Revisingand Editing

News Writing

All Writing is Rewriting

How to revise and edit news stories

L-Q-T-QRemember 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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●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.

Remember, short paragraphs

●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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When you’ve written your story...

●“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

●“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, Minn.

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●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.

The rewriting process is not:

●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 1:

●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.

Making it better, Step 2:

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Listen for …●clumsy spots●excessive length●anything that sounds hollow, strange, bad●poor grammar and syntax

Read out loud

●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 3: quotes

●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 4: balance

●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.

Making it better, Step 5: 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.

More on verbs

●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 6: lead

●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 7: ending

●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.

Making it better, Step 8: finally!

•Great Quotes•Strong start•Transitions•Unique angle•Details and description•Style and grammar *

Is your story a GQ STUDS?

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✓ 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?

Checklist for news stories

●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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First draft rubric