Media Writing Tips

These tips address many of the common mistakes beginning media writers make. You would be wise to review them. They represent the things I will consider particularly important as I'm grading your writing assignments. Check back often, too. This tip sheet is a work in progress, and I revise or expand it fairly often. To navigate this file easily, click on the first letter of the entry you're looking for. To get back here, click on the nearest "Back to top" link.

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Absolutes: Adjectives that are absolute have no degrees. They either are, or they aren't. For example, a building can't be partly destroyed. Destroyed means there's nothing left of the building. A "partly destroyed" building is really a damaged building or even a severely damaged building. Similarly, something can't be "more unique" or "less unique." Unique means one of a kind. (Back to top)

Action verb: An action verb conveys that its subject acted somehow, that the subject did something more than "be." For example: Sally ran. Sally is running. Sally will run. Sally jumped. Salley had been jumping. Sally had jumped. Each of the verbs in these short senteces is an action verb. Subjects of nonaction verbs do nothing but exist. For example: Sally was tired. Sally is short. Sally and her friends are nice. Sally and her friends will be at the party. It's best to avoid such inactive verbs in writing. They're just not all that interesting. Back in J-School, a professor once challenged me to "Stand up and 'was.'" His point: You can stand up and shout, wave your arms, spin around, scratch your head, or whatever, and all of those things are actions - the kinds of actions that make writing interesting. But if you just stand up and "was," you're really doing nothing at all.  See also: passive voice. (Back to top)

Addresses: Much depends on whether the address includes a house number. Follow these rules:

Affect/Effect: "Affect" is the verb. "Effect" is the noun. For example: "The movie's special effects (noun) positively affected (verb) its realism." (Back to top)

Ages: Always use figures, unless the age is the first word of a sentence. The rule is an exception to AP Style's  "spell out one through nine" rule for numerals. Some examples of correct format: The 5-year-old girl. The girl, 10. The 2-year-old. The man is 32 years old. See also "numerals." If the age is the first word of a sentence, spell it out or rewrite the sentence so the age is no longer the first word. For example: "Twenty-four-year-old Joe Smith said ..." or "Joe Smith, 24, said ..." (Back to top)

Alphabet soup: A term for a story heavily laden with acronyms like TVA, NAACP, AARP, FBI, etc. Alphabet soup can result when an author spells out the name of an organization on first reference and then uses the organization's acronym to refer to the organization throughout the rest of the story. It's usually better to adopt one- or two-word "tag" for the organization and use the tag instead of the acronym. For example: "The National Education Association has endorsed Sen. John Smith's re-election bid. The association, in a statement released Friday, described Smith as a reliable supporter of pro-teacher legislation throughout his first two terms in office." (Back to top)

a.m./p.m.: Note periods and lowercase. Also, avoid redundancies like "9 a.m. this morning" or "6:30 p.m. tonight." See also: time.

Antecedent: An antecedent of a pronoun is the word the pronoun stands for. For example, in the sentence "The police officer drew his weapon," the pronoun is "his," and the antecedent of "his" is "officer."

Appositive phrase. An appositive phrase is a phrase that comes after a noun and describes the noun. Like this: "John Smith, mayor of Cityburg for 12 years, is retiring."

Attribution: Attribution is a phrase indicating the source of some piece of information. The source can be a person, but it also can be something inanimate like a document.

Backing into the lead.You "back into" the lead of a print news story when you put the newsiest information at the end of the lead instead of at the beginning. It's usually the result of putting one or more of the lead's other elements -- the "when," "where" or attribution, for example -- in front of the "what." For example, "Police Chief Joe Smith said Tuesday that a door left unlocked at the city's jail on Main Street allowed three prisoners to escape." Clearly, the escape is the newsiest piece of information in the lead. Many readers will miss it, though, because it has been stuck at the end of the lead. A better version would be: "Two prisoners escaped from the city's jail Tuesday after someone left a door unlocked, according to Police Chief Joe Smith." Choosing a first verb that captures the main "what" of the story will usually help you avoid this problem. (Back to top)

Blind lead: Write a blind lead when the person in the lead is not well known to the people who will be reading the story. If John Smith is a nobody and was injured in a car wreck, for example, don't write, "John Smith of 119 Oak St. in Murfreesboro suffered injuries in a two-car wreck on Main Street Friday afternoon" for your lead. Write "A Murfreesboro man suffered injuries in a two-car wreck on Main Street Friday afternoon" and save the man's name and address for later in the story. If the person in the lead is well-known among readers, though, go ahead and put the name in the lead: "Murfreesboro Mayor John Smith suffered injuries in a two-car wreck on Main Street Friday afternoon."

