Transcript Revising and Editing - JEA Curriculum Initiative

Revising
and Editing
News Writing
All Writing is Rewriting
How to revise and edit news stories
L-Q-T-Q
Remember the basic formula. Use the LQTQ handout.
Write a lead that quickly and clearly indicates the
focus of the story.
●The next paragraph supplies the details and
remaining 5W’s.
●Next, use a quote from your subject that
summarizes the story or provides an additional
detail, opinion or emotion.
●Write a transition to the next quote or thought.
●Use another quote.
●And so on …
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Remember, short paragraphs
In English class, a complete paragraph has a topic
sentence and support. In news writing, the topic
sentence is one paragraph and each item of support
is ANOTHER new paragraph.
● In news writing, you need a new paragraph for
each new idea. Every quote gets its own paragraph.
●Bottom line: You will write with LOTS of SHORT
paragraphs. No big long blocks of text.
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When you’ve written your story...
High-five yourself. Good story.
●Now make it better.
●Most stories, even yours, require rethinking,
rewriting, restructuring, rewording.
●Stop thinking that it is perfect just the way it is.
You can do better. Everyone rewrites.
●The next few slides will help you decide what
needs to be improved …
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“I’m always surprised that people think
professional writers get everything right on
the first try. Just the opposite is true; nobody
rewrites more often than the true
professional.”
— William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well
●
It’s perfectly OK to write garbage – as long
as you edit brilliantly.”
— C.J. Cherryh, science fiction writer
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“A reporter who doesn’t rewrite has tight
deadlines, bad habits or both. (In fact, I
rewrote the above sentence twice.)”
— Ron French, The Detroit News
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“I don’t write. I rewrite. My stories come
about more like rocking a car back and forth
in a ditch … Eventually it gets out and I’m on
my way.” — Tim Nelson, Pioneer Press, St. Paul,
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Minn.
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The rewriting process is not:
making your handwriting neater and leaving
out all of your scratch-outs.
●using the thesaurus to find bigger words.
●typing exactly what you wrote by hand.
●running spell check and grammar check and
fixing the things it tells you to. (Although that
is a good thing to do.)
●adding extra words and more people saying
the same thing to make it longer.
●
Making it better, Step 1:
Run spell-check. Correct typos, spelling
errors and obvious grammar errors.
●Check names, dates and facts.
●Run a word count. If you have 500 words for
a 350-word article, that’s good.
●If you have 200 words, stop right there. You
need to do more interviewing before you go
on. THINK: What am I missing?
●
Making it better, Step 2:
Read your story out loud.
●Stop and mark any place where you stumble,
pause, or have to reread.
●Take a look at the sentences that your word
processor has underlined for grammar errors
(that green squiggly line). Check for a subject
and verb in every sentence.
●Rewrite every sentence you or the computer
marked.
●
Read out loud
Listen for …
●clumsy spots
●excessive length
●anything that sounds
hollow, strange, bad
●poor grammar and syntax
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Making it better, Step 3: quotes
Reread all your quotes.
●Reread your notes for other quotes that might
work better or fit better.
●Don’t have good quotes? Go back and
conduct more interviews.
●Double-check names and spellings.
●Add your own observations about what it
looked like and sounded like. No opinions!
●
Making it better, Step 4: balance
Reread all your quotes.
●Do they represent various perspectives,
stakeholders, constituents, sides of an issue?
●Are all the important points made by the
people who are in disagreement?
●Double-check your own words. Eliminate
any personal pronouns not in quotes (we, our,
us, my, me, I). Make sure you are not
expressing an opinion.
●
Making it better, Step 5: verbs
Circle all the –ly words.
●Can you take out the adverb without changing
the meaning of the sentence?
Then do.
●Can you improve the sentence with a stronger
verb? Use the verb and take out the adverb.
●
More on verbs
Circle all the –ing words and all the instances
of “is”, “was” or “has.”
●Can you change the verb to an active verb
(“walked” instead of “was walking”)?
●Is the sentence written in active voice?
(Who – did what – to whom)
●Can you improve the sentence with a
stronger verb? Use it.
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Making it better, Step 6: lead
Go back and reread your lead. Count the
words. If it’s over 30, that’s way too many.
Make it shorter.
●Are all of the 5W’s and H covered in the first
two or three paragraphs? If not, add what’s
missing.
●Does the lead grab the reader and tell what
the story is about? If not, write one that does.
●
Making it better, Step 7: ending
Reread your ending.
●Is it a quote that summarizes or adds a twist
to the story? Then go on to the final step.
●Is it an essay-like conclusion that you wrote
yourself? REWRITE it. Try to find a kicker
quote. Don’t ruin a great news story by
editorializing at the end.
●
Making it better, Step 8: finally!
Run spell-check again and correct errors.
●Check your word count again.
●If your word count is close to the word count
you were given, your story is ready for a peer
edit.
●If it’s still too long, go through it again, looking
for any place you repeat yourself or where you
can say something in fewer words.
●If it’s still too short, go back to Step 3.
●
Is your story a GQ STUDS?
Great Quotes
•Strong start
•Transitions
•Unique angle
•Details and description
•Style and grammar
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Checklist for news stories
✓ Are the most important and recent facts first?
✓ Is the story accurate? Are all sources identified?
✓ Are the paragraphs short?
✓ Is the sentence structure varied in the story?
✓ Is the story formatted so it is easy to read?
✓Does your story flow? Did you use the
transition/quote (L-Q-T-Q) formula?
✓ Did you use active voice?
First draft rubric
Interview sources and quotes(at least three
sources) ________ / 20 possible
●Organization/sentence fluency
(clarity and wordiness) _______ / 20
●Focus (on topic from beginning to end) ____ / 20
●Compelling lead and conclusion _______ / 20
●Conventions (names spelled correctly; correct
capitalization and punctuation; correct grammar and
spelling. More than five errors = 0) ______ / 20
●
Total______________100 possible
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