Improving Later Paragraphs

Each paragraph, regardless of its placement in a story, should present only one idea or unit of thought. When reporters shift to a new topic or a new phase of the same topic, they should start a new paragraph. Because the quotation in the following example introduces a new idea – a fact unrelated to the topic of American norms – it should be placed in a new paragraph. At the same time, the topic of American norms might be expanded to explain or illustrate it more clearly:

Living with his cousin has helped Faisal adjust to American norms. He added, “We often cook Middle Eastern dishes and invite our American friends over to our apartment.”

REVISED: Faisal said living with his cousin has helped him adjust to American norms. He explained: “Life is so much freer here than in the Middle East. My cousin explains your ways to me and shows me what to do.”

They often cook Middle Eastern dishes and invite American friends to their apartment.

Avoid generalities that have to be explained in a later paragraph. If you focus on a story's specific details, the generalities often become unnecessary. The following para­graphs illustrate that principle. Until they were revised, they emphasized general topics rather than any specific information that sources provided about those topics:

She described the life she observed in New Zealand.

REVISED: She said life in New Zealand is relaxed and carefree.

He also talked about the economic hardships faced by unwed mothers.

REVISED: He said 80 percent of unwed mothers under the age of 18 drop out of high school, and 84 percent become dependent on welfare.

Also avoid reporting details within each paragraph in chronological order, especially about reporting the overall story in chronological order. Instead, emphasize the news. Many paragraphs report that a topic was discussed, and then slowly proceed to the results. Consequently, the most important details are buried in the final line:

Next on its agenda, the City Council opened bids to determine who would receive a contract to construct the recreation center. The lowest bid was $1.5 million. The budget for the center was only $1,240,000. “It was very disappointing,” the mayor said. “Now we'll have to go back over the plans with our architects and eliminate some of the options to lower its cost. It'll delay construction six to nine months.”

REVISED: The construction of a recreation center will be delayed six to nine months because the bids were $260,000 more than budgeted for the work.

The city had allocated $1,240,000 for the work, but the lowest bid was $1.5 million. The mayor said that city officials will “have to go back over the plans with our architects and nominate some of the options to lower its cost.”

Shorten Your Sentences

Beginners use sentences that are too long and complicated. Yet the longer a sentence, the more difficult it is to understand. Moreover, when too many ideas are combined into a sentence, none receives the clarity and emphasis it deserves. As you read the following sentences, you are likely to stop and to start again. Why? All sentences contain more ideas than most readers can absorb at a glance. As you read each, count the number of ideas it contains:

Thirty-year-old Melvin Holder, an employee at the McDonald's at 3710 Lake Ave., was cleaning the closed restaurant at 2:40 a.m. when the two men, one wearing a ski mask, knocked on a locked door, pointed a revolver at him and demanded to be let in.

Task 5: Writing Second Paragraphs

Critically evaluate the second paragraph in the following stories. Which of the second paragraphs are most successful in:

(1) providing a smooth transition from the lead;

(2) continuing to discuss the topic summarized in the lead;

(3) emphasizing the news: details that are new, important and interesting?

1. Jewel C. Harris, 42, of 2245 E. Broadway Ave. was arrested and charged with aggravated battery after her car struck a bicyclist, police say. Jerry R. Harris, 24, also of 2245 E. Broadway Ave., was transported to Memorial Hospital with cuts, bruises and a broken leg.

2. The School Board has expelled eight more students for using drugs, bringing the total this year to 81. Only one of the eight students appeared before the board last night to defend herself. She was accused of selling marijuana to a classmate. 

3. The new Alcohol Information Center on campus acknowledges a slow start with its responsible drinking program. But program coordinators have plans to change that. Karen Dees is one of the program's coordinators. She wants to make sure that students understand the philosophy of responsible drinking. “We're not affiliated with any religious sect,” she said. “Our main goal is to keep heavy drinkers off the streets and keep them from harming themselves and others.” 

4. County Commissioner Anne Chen wants pornographic movies banned from cable TV. In an interview Friday, Chen said that watching pornography can be psychologically damaging to children. “I'm not talking about R-rated movies,” she said. “I'm talking about hard-core stuff that shows animals, whips and chains used in sexual acts.” 

5. A man claiming to have a bomb tried to rob the First Federal Savings and Loan Co. at 9:05 a.m. today. A man carrying a brown paper bag told a teller that it contained a bomb and that he would kill everyone in the bank unless she gave him $10,000. 

6. A 22-year-old auto mechanic and his wife delivered their triplets at home Monday because there was not time to drive to a birthing clinic. Barbara and Paul Wyman of 2020 Lorry Lane delivered their triplets at 4:30 a.m. The babies and their mother are reported in excellent condition.