The "blind lead" technique applies to attribution as well. Attributing the essense of some announcement to "Deputy Mayoral Assistant Joe Smith" in a lead wastes a lot of words. Readers are unlikely to recognize the name of obscure bureaucrats. All you really need to do is attribute to "a deputy mayoral assistant" or, even simpler, "a mayoral spokesman," then give the assistant's name later in teh story. (Back to top)

Brevity: In general, media writing values brevity: short words, short sentences, short paragraphs, short stories. Why? Media compete for people's time. The more time media take to use, the less likely people are to use media. In short, people get bored or tired when reading long sentences, grafs and stories. (Back to top)

Buried lead: When a news story fails to present the most newsworthy information at its very beginning, the story's lead is said to have been "buried." The metaphor alludes to the idea that the most important information has been "buried" somewhere down in the story beneath several sentences or paragraphs of less important information. (Back to top)

Capitalization: Generally, restrict capitalization to:

Cents: According to AP style, spell out "cents" and lowercase, using numerals for amounts less than a dollar. For example, 5 cents, or 12 cents. Use "$" and decimels to indicate amounts larger than a dollar: $1.05, for example, or $2.25. (Back to top)

City Council: AP Style says to capitalize "council" in either of two situations:

Claim: Use the verb "claim" only when there's some fairly obvious reason to doubt that what is being claimed is true. For example: "The suspect claimed he was innocent even though police had found his fingerprints on the burglarized safe." (Back to top)

Clauses/phrases: The difference between the two is this: A clause has both a subject and a verb. A phrase doesn't. For example, "The dog has short ears" is a clause. But "The dog with the short ears" is a phrase. (Back to top)

Comma: Figuring out how to use commas properly is tricky. There's a whole section on commas in the "Punctuation" section in the back of your AP Stylebook. I recommend you study it. Here are some of the more common comma issues:

Comma splice: A comma splice occurs when a writer erroneously uses a mere comma to join or "splice" two complete sentences. A complete sentence has a subject and a verb and can make sense when read all by itself. For example, "Fire destroyed the house" is a complete sentence. So is "The family escaped unharmed." Now, suppose you wanted to put these two complete sentences together to form a single sentence. You must not do so by merely sticking a comma between them, as in "Fire destroyed the house, the family escaped unharmed." You would have created a comma splice. Instead, join the two complete sentences in one of the following ways:

Compose, comprise, constitute: Follow these guidelines:

Courtesy titles: AP Style says you generally should avoid using "Mr.," "Mrs." or "Ms." in front of someone's name. On second reference, simply refer to someone by his or her last name only. Use courtesy titles, however, when there's a need to distinguish between a husband and a wife who have the same last name. For example: "John and Jane Doe run a restaurant down on the corner of Main Street. Mrs. Doe works the register and takes orders from customers. Mr. Doe mans the kitchen." See the reason for using the courtesy titles? Without them, you wouldn't know which Doe did what. Note, by the way, that the New York Times ignores this rule in its news columns. Everyone in the NY Times is "Mr" "Mrs." or "Ms." this or that on second reference. When you work for the New York Times, you can ignore the rule, too. Until then, though, follow AP Style. (Back to top)

Currently: Think hard before using this word. It's usually unnecessary in present progressive tense constructions like "is currently saying" or "are currently doing." If you "are saying," then you "are currently saying." The idea of "currently" is included in the verb tense's meaning, so the word "currently" is unnecessary. About the only time you need "currently" is when you need to emphasize a contract between how things are right now and how they used to be or will be. For example:

Dangling modifier: A dangling modifier occurs when the connection between a phrase and what it's supposed to be describing is vague or nonexistent. The classic example is the phrase, "This morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas." Obviously, the writer meant he was wearing pajamas this morning when he shot an elephant. But it takes only a little imagination to picture an elephant charging about while wearing the man's pajamas -- and not much more to picture the poor man wearing the pajamas while the elephant charges around somewhere inside them. The confusion arises because there's no clear connection between the phrase "in my pajamas" and the idea in the sentence that the phrase is supposed to be describing.

