl forever after).  Documentary filmmakers would do well to hone in on their protagonist’s desire in their earliest concept paper, a mandatory preamble to rolling tape.

ACT ONE:  LAUNCHING THE STORY

The function of act one is to establish the world of the film, introduce us to the characters, and launch the protagonist’s quest.  In a two-hour dramatic film, act one (also called the “set-up”) runs about thirty minutes, or a quarter of the film.  At the start of the act, the audience is introduced to the film’s setting and characters.  A protagonist emerges at the “catalyst” or “inciting incident”, when an external event upsets the main character’s world.   This mandatory structural device kicks off the real story, as the protagonist begins his quest to restore equilibrium to his life. For example, in the action movie Jaws (1975), a woman is killed by a shark, and the town sheriff finds her decaying body.  This horrific discovery is the inciting incident, or catalyst, because it begins the sheriff’s quest to kill the shark and thereby restore tranquility to the terrorized resort town.  While many people use the word “protagonist” to simply mean “main character”, screenwriters define “protagonist” as a character who possesses a yearning or desire for something.

PORTRAYING THE INCITING INCIDENT

The inciting incident plays such a critical function in the overall story structure that Hollywood screenwriters follow a rule:  the inciting scene must be visually depicted on screen, preferably in present story time. In other words, the story cannot be launched through exposition (boring) or backstory (too removed).  This imperative presents a major problem for documentary filmmakers constructing a narrative arc.  Frequently, by the time a documentary filmmaker gets interested in a film, the inciting incident has already happened.  Equally problematic, this rousing scene was probably not caught on film.  Sometimes filmmakers get lucky.  They set out to film one story, and a more powerful story unfolds in front of the camera.  In The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003), Irish filmmakers Kim Bartley and Donnacha O’Briain intended to profile Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.  Suddenly they found themselves in the midst of a coup.  They caught the upheaval on camera and it became a visually riveting catalyst for a very different film.

Shaping archival or news footage into an inciting incident is another solution.  In Metallica:  Some Kind of Monster (2004), the inciting incident occurs a slim four minutes into the lengthy 140-minute movie, when an MTV news clip announces that the bass player has left the band.  This incident launches the narrative arc of the movie, as the remaining three members seek to improve their interpersonal act and, by extension, their next album.

If a documentary filmmaker does not have footage of the actual inciting incident, how does she bring it to life on screen?  Another common solution is to comb through interviews for a soundbite that reconstructs the inciting incident.  Sometimes even a periphery character can recall a particular moment that will change the lives of the characters forever.  In Capturing the Friedmans, an 88-minute film, the inciting incident occurs seven minutes into the story, when a postal inspector appears on screen for the first time.  He recounts that in 1984, U.S. Customs had seized some child pornography addressed to Arnold Friedman.

If an interviewee is going to relate the catalyst event, an editor should choose an exceptionally charismatic storyteller.  Remember, this is the moment the story is supposed to take off.  If a lackluster soundbite can’t fuel the launch, an editor may need booster material:  narration, location footage, reenactments, animation, etc. Whereas a screenwriter can start the story with a single inciting scene, the non-fiction storyteller must often construct an inciting sequence.  As long as the sequence gets the story off the ground, it’s fine to employ a slow burn rather than pyrotechnics.

POSING THE CENTRAL QUESTION

The inciting incident gives rise to the protagonist’s quest-alternately called the “hero’s journey” or “object of desire”-as well as formulating the film’s central question.  Will Romeo and Juliet stay together?  Will the sheriff kill the shark?  Will the Jordan family save their farm?  The central question is always some variation of the question, “Will the protagonist reach his goal?”  After a long period of struggle in act two, this central question is finally answered for better or worse in act three, at or just following the film’s climax.

Like narrative films, documentaries are at their best when the protagonist’s object of desire and the movie’s central question are concrete and specific.  In Troublesome Creek, the family’s larger desire was to survive financially, but their concrete goal was to pay off their back loan and get off the Troubled Accounts list. In The Times of Harvey Milk (1984), the protagonist wants equality for gay people, but his quest is drawn into dramatic focus by his bid to get elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.  In Spellbound (2002), the central question that causes the viewer to hold his breath every time a child spells out a word is very specific:  which child will win the national spelling bee contest?

While casting the right characters is critical in a documentary, many seasoned filmmakers won’t undertake a film featuring even the most colorful cast unless they foresee that at least one character’s quest will provide the film with a narrative spine.  In an historical documentary, this is relatively doable with the advantage of hindsight.  But the dramatic arc of a verite film, in which life is recorded as it unfolds, is understandably difficult to predict.  It’s unlikely that filmmaker Fredrick Wiseman wrote a detailed, three-act treatment for Titticut Follies (1967).  Likewise, the Maysles brothers couldn’t have foreseen the dramatic arc of Salesman (1969) before filming.  Sadly, these grand experiments in cinema verite would probably not get funded today.  At a minimum, commissioning editors and foundations require that a treatment for a verite film describe the protagonist’s quest, articulate the central question, and then envisage the conflicts the protagonist will face during the course of the production schedule.