Welcome back, I'm Denis Muller. Today, we're going to talk about Principles of good writing, especially news writing. Omit needless words, said William Strunk, Jr. and EB White, in their little classic, The Elements of Style, now in its 8th edition and known worldwide as as Strunk and White. Make every word tell another of their little rules. Hard to say it more simply than that. Simplicity is essential to news writing, simplicity and clarity. Good news writing is simple, clear, economical, specific and arresting. Make your meaning clear. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, It's not enough to write so that you can be understood; you must write so that you cannot be misunderstood. And use short, everyday words. Winston Churchill said, short words are best and the old words, when short, are best of all. By the old words he meant the Anglo-Saxon words, do, make, get, words like that. Not accomplish, manufacture, or obtain. Pretty good role models, Strunk, White, Emerson and Churchill. Writing simply and clearly is hard work. As Mark Twain said, by hard honest labor, I have dug all the large words out of my vocabulary. Prefer everyday words. Jobs instead of employment, work instead of operate, get instead of obtain. Having instead of undergoing, try instead of endeavor, change instead of modify, start instead of commencement. And avoid pomposities, phrases like recreational activities are games. Interstices are just gaps. Weasel words like, address, which really have no specific meaning, means, fix or tackle some problem. Aquatic environment, water. And this from a local government document in Melbourne, Victoria. The green phase of the traffic signals just means a green light. Why are everyday words better? Well, they have integrity. They're not any clearer, but they're brief. They save you words, omitting needless words again. And usually they have vigour, they add strength to your writing. To write good news copy, that's what you need to do. Keep your language simple, make your meaning clear, and use the fewest words needed for the job. Avoid fancy words. They don't impress anyone, and they turn people off if they don't know what you mean. Words like quotidian instead of everyday or common place, ersatz instead of artificial or copycat, limpid instead of clear, these are just fancy words that are show-off words, really. And you are excluding people who don't know what those words mean, and if you exclude people, they won't read you. Know the true meaning of words. Aggravate, for example, means to make worse, not to annoy. Disinterested means unbiased, not uninterested. If you're not sure about the meaning of a word, don't use it or, if you must use it, look it up first. But remember this, if you don't know the meaning of a word, there's a good chance your audience might not know the meaning of it, either, so look for a simpler alternative. You can see from this slide how a good editor and a good writer can find the unnecessary words and strike them out. Omit needless words, as Strunk and White tell us. We are currently in the process of making, no, we are making. It should also be noted that 20 people declined. Well, you don't need the first bit, do you? The benefits accruing to staff, well benefits always accrue. The committee reviews outcomes on an annual basis. Well, yes, but you can say it in one word, annually. 8:00 PM by definition is at night. And a bonus is always something which is added. Circumstances contain the idea of surrounding, that's what circum means. And in terms of, a scrofulous cliche if there ever was one, adds nothing. Say about or concerning. That's what we mean by omitting needless words. And here are some more. Usually, you'll see these in pompous government documents, prior to, commencement of, in receipt of, and so on. There's quite a list there that you can see on the slide. Go looking for the single, simple word. And while we're talking about words like received or in receipt of, the best words in our language, the strongest words, are the verbs, the doing words. And you'll find verbs lurking about underneath some of these pompous phrases, particularly where you see an abstract noun. And on this slide here, where we're looking for the hidden verb, you can see what I mean. Making improvements, the improvements is the noun. Making improvements in, it just means improving. Another one there, arriving at a settlement, settling. You can see underneath these abstract nouns, very often there's a verb lurking. And if you can find that verb, use it because verbs are our strongest words, and they give the greatest degree of action and movement and vigor to your writing. And that's exactly the kind of writing you want if you're going to write news. There are pairs of words in the language that give lots of us trouble, and here are some of them. Alternate means every second one, where alternative means another choice. Among refers to three or more, between refers to two. Now here's a very common one, fewer refers to number, but less refers to amount or volume. And you can see from the slide, there's a lot of these, and we could go on forever and we're not going to. But the underlying point is if you're going to use a word, know what it means, be careful. And if you're not sure, either avoid the word or look it up. But in news writing, you are expected to get these things right. Prefer the active voice over the passive voice. The people decided, rather than it was decided by the people. The active voice is better because it's usually shorter, it's clearer, makes it obvious who is doing what