Not all dangling modifiers make you laugh. Many just make you scratch your head and wonder what the author is trying to say. For example, in the sentence "The truck was following the car with a trailer," it's impossible to tell whether the car or the truck was pulling the trailer. "The truck was towing a trailer and following the car" would be clearer, as would "The truck was following the car, which was towing a trailer." (Back to top)

Dates: Use figures, not words, and don't include "st," "nd," "rd" and the like. In other words, Sept. 1, not Sept. 1st. or Sept. first. Also:

Demonstrative adjectives: Letting demonstrative adjectives -- words like "this" or "that" -- stand alone can reduce a sentence's clarity and lead to confusion. These words need something to refer to. "This *book*," or "that *chair*," for example, not merely "this" or "that." (Back to top)

Dimentions: Always use figures. For example: The 6-foot-8-inch player. The play is 6 feet 8 inches tall. (Back to top)

Direct address: A term that means speaking directly to readers with first- or second-person pronouns like "I," "we," or "you." Direct address is inappropriate for newspaper writing, but OK, and even encouraged, in broadcast writing. Some details:

Dollars: In newspaper writing, use a dollar sign ($) instead of the word "dollars," and a numeral. Like this: "My grandfather earned $40 a week," or even "My grandfather earned $4 a week." Use the word "dollar" only in casual references: "He gave the boy a dollar for shoveling the snowy sidewalk." In broadcast writing, use the word "dollar" or "dollars" instead of the "$" symbol. See also numerals. (Back to top)

Dramatic unity: In broadcast writing, stories follow a "dramatic unity" structure. The lead emphasizes the very latest angle. The middle part gives the background needed to understand the story. The end talks about the consequences of what happened and/or what will happen next. (Back to top)

Elements (of a lead): The "elements" of a straight-news lead are the "who," "what," "where," "when," "why" and "how" of the story. Every straight news lead should include, at minimum, the "what," "when" and "where." The "who" and "why and how" should be included, too, if they represent newsworthy aspects of the story. See leads. (Back to top)

Fewer/less: Use "fewer" when you're talking about things that can be counted individually: fewer buckets of water, for example. Use "less" when you're talking about something that can't really be subdivided: less water, for example. You can count buckets, but you can't count water. (Back to top)

First person: Avoid making a "guest appearance" in your own story through unattributed first-person pronouns like "I," "me," "we," or "our." For example:

     City officials broke ground Monday on a redevelopment of First Avenue between 12th and 15th streets.
     I was there watching as our mayor proudly plunged a shovel into the soft dirt and told me that beauty and functionality were about to return to that blighted section of town. We all applauded the mayor's comments.

Where it is necessary to use pronouns, use third-person pronouns like he, she, it, him, her, they, who, whom, whoever, whomever. These words help convey objectivity to your readers. (Back to top)

First verb (of a lead): Writing a good lead depends greatly on choosing a good first verb. The first verb should:

Format (for submitting stories online): If your story came out as one big bloc of text, it's because you forgot to leave a single, blank line between each paragraph of your story. (Back to top)

Fractions: Spell out fractions and use a hyphen: one-fourth, two-thirds, three-thirds, etc. (Back to top)

Fund raising, fund-raising, fund-raiser. According to AP Style, the following usages are correct:

Gerund: A gerund is a verbal that ends in -ing and acts as a noun. Standing, sitting, reaching, talking, writing, listening and saying are all gerunds.

Graf (paragraph): Paragraphs in news writing should be very short by usual standards -- two or three sentences long at most. Often, a graf is a single sentence. Short grafs make the story look shorter and, therefore, easier to read. (Back to top)

Headline: A headline is a sentence or phrase that appears above a print news story. It's usually set in type larger than the type of the story, and it's job is to call attention to the story and to give readers a quick idea of what the story is about. In broadcast news, headlines take the form of "teasers" read either at the beginning of the newscast, just before or after a commercial break during the newscast, or during breaks between other programming prior to the newscast. You've heard them, I'm sure. They sound like this: "Police arrest a suspect in last night's double homicide. We'll have the story at 10," or "Up next, police arrest a suspect in last night's double homicide." Print news headlines usually are written in present tense, even when the action they're talking about took place in the past. They also usually omit articles like "a," "an," or "the" and conjunctions like "and" and "but." Like this: "Police arrest suspect in double homicide."

Highway designations: Use these forms:

Hole (in a story): If an editor tells you there's a "hole" in your story, the editor means that an important piece of information is missing. For example, you might have forgotten to include the "when" or the "where," or perhaps your story leaves some obvious question unanswered.