7. Complaining that college administrators are insensitive to their needs, 50 handicapped students, some in wheelchairs, picketed the Administration Building Friday. About 10 percent of the student population is handicapped, but there is no way of determining how many there really are. When the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was passed, the disclosure of information about handicapped students was prohibited. The law is intended to ensure that a handicapped student is not discriminated against and denied entrance into a college. 

8. The police in Reno, Nev., feel safer and more confident since the PR-24 Baton replaced their night stick. Officer Jim Balliet said the concept of a baton was derived from a martial arts weapon called the tonfa. Lon Anderson, a New Hampshire police officer, developed the baton and brought the idea to a company to manufacture it, Balliet said. 

9. Two soldiers who were abducted, robbed and tied in woods said their captors apologized, saying they became robbers in order to feed their children. The young couple told the soldiers that they had also abducted several other people but never enjoyed it.

 

10. Peter Laguna, a 24-year-old Alabama man, went on trial Wednesday on charges of armed robbery. The first witness was Lynita Sharp, a clerk who was working at the convenience store when it was robbed on July 18. 

11. The School Board voted Tuesday to construct an elementary school on Grant Avenue. Two years ago, the Meadow Woods Subdivision offered to give the board land for the school.

 

12. A 22-year-old man today pleaded innocent to violating his probation, arguing that his poor education made it impossible for him to understand the instructions given by his parole officer. The defendant, Henry Forlenza, told the judge that he dropped out of high school and never learned to read. 

Come back to Tasks 1-3, choose any story and on the basis of the given information write a lead and the secondary paragraph. While writing keep in mind your supposed audience, time, space and if necessary, intertextuality.

6.3 The Language in News Stories

You have already learnt some things about the structure of a news story and the extralinguistic peculiarities of its contents. Now you are going to read useful information about the language of a news item. After reading formulate short rules about the language of this genre.

Text 4. Writing for Newspapers [5]

As a reporter, you should use simple and straightforward language. You also need to get the balance right between being formal enough to sound authoritative but also using the language that is lacking in stuffiness.

As a general rule you should not be using colloquial language or slang apart from in quotes. However, some newspapers do use terms like “cops” and “town hall chiefs” and you need to find out your newspaper’s policy on these.

Even if you do not use slang, you need to make sure you are only using words that people use in everyday conversation. For example, never write “in addition to” because a person in the street would be unlikely to say this. Use “as well as” instead.

You also need to make sure you are concise. This means you should go through every story after you have written it to make sure there are no words that do not need to be there. As the maxim goes, if in doubt, take it out.

Sentences

Your sentences should be short and to the point but there should also be some variety to their length as this will make your story more enjoyable to read. But while there is nothing wrong with having a few longer sentences, never include a sentence that is so long that the reader is likely to have difficulty following it.

When you check your story, make sure every sentence is easy to understand and can only be read to mean one thing. “The most common mistake journalists make is to think that because they understand what they are writing, everyone else will too,” according to Chris Walker, regional managing editor for Trinity Mirror North West & North Wales.

Your writing should also be active rather than passive, as this makes articles more readable. This means that you should structure your sentence so that people are doing things rather than having things done to them.

Paragraphs

Try to keep your paragraphs short. Generally, each one should only be a sentence or two in length and each paragraph should only be making one point.

This will help make your story easier for the reader to digest and having plenty of paragraphs will also make the text look less dense on the page.

Following the Style Book

Every newspaper should have its own style guide and it should be a reference tool reporters refer to on an almost-daily basis. Make sure you read it from cover to cover and aim to remember as much of it as possible.

This is important because if different reporters are following different rules (such as one article referring to “10” and another referring to “ten”) then it makes the newspaper seem inconsistent and unprofessional. Also, the sub-editors will be likely to notice and appreciate your efforts to stick to it.

Keep on Learning

Do not assume you know it all just because you have been doing it for a couple of years. Writing copy that reads well and explains complicated arguments in a simple way is a real art and you can always get better at it.

As the news desk and sub-editors change your articles, ask them why they have made the changes so you can learn from them. “You will continue to grow as a writer over the years so always be prepared to listen,” said Sam Holliday, editor of the Bath Chronicle.

So now you have acquired some knowledge about the genre of a news story; you have practiced writing separate components of this article, and further you will try to develop the skills necessary for writing complete stories. But before doing this it is worthwhile paying attention to one more very important aspect in journalistic writing. It is finding information for your planned story.

As future journalists you know different ways of gathering some data, statistics, etc for an article. One of them, of course, is conducting interviews. Maybe you know that in the American and the British journalistic traditions an interview is not a newspaper genre but mainly the method of looking for information.