to whom, which is what we're usually writing about. And the slide that you can see in front of you has got a very good example of how this is made clear. The Immigration Department has identified 47 passengers travelling to Australia on forged documents over the past month. Whereas in the passive voice it would read, Forty-seven passengers have been identified by the Immigration Department as having travelled to Australia on forged documents over the past month. Much clearer and much shorter to have put it in the active voice. It doesn't always work, though it does most of the time. But, sometimes, there are more important rules of syntax which take precedence. And that has to do with the way we construct the meaning. The word,syntax, incidentally, is just a fancy word for how we organize words to create meaning. And one of the important rules of syntax is that we put words of emphasis at the end of the sentence. Look at the meaning you're trying to convey, where you want to place your emphasis, and place words of emphasis at the end. Here's an example from a safety demonstration that used to be broadcast on Qantas airplanes before take-off. It was talking about the working of the life rafts, and the script for that safety demonstration used to read as follows. Life rafts are built into the doors. The crew would operate them. Now, that's the active voice, but it doesn't convey the meaning we're intending, or that Qantas was intending. In that case, they needed the passive voice. Life rafts are built into the doors. They would be operated by the crew. And the important word there is the crew. What Qantas didn't want were passengers opening the doors and operating the life rafts. And so there was a case where the active voice didn't work because it actually clouded the meaning. So always look to your meaning, but all things considered, when all other things are equal, do prefer the active voice for the reasons we've spoken about. Another important rule of syntax is to keep related words together. This gets us into all sorts of trouble when we break it. Here's an example, and you can, I think, hear the difference in meaning quite clearly. First statement says, I wouldn't admit that I had done that to anybody. And the other form is, I wouldn't admit to anybody that I had done that. You can hear the difference, can't you? And another example, All the members were not present. Not the same thing as saying, Not all the members were present. And The average Australian's consumption is different from The average consumption by Australians. We're talking there about average consumption as opposed to to average Australian, whatever that means. So look to the meaning you're trying to convey, and keep your related words together to make the meaning as clear as possible. I'm not going to spend much time on punctuation in this talk. But one thing I am going to spend some time on is the poor beknighted apostrophe because so many of us make mistakes with the apostrophe. For a singular noun, you use 's. For a plural noun, you use s'. If you've got a noun with a plural already built in, like children or children's, then you use 's. Words that end in s, follow the pronunciation. James's book but St. James' Church. We use an apostrophe when a letter has been left out. For example, it's with an apostrophe means it is or it has. And we use it also for words like can't and won't, where letters have been left out. We never use an apostrophe with the possessive pronouns, and its is a possessive pronoun, along with ours, theirs, his, hers, and yours. We don't apostrophize any of them. In particular, not its when it's used in that sense. And we never use an apostrophe to signal a simple plural, veggies, potatoes, CDs, 1970s. And stuck-up grammarians sometimes refer to that as the greengrocer's apostrophe. Finally, I just want to say a few words about the different genres of newswriting, and there are three basic ones, really. There's factual reporting, analytical writing, and commentary. Now, the lines between these three genres are getting more and more blurred, but there's still a reasonable basis for making a distinction. Straight reporting, as we think of it, is not just a recitation of facts. But it's putting the facts together in a narrative, in a way which does not include a value judgment, doesn't say whether this is good or bad, is to be supported or opposed, is preferable to some alternative, or preferable to some other course of action. Analytical writing goes a little bit further, it's explanatory. And, increasingly, journalists are required to explain to their readers the meaning of what's going on, the meaning of the facts. Once more, this explanation should be free of commentary, should be free of value judgments. So, it's explanatory without saying that it's good or bad. And, finally, the genre of commentary is the genre which contains value judgments. So that is where, if you want, you can put in your personal opinion, you can say that this is appalling, or this is laudatory, and why. But if you do, it's important, if you're going to do journalism well, to provide the factual basis upon which you are making your value judgment. So, keep in mind these different genres, recognize that the lines are blurred. But the important thing is keep your opinions out of your news reporting. Try to keep your commentary separate. And when you do comment make sure you provide your audience with the factual material upon which you are basing it. So much for basic usage and grammar. In the next session, we'll be looking at the structure of news stories.