Hopefully: Use "hopefully" as an adverb, not as an adjective. "The hungry dog gazed hopefully at the boy's sandwich." The adjective form is "hopeful," as in "The hopeful dog gazed at the boy's sandwich." The most common misuse of "hopefully" is in sentences such as "Hopefully, we will finish up on Monday" when the intended meaning is "We hope to finish Monday," not "We will finish Monday with hope in our hearts." (Back to top)

If/Whether: These two words are not interchangeable. Some guidelines:

Impact: Avoid using "impact" as a verb. Don't, for example, say that the slowing economy impacted the state's sales tax collections. Say instead that the slowing economy affected or had an impact on the state's sales tax collections. (Back to top)

In order to: Inherently wordy. Use only "to." In other words, don't write, "The president flew to Europe in order to conduct the negotiations personally." Instead, write, "The president flew to Europe to conduct the negotiations personally." (Back to top)

Transitive/Intransitive verbs: "Transitive" verbs are verbs that can have a direct object. For example, in the sentence "The player hit the ball," the noun "ball" is the direct object of the verb "hit," because the ball is the thing that the player hit. "Intransitive" verbs can't have direct objects. For example, in the sentence "The player complained," the verb "complained" couldn't sensibly have a direct object. One complains, and one can even complain bitterly, but one can't complain a thing the way one can hit a ball. Also, the same verb can be transitive in one usage and intransitive in another. For example, in the sentence, "The player left his hat," the verb "left" is transitive, because "left" has a direct object: hat. The hat is the thing the player left. But in the sentence, "The player left," there is no direct object. The player didn't leave anything or anyone. The player simply left. In that case, the verb "left" is intransitive. (Back to top)

Irony / ironic. "Irony" is a fairly complicated literary concept, and beginning writers tend to label as "ironic" events and situations that really aren't. Part of the temptation lies in the fact that the word "ironically" can be used as transition. Some of the common, and valid, uses of the term "irony" include describing:

Its, it's: Beginning writers often confuse the words "its" and "it's." Here's the difference between the two:

Lead: A lead is the first sentence of a news story. It should be a single paragraph consisting of a single sentence of 30 or fewer words. It also should sum up the most important "what" of the story as well as the "when" and "where" of the story. It should include the "who" of the story if there is one and should sum up the "why and how" of the story if there's room. The lead's first verb is critical. It should be active voice, should appear within the lead's first seven words, and should take readers straight to the main "what" of the story. Any attribution ("said," "according to," etc.) should appear at the end of the lead, as in "..., John Smith said Monday." or "..., according to the report." See also first verb. Note: Beginning media writers often confuse a a lead with a headline. Avoid that trap. The Writing Straight News Leads handout presents a more detailed discussion. (Back to top)

Led / Lead. Students sometimes confuse these two words - or actually three words, because the meaning of "lead" depends on the word's context. A breakdown:

Libel: Libel is a published statement or representation that wrongly injures a person's reputation. Basic defenses against a libel suit include verifying that information is true before publishing it or at least making a reasonable effort to verify its truth. It's also harder for public officials and public figures to sue successfully for libel than it is for private individuals. See "Writers and the Law" in the Stovall text for a more in-depth discussion. (Back to top)

Majority: Figuring out whether this word takes a singular or a plural verb can be tricky. Here are the guidelines in AP style:

Millions, billions: Use a figure, followed by the word "million" or "billion." Like this: 4 million, 16 billion. (Back to top)

Months: Abbreviate months that appear with a specific date, but only if the month's name has more than five letters in it. For example: My birthday is in June. My birthday is June 12. But: My birthday is in September. My birthday is Sept. 12.

Most: Beware of using "most" when you mean merely "a lot" or "many." The word "most" means 51 percent or more. If you write "most," make sure you have solid evidence that such a majority exists.

Over/More than: Use "over" for spatial relationships, like "a bridge led over the river." Use "more than" for amounts, like "The company earned more than $2 billion last year." (Back to top)

Names: In newswriting, you generally give both a person's first and last names the first time you mention him or her. After that, you use only the person's last name. Like this: "Another witness, John Smith, said he spotted two men running from the scene. Smith, who was driving by at the time, said he saw ..." Also, Always double check the spelling of a person's name. For most people, getting their name in the newspaper is a big deal, and they can get pretty uptight if you goof up the spelling. And here's a practical hint: People who write exercises for beginning journalism classes often slip in oddly spelled names to see whether you're paying attention. (Back to top)

News values/Newsworthiness: The news values help journalists determine how newsworthy a piece of information is. The more news values a piece of information demonstrates, the more newsworthy it is. The News Values Handout presents a more thorough discussion. The news values are:

Numerals: The general rule is: Spell out one through nine, and use figures for 10 or more. Exceptions to the rule abound. For instance:

