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Feature and Column Writing MCM 514

LESSON 34

COMMON WRITING PROBLEMS

Mastering all the available techniques will take time. Excellence in writing, like excellence at any pursuit,

takes practice and application. But once you learn to gather your research materials, structure your

writing, and use all the literary tools efficiently and properly, you are well on your way.

Every award-winning writer whose material appears in this book has gone through the learning process.

Each has learned from his or her errors and gone on to write better features. Some writers don't. The key

is one of commitment. If you are serious about writing, don't let mental and literary lapses get you down.

By all means, avoid them whenever possible. But if a mistake slips through, don't ignore it. Learn from it.

Despite repeated attempts at developing good write-ups, there are numerous problems, which mar the

writing capabilities of the writers ultimately causing annoyance among the readers. Generally speaking,

these are:

1. Eliminate unnecessary words

Most writers agree that it's easier and quicker for them to write long than it is to write short. But tight

copy consumes fewer column inches, and it's punchier and more interesting to read. So stop before you

write. Ask yourself what your article is about. Ask yourself what you want to say. When the answer to

these two questions is firmly in mind, it's easier to stay on track.

2. Eliminate clichés

Most people often think and talk in clichés and stereotypes. Clichés are a kind of mental and oral

shorthand, allowing you to create quick images without having to work at it. But don't let the clichés go

from thought to paper. "Needle in a haystack. Busy as a bee. Straight as an arrow. Throw caution to the

winds" if it sounds too familiar to you, strike it from your copy.

3. Don't overuse adjectives and adverbs

As juicy as they might be, adjectives and adverbs slow the pace of reading. And if you've chosen your

noun or verb precisely, an adjective or adverb may weaken the impact. Look at every sentence you write.

Check the adjectives. Are they necessary? What about the adverbs? Can you get along without them? If

they seem important to the sense of the sentence, leave them. If they seem superfluous, strike them.

4. Don't use too many big words

Every writer likes to show off. If you know words like propinquities or sesquipedalian, you're tempted to

drop them into the copy to demonstrate how erudite you are. Don't. If the word is too big or too unusual,

it will stop readers in their tracks. And if the reader has to go the dictionary just to see what you mean,

you've defeated your purpose--to keep the reader moving smoothly through the copy.

5. Don't misuse words

On the other hand, you, as the writer, should stop and use a dictionary. Use it often. Misuse of words is

one of the more common writing errors. You think words mean one thing when the dictionary will tell

you clearly that they mean something else. The most flagrant misuses occur with similar-sounding

constructions such as lie/lay, sit/set, and affect/effect, compose/comprise and imply/infer. You would be

wise to brush up on the proper meanings of all five of these potential disasters. For example, imply means

to insinuate. "Are you implying that I'm a linguistic dolt?" Infer, often used incorrectly as a synonym for

imply, actually means to deduce. "Do I infer that you think I'm a linguistic dolt?"

The two words are used interchangeably by the uneducated, but they are not interchangeable. If you use

such words incorrectly and the error gets into print, somewhere out there among your readers a number of

linguistic purists will catch the error and will sneer at you. Cut the sneers to a minimum.

6. Don't be a careless speller

While you're looking in the dictionary, check for proper spellings. Some writers are good spellers,

through years of practice and experience, but every writer has blind spots. Misspelled words are among

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the most visible of errors, and they always make you look bad. If you are a poor speller, wear out a

dictionary per year if you have to. Check and double-check words you chronically misspell until you

work your way past the mental block. And don't just look up difficult words like accommodate,

boutonniere, connoisseur, eleemosynary and tonsillitis. Sometimes simple words will throw you.

Gray/grey, for example. Even though you may see it spelled "grey" in print, it's wrong. "Gray" is the

American spelling. "Grey" is British. Take the first dictionary preference if two are listed. Nor can you

always depend on those handy spelling aids you learned as a child, such as "i before e, except after c."

The memory guide may work most of the time, but there are notable exceptions. "Society," for one.

"Weird, ""seize," "inveigle," "leisure," for others. If you aren't sure about a word, check the dictionary.

In time, the correct forms will stay in your memory.

7. Avoid jargon

Stay away from phrases that crop up within various professions and make sense only to people, who work

in those professions. You've heard police officers on local television using terms such as "apprehend the

perpetrator." That's fine for an officer filling out an arrest report. You're better off, though, saying "arrest

the suspect." All fields of activity have their own jargon: Scholarly researchers use terms like

"manipulated orientation" and "usual viewing mode" and "experimental protocols"; yacht lovers use

"bowsprit" and "semi-circular deviation" and "gunk hole"; writers toss around terms like "graf' and "lead

block" and "double-truck."

Don't make your readers work overtime to understand. Of course if you're writing for a specