News Writing

=88. Abbreviations Avoided Abbreviations should as a rule be avoided. The coming of the typewriter into journalism has created a tendency to write out all words in full. =89. Perso...

=210. Accident and Crime Stories Accident and crime stories are grouped together because they are handled alike and because they differ from each other only in point of view, or in...

=18. Proper Names Capitalize all proper names. A proper name is one that designates a particular person, place, or thing. In particular: =19. Titles of Books, etc Capitalize the fi...

=285. Correspondence Work In style and construction correspondence stories are not different from the preceding types of news stories. They are taken up for separate examination be...

=275. What the Feature Story Is The feature, or human interest, story is the newspaper man's invention for making stories of little news value interesting. The prime difference bet...

=260. "Follow-ups."=--"Rewrites" and "follow-up" stories are news stories which have appeared in print. The distinction between the two is that "follow-ups" contain news in additio...

=1. Definition Copy is any manuscript prepared for printing, and is written according to the individual style rules of each newspaper. The first thing for a reporter to do on begin...

=178. Four Types of Stories To the casual newspaper reader the various patterns of stories seem all but limitless. To the experienced newspaper man, however, they reduce themselves...

amb = Ambiguous. and = A bad "and" sentence. Make two sentences or subordinate one clause. ant = Antecedent not clear. Cl = Not clear. Cst = Construction faulty. Coh = Coherence no...

=51. Second Essential of News Writing As explained in the preceding chapter, the first essential in news writing is a proper appreciation of news and news values. The second essent...

=95. Dates Observe the following rules concerning dates: 1. Write year dates always in figures: as, 1776. 2. Write month dates in figures when preceded by the name of the month: as...

INTRODUCTION =1. The City Room The city room is the place where a reporter presents himself for work the first day. It is impossible to give an exact description of this room, beca...

=71. Political Parties In legislative or congressional reports in which the political affiliation of a member, or the state or county from which he comes, is given, enclose the par...

Cap Capitalize. lc Lower case; small letter. delta Delete; omit. stet Restore the words crossed out. ^ Insert at the place indicated. [. in circle] Insert a period. /,\ Insert a co...

=17. Rules While every well-regulated newspaper has rules of its own governing the use of capital letters, commas, dashes, parentheses, and other marks of punctuation, and any arti...

=73. Direct Quotations Quotation-marks are used to set off direct quotations printed in the same type and style as the remainder of the story. A quotation coming within a quotation...

=253. What Society News Is The society editor's work concerns itself with the social and personal news of the city and county in which the paper is published or from which it draws...

=230. Slang In writing stories of athletic meets and games the reporter will find that in matters of language he has almost complete freedom. For this there are two reasons: the fa...

=Ad Alley The part of the composing room where the advertisements are set. =Add Late news added to a story already written or printed. =A. P Abbreviation for Associated Press. =Arr...

=80. Possessive Case Use an apostrophe and an s to indicate the possessive case singular, no matter whether the word ends in one or two s's: as, Burns's house, Furness's hat.[51] U...

=121. Inaccuracy and Dullness If the reporter has written a strong lead for his story, he need have small worry about what shall follow, which usually is little more than a simple...

=30. Divisions of the Business Department When the paper issues from the press, it passes into the hands of the circulation manager, whose duties are in an entirely different depar...

=39. Formal Quotations A colon is used to introduce a formal quotation. =Right The author also makes this significant statement: "There is every reason to believe that this disease...

=47. Parenthetic Expressions Parenthetic words, phrases, and clauses, whether used at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence, are set off by commas when they cause a marked in...

=65. Sudden Break in Thought Use a dash to mark a sudden suspension of the thought or a violent break in the construction of the sentence. =Right "You mean to say--Just what are yo...

=4. Beginning Work As stated in the preceding chapter, the place at which the reporter presents himself for work the first day is the city room. Before coming, he will have seen th...

=83. Compound Words Put a hyphen between the members of a compound word. Words compounded with the following prefixes and suffixes are generally hyphenated: able-, brother-, by-, c...

[11] Before reading this chapter, the student should examine the style book in the Appendix, particularly that part dealing with the preparation of copy for the city desk. =100. In...

=19. Division Beyond the editorial rooms is the mechanical department, with which every reporter should be, but rarely ever is, acquainted. Because of the heavy machinery necessary...

=141. Paragraph a Mark of Punctuation Discussion of the paragraph really belongs under the head of punctuation, since its purpose is to set off the larger divisions of the story in...