Objectivity: "Objective" means "based on independently verifiable fact." You can objectively say, for example, that a rose is red, mainly because anyone else who looks at the rose would also conclude that the rose is red. Anyone who looked at the rose and saw some other color would be considered color blind at best. If you say, though, that the rose is pretty, you're no longer being objective about the matter. Why not? Because what's pretty to one person may not be pretty to someone else. To a rose lover, a rose is pretty. To an orchid lover, a rose is plain. Similarly, it may seem entirely appropriate to characterize, say, someone's death as "unfortunate" or even "tragic." But suppose that, unknown to you, the person who died was, well, a real schmuck. All the people the person cheated, stole from, abused, humiliated, exploited, and so on probably don't see his death as unfortunate or tragic. So it's really best simply to describe what happened and let readers make their own value judgments. Finally, it's important to realize that although journalists try to be as objective as as possible, no journalist can be completely objective. The very act of defining a set of events as "newsworthy" and boiling those events down into a news story involves making all kinds of non-objective decisions based on value judgments and personal perspectives. But journalists try to be objective where possible by emphasizing independently verifiable facts and avoiding overt, unattributed statements of opinions or judgments. Overt statements of opinion usually are reserved for editorials or opinion columns that are run exclusively on a special page or pages inside the paper. (Back to top)

Only: Be careful where you place this powerful modifier. It will tend to modify the word that comes immediately after it, so be sure the word that comes after it is the one you want it to modify. For example, the sentence "She only skimmed the thicker reports" means "She only skimmed the thicker reports; she didn't read them thoroughly."  It does not mean "She skimmed only the thicker reports instead of skimming all of the reports." (Back to top)

Organizations: Generally, capitalize and spell out the names of organizations the first time you mention them in a story. After that, you can abbreviate the name. For example: "Inspectors from the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the crash. So far, no leads have turned up, an FAA spokesman said Friday."

Paraphrase: Paraphrasing is simply saying what someone else said, but in your own words instead of in their words. Suppose, for example, the police chief says, "This city's officers are some of the most well-prepared officers in the country. They're trained better than most officers. We also equip them better than most officers." It's not that great of a quote. You could write a paraphrase that said what he said, only better: The police chief called the city's officers some of the best-trained, best-equipped officers in the country. (Back to top)

Parallel structure: Parallel structure helps a reader see the relationships between ideas in a sentence by framing the ideas in similar grammatical structures. Here's an example: "The bank robber burst through the door, pulled a handgun and ordered everyone onto the floor." All three verbs, "burst," "pulled" and "ordered" are related -- they're all things that the robber did. The fact that they're all in past tense emphasizes the fact that they're related. The sentence also flows smoothly. Here's another example: " Bursting through the door, pulling a handgun and ordering everyone onto the floor, the bank robber threw a sack at a teller and demanded that she fill it with cash." Here, the verbals "bursting," "pulling" and "ordering" all are related because they happened before the sentence's main actions: "threw" and demanded." Other words besides verbs and verbals can be put in parallel, too. Here's an example of several prepositional phrases put in parallel: "The vehicle plunged over the guardrail, down the embankment and into the river." Pairs of words like "both/and" and "not only/but also" can enhance parallel structure: "He was both tired and hungry." "She rescued not only the cat but also the dog." (Back to top)

Partial quote: Avoid using a partial quote. A partial quote is a quote that picks up in mid-sentence. Like this:

          The detective said the two suspects "make Bonnie and Clyde look like a traveling circus. These guys are elusive, calculating and, above all, deadly."

It's far more elegent to set up a quote by preceding it with a graf that indicates who is about to speak and generally what he or she is about to say, then present the quote as a complete sentence in a separate graf. See Quotes for details and an example. (Back to top)

Parentheticals: Avoid using them. Parentheticals are little words inserted - usually in brackets or parentheses - to help clarify the quote's meaning. For example:

     Smith said, "He (the mayor) will need to review the ordinance thoroughly before signing it. But the mayor and the City Council have agreed in principle to what the ordinance says."

Such parentheticals interrupt the flow of the writing and, when put into print, look ugly and distracting, especially if there are a lot of them. It's better to introduce or "set up" the quote in a way that makes the parenthetical unnecessary. For example, a simple paraphrase will often work:

     Smith said the mayor will need to review the ordinance before signing it.
     "But the mayor and the City Council have agreed in principle to what the ordinance says," Smith said. (Back to top)

Passive voice/Active voice: Avoid passive voice verb structure in news writing, especially in your lead's first verb. Passive voice is a subject-verb structure in which the subject is having (or has had or will have) something done to it. For example: "The house was destroyed by fire." "House" is the subject, and it had something done to it. It "was destroyed." The opposite of passive voice is active voice. Active voice is a subject-verb structure in which the subject is doing (or has done or will do) something. For example: "Fire destroyed the house." "Fire" is the subject, and it did something. It destroyed the house. By implication, active-voice verbs must be action verbs. Often, switching a sentence from passive voice to active voice means figuring out what your subject can do and making it do that. If you have a subject than can't do anything, use a different subject.

