Some notes on the Tryout Assignment

Here's some advice that should be helpful for many in the class.

All in all, your writing becomes much better if you can actually see what you are writing about. If writing about a building or a construction project or whatnot, go down to the site and use your observational skills to describe what is going on. Make the writing active and immediate.

Get the good stuff, the good quotes, anecdotes and facts high in the story. Give examples and specifics. Avoid vague concepts. Avoid using "seems." It tells me you are guessing, that you aren't sure. Don't guess and don't leave unanswered questions. Also, don't advocate for a cause. At least don't do it in a news story or as a professional journalist.

Said is the best, most functional way to give attribution. Not explained, stated, asserted, feels, claims, commented, asserts, worries. I know as writers we strive to vary our language so that we do not bore our readers with repetition. However, in the attempt to vary said, we run into more problems than it is  worth. Variations on said bring in connotations that often are not fair.

By straining to find variations to said, we are distracting the reader from the rest of the piece. It takes energy away from that part of your writing that the reader should be paying attention to. The word said just does the job in a straightforward way. It is like the white noise coming from a useful piece of equipment. It does not draw attention to itself but it gets its job done. When you notice that noise, and it becomes distracting, the equipment is breaking down.

Stay consistent with your tenses. Switching between says and said means you are switching between present and past tense. If you are writing in the past tense, use said throughout. If you are writing in present tense, use says throughout. Yes, it is OK to write in present tense in a news story. Sometimes the story calls for that. But don't switch tenses.

Believes and feels are particularly troubling kinds of attribution. They imply that somehow you really know what someone believes, and I maintain that is often impossible for a journalist to know.

Think about it this way. What if I told you, "You are the best student I have ever had."

I said it. But maybe I said it to every student I met that day. Maybe, for some reason, I told you that but didn't believe it.

What's the truth? The truth is that I said it.

"You are the best student I have ever had," Ed Bond said.

The point is that you should be skeptical. People tell reporters things for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they want to portray a point of view in the public. But their public stance may be very different from their private beliefs. An elected official may offer full support to an administrator one day, swear they will always be in their job, but then the next day fire that person. Who knows what they really believe?

ONE EXCEPTION: I did come across one example where believes worked: A group of scientists who believed that a treatment was effective against a disease. I was OK with it because it was not about a private belief, but a publicly shared belief. There is a difference.

I think often students use words as titles that should not be. For example: Parent Joe Smith.

Think about it? Who talks like that? How about: Joe Smith, a dad who lives in Ithaca.

Also remember that jobs are not always titles. So, don't use: Teaching Assistant David Brady. Instead: David Brady, who has been a teaching assistant for seven years, ...

It makes the writing more conversational. Also, if you are using a title before a name, it should not be longer than three or four words. If a title is longer than that, put it after the name and lowercase it.

One last style point: There is no italicizing in AP Style or newswriting. Check the entry for composition titles.