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Writing for Media

CH. ARUNA

LECTURER IN ENGLISH

HINDU COLLEGE

GUNTUR

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What is Good Writing?

  • Clear, concise, simple and to the point
    • Efficient - minimum words to make your point
    • Precise - every word has a meaning
    • Clear - leaves no doubt in reader’s mind
    • Modest - don’t show off your intelligence

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Know the Tools of the Trade

  • Grammar
  • Spelling
  • Punctuation

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  • Dictionary
  • Thesaurus

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Know Your Subject

  • Don’t have to be an expert
  • But have a clear idea
  • Your readers must understand your content
  • Don’t know subject - research!
    • Search engines
    • Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
    • Book stores

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Write It Down

  • Just start writing (edit later)
  • Develop writing habits
  • Be a pro - meet your deadlines

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  • Edit and Rewrite
    • Discipline
    • Re-read
    • Edit
    • Rewrite (critically)

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Write Simply

  • Use simple words - key to clarity
    • “many” instead of “numerous”
    • “use” instead of “utilize”
    • “ease” instead of “facilitate”

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Use simple sentences

Brevity (edit to cut out unnecessary words)

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Chief Goal of a Writer

  • The chief goal of any writer for the mass media is to be accurate.

– The reason for an emphasis on accuracy is that people will not watch or subscribe to news that they believe to be inaccurate.

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Clarity

  • Clarity must be one of the chief goals of a writer for the mass media.
    • Facts that are unclearly presented are of little use to the reader. Some tips:
      • Keep it simple
      • Avoid jargon
      • Be specifc (who, what, when, where, why, and how)
      • Check time sequences (ensure narrative sequence)
      • Include transitions (story should flow logically)

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Eliminate Jargon, Cliches, etc.

  • Jargon - industry technical language
  • Cliches - overused words and phrases
  • Bureaucratese - misuse of language

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  • Vary sentence length
  • Pay attention to nouns and verbs
  • Transitions tie it together

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Obscure Grammar Terms

  • Parallelism
    • She likes running, cooking, and swimming.
  • Active/Passive Voice
    • John throws the ball
    • The ball is thrown by John.
  • That and Which
    • That introduces essential clauses. Which introduces non-essential clauses.

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Writing for Mass Media

  • Subject matter
    • News, features, ads, letters, editorials
  • Purpose
    • Inform, entertain, persuade
  • Audience
    • Know your target audience (defines message)

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Journalist Conventions

  • Inverted pyramid
  • Types of stories
  • Balance and fairness
  • Impersonal reporter
  • Reliance on official sources
  • Attributions and quotations

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Text and Images

  • Stories built around graphics
    • Photos, logos, graphs, charts
    • TV, mags, web
  • Editors love graphics
    • Graphics attract the reader’s eye
    • Breaks up the text (less intimidating to read)

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AP Style: Capitalization

  • Capitalize holidays, historic events, church feast days, and special events -- but not seasons
  • Capitalize proper names of nationalities, peoples, races, and tribes
  • Capitalize and place quotations around books, plays, poems, songs, speech titles, hymns, movies, TV shows, etc. when the full name is used

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AP Style: Numbers

  • Spell out both numbers one through nine and Arabic numerals for 10 and above
  • Use commas in numbers with four or more digits except for years and addresses
  • Numbers greater than a million may be rounded off and expressed:
    • 2.75 million instead of 2,752,123
    • $2.35 million instead of $2,349,999

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AP Style: Punctuation

Colon used in clock time

– 9:15 a.m., 10 a.m. (not 10:00 a.m.)

Hyphen used in phrasal adjectives

  • 7-year-old boy, a little-known man

Combinations of a number plus a noun measurement

  • 3-inch bug, 6-foot man, two-man team

Hyphen always used with the prefix “ex”

  • Ex-president, ex-chairman

Hyphen not used with adverb ending in “ly”

Comma omitted before Roman numerals and before Jr. and Sr. in names

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AP Style: Names & Titles

  • Identify people in the news with first and last name
  • Use full name in first reference, last name rest of time
    • Richard Cooper, then use Cooper rest of time
  • Titles before names - capitalized
    • Chairman and CEO, Bob Stanwick
  • Titles following names - not capitalized
    • Linda Bellweather, president of ABC Company

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Finally…

  • Writing is a process
    • Research, create, write, edit, proofread
  • Writing requires discipline
    • Be patient and stick with it
  • Writing is building
    • Word by word, sentence by sentence, etc.

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  • Finally … sit down and write

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���THANK YOU