Percent: Generally, AP Style says to use a figure followed by the word "percent." Like this: 1 percent, 16 percent. Don't use the "%" symbol. Spell out the percentage if it begins a sentence: "Twenty-eight percent of the department's budget had been spent on travel to conventions across the nation." (Back to top)

Possessives: Your AP Stylebook includes an excellent discussion of how to handle every possible possessive situation. Here are a few of the more commonly encountered ones, though:

Prefixes: Look up specific prefixes in you AP Stylebook. Generally, use a hyphen only if:

Pronoun case: There are two groups, or "cases," of pronouns: objective case and nominative case. You must decide which case to use by figuring out what job the pronoun will be doing in the sentence. Some guidelines:

Quotes: Be selective about what you choose to present as a direct quote. Nine times out of 10, you can use a paraphrase to do a better job than the source did of saying what the source said.

          Detective Jason Smith said the suspects, both wanted in five states on charges of murder, kidnapping and robbery, should be considered armed and dangerous.
          "These two guys make Bonnie and Clyde look like a traveling circus," Smith said. "These guys are elusive, calculating and, above all, deadly."
          Police described the pair as traveling in a stolen, dark blue Ford Explorer with Maryland license plates. A reward of $50,000 has been offered for information leading to their arrests.

Redundancy: A word is redundant if it adds no meaning to the sentence or phrase it is part of. For example, the word "completely" is redundant in the phrase "completely destroyed." Things can't be "partly destroyed." The word "destroyed" is absolute. Similarly, there's no point in writing "3 p.m. in the afternoon." Use either "3 p.m." or "3 in the afternoon. Other redundancies are more subtle: "joined together," for example, or "collapsed down." Things can't join in any way besides together, and things can't collapse in any way but down. (Back to top)

Round-up lead. A "round-up lead" is a lead that attempts to present two or more unrelated aspects of a story with more or less equal emphasis. They're most commonly found atop stories about meetings. Suppose, for example, a city council decided, during a single meeting, to raise taxes on sales of beer, wine and tobacco, fire the police chief for his part in a prisoner abuse scandal at the city jail, and release a report disclosing unsafe levels of E. coli  bacteria and mercury in the city's drinking water. All three are pretty newsworthy items, and a reporter would be tempted to write a lead saying something like, "City Council raised taxes, revealed that city water is unsafe, and fired the police chief during last night's meeting at City Hall." As with many round-up leads, though, this one tries to cover so many topics that it gives too little information about any one topic. Worse, readers can erroneously assume that all the events in the lead are causally related - for example, that the Council raised taxes to pay for correcting a drinking water problem that the police chief is somehow responsible for causing.

Usually, it's better to emphasize one topic in the lead, then mention the remaining topics in the story's next paragraph. For example:

"The city's drinking water contains unsafe levels of bacteria and mercury, the City Council revealed during last night's meeting at City Hall.

Council members also fired Police Chief Arthur Donegan for his role in a recent prisoner abuse scandal at the City Jail and voted to raise taxes on beer, wine and tobacco sold within the city limits."

In practice, most edtiors probably would go a step further and publish three stories, one devoted to each topic. (Back to top)

Run-on sentence: A run-on sentence is a sentence consisting of two or more independent clauses with no appropriate connections between them. For example, "The driver lost control of the car the vehicle smashed into the guard rail." is a run-on sentence, because two independent clauses, "The driver lost control of the car" and "The vehicle smashed into the guard rail" have been run together with no connecting punctuation or words. The easiest way to fix a run-on sentence is to make each independent clause a separate sentence. "The driver lost control of the car. The vehicle smashed into the guard rail." It's also possible to fix a run-on sentence by using the techniques described under "comma splice." (Back to top)

Said: Use this neutral verb for most attribution jobs. Other words like "stated," "admitted" "asserted," etc. carry connotations that may be inaccurate. "Stated," for instance, suggests that whatever was said was said under some kind of duress. "Admitted" suggests the speaker had been trying to conceal what was said. "Claimed" suggests that what the person is claiming is untrue.

Semicolon: Semicolons have two main uses:

Second reference: Second reference is any reference to an individual or organization that occurs after the initial reference to that person or organization in a news story.

Sentence fragment: A sentence fragment is a phrase that is presented as a sentence but lacks a subject and/or a verb.

Since/because: Use "since" for time relationships, as in "I haven't seen you since last year." Use "because" for cause-and-effect relationships, like "Because my car broke down, I had to catch a bus." Don't make the common mistake of using "since" to mean "because," as in "Since my car broke down, I had to catch a bus." (Back to top)

Spelling: Media writers take spelling pretty seriously. At the very least, run the spelling checker routine available in whatever application you're using to compose your assignments. If you're unsure of a word's spelling, look the word up in a dictionary. Nothing will discredit your writing quicker than crummy spelling. A technical note: The online form you use to submit your work has no spell-checking capabilities. So you might consider typing your work in a good word processor like Microsoft Word or Corel Wordperfect, spell checking your assignment there, and then pasting the text into the form's window for submission. If you don't know how to do that, stop by my office sometime, and I'll show you.(Back to top)

State names: Abbreviate state names that both appear with a city name and have more than five letters. Don't, however, abbreviate Alaska and Hawaii. They're spelled out because they're not part of the contiguous United States. Go figure. Anyway, use the old postal abbreviations, Ala., Ariz., Ark., Calif., etc., not the new, two-letter postal abbreviations like AL, AR, AK, CA, etc. Your AP Stylebook lists the old postal abbreviations under the "state names" entry.

Suffered/sustained: In newspaper parlance, buildings, cars and other inanimate objects "sustain damage." People or animals "suffer injuries." (Back to top)

SVO lead: Short for a "Subject-Verb-Object" lead. As the name implies, such leads present the subject first, followed by an action verb and, if available, the action verb's direct object. For example: "Police (subject) arrested (action verb) two suspects (direct object) this morning in connection with last week's double homicide." Note that SVO structure requires an action verb. For example, "Two suspects (subject) were (non-action, "to be" verb) arrested (predicate adjective) by police this morning in connection with last week's double homicide" is not an SVO lead.

See the Writing Straight News Leads handout for details. Using SVO structure will help you write your leads in active voice.

Tenses: Verb tenses are essential tools for conveying what happened when. The most commonly used tenses are past tense (I walked), present tense (I walk), and future tense (I will walk.) But there are many more, and mastering each is critical to writing clearly. See the verb tenses handout for details. (Back to top)

That: The word "that" can cause trouble in at least two ways:

First, generally, omit "that" after any tense of the verb "to say." For example, "The president said he had signed the bill." Keep "that," however, if a time element appears directly after any tense of the verb "to say." For example, "The president said Monday that he had signed the bill." Also keep "that" if it is followed by a subordinate clause beginning with a conjunction like after, although, because, before, in addition to, until, and while. For example: "The president said that until he gets Congress' support for his Social Security package, he will refuse to sign the highway bill."

Second, know when to use "that" and when to use "which." Both words can be used to introduces a clause or phrase. For example:

Notice how the italicized phrases, although identical, serve different purposes. Knowing whether to use "that" or "which" depends on figuring out which kind of purpose the phrase or clause is serving.

In the first example, the phrase is specifying which car the police searched. Without it, you would have no way of knowing which of the two cars police had searched. That property makes the phrase "restrictive" or "essential," and such phrases are introduced by "that."

In the second example, the phrase is providing extra information about the car. Without it, you still would know which car the police had searched. They searched the red one. The phrase simply clues you in to the fact that the red car matched the description of a car seen leaving the crime scene. Such "nonessential" or "nonrestrictive" phrases are introduced by "which." Notice also that "which" usually must be preceded by a comma in such usages. (Back to top)

The/A: Putting "the" in front of a noun in a news story usually signals that you have alluded to that noun somewhere earlier in the story, or that readers are already familiar - perhaps from earlier stories - with whatever the "the" is referring to. If neither is the case, readers will be confused. Consider this example of a poorly written lead and second graf:

          One person died Friday afternoon in a single-car accident on Main Street.
          The boy, 6-year-old Brenden Smith, was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. His parents, Jim and Jane Smith, both of Murfreesboro, are listed in critical condition at Middle Tennessee Medical Center.

Your reaction upon reading the two grafs was probably something like, "Boy? What boy are we talking about, here? There's been no mention of a boy." That's precisely the problem. Consider how adding an allusion to the boy earlier in the story helps things out:

          A boy died Friday afternoon in a single-car accident on Main Street.
          The boy, 6-year-old Brenden Smith, was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. His parents, Jim and Jane Smith, both of Murfreesboro, are listed in critical condition at Middle Tennessee Medical Center.

Similarly, using "the" in front of a noun or noun phrase in a news story can imply that the noun or noun phrase has been talked about in previous stories and should be well known to the reader. If such is not the case, the reader will be confused. Consider this lead:

          The expansion of City Hall has hit an expensive snag, the project's contractor said Monday.

The above lead suggests that the reader already should know about "the expansion." If this is the first-ever story about the expansion, the reader had no way of knowing about it. (Back to top)

Titles: Capitalize formal titles that appear directly before someone's name. If a title comes after someone's name, lowercase it and set it off with commas. Like this: "Police Chief John Frazier said ...," but "John Frazier, police chief, said ..." If the titles stands alone, apart from someone's name, lowercase it: "The police chief said ..."

Time: Use figures with no ":00" for on-the-hour times. For example: 10 a.m., 11 p.m., 5 a.m., 5 p.m. You also can use 5 o'clock in the afternoon, 10 o'clock in the morning, etc. Express minutes past an hour by using a colon. For example: 10:01 a.m., 10:59 p.m., 5:15 p.m., etc. Some other tips:

Toward: Note that there's no "s" on the end. (Back to top)

Transition: Transition links each paragraph of a news story to the preceding paragraph and provides the momentum necessary to keep the reader reading. Transition also helps link sentences within a paragraph. Some types of transition include:

1. Time sequence:

         After screeching through the turn from Main Street onto Broad, the speeding car barreled through a red light at the Old Fort Parkway intersection.
          Hitting speeds of up to 80 mph, the car then careened up Broad Street, finally smashing into a utility pole near Thompson Lane.

2. Repeating a sentence structure:

          Johnson said she has tried and tried to call attention to the problem.
          She has written 25 letters to various government officials.
          She has made countless phone calls.
          She has even taken time off work to stake out the mayor’s office.

3. Using contrast and/or comparison:

          Officials insist the campus has plenty of parking spaces.
         However, cars could be seen Monday parked in grassy medians, in front of fire hydrants, on sidewalks and even, in one case, right in the middle of the street.

4. Using geographic sequence:

          A spacious lobby greets visitors to the new library.
         Across the lobby, stairs lead to an airy reading room and computer center on the second floor.
          From here, visitors can take any of four elevators to the stacks on the building’s six other floors.

5. Using pronouns and demonstrative adjectives:

          “This ordinance absolutely must pass,” the mayor declared.
          He threatened to resign in protest if it didn’t.
          That ultimatum irked the council members, who promptly decided to call his bluff.

6. Using conjunctive adverbs:

          Developers are applying for a permit to build a landfill on the site.
         Meanwhile, environmentalists are organizing opposition to the plan.

(Other conjunctive adverbs: accordingly, consequently, moreover, therefore, however, etc. Be aware that many conjunctive adverbs imply a particular relationship between the thoughs they link. "Therefore," for example, suggests that the second idea is a result or outcome of the first idea. Use these words only when their connotations are accurate.)

7. Using numbers:

          Getting healthy involves some basic principles, the trainer said.
         First, cut the fat out of your diet. Hamburgers, pizza and bacon are OK, but only as occasional treats, he said.
         Second, exercise. As little as 30 minutes a day can make a big difference, he said.

8. Echoing words or grafs from the preceding graf

          The accident left 41-year-old Jane Smith battling for her life in the Middle Tennessee Medical Center’s intensive care unit.
         Smith, a mother of three, suffered head injuries, a crushed leg and a broken back, a hospital nursing supervisor said. (Back to top)

Very: A word to be avoided. Convey degrees instead by choosing the correct word. Someone who is very angry, for example, is incensed or furious. (Back to top)

Vote tabulations: Use this form: "The Council voted 5-2 against the proposal." (Back to top)

Weapons: See the "Weapons" entry in your AP stylebook for details, but here are some highlights:

Who/That: Use "who" to refer to people, as in "He's the one who wrote the report" or "They're the ones who wrote the report." Also use "who" to refer to animals that have a name: "Lassie was a dog who starred in a 1950s TV show." Use "that" to refer both to objects and to animals that don't have specific names. For example, "Here's the report that I wrote," and "There's the dog that I was telling you about." (Back to top)

Wordiness: Say what you need to say in as few words as possible. For example, don't write, "The man proceeded to leave the building." Instead, write "The man left the building." (Back to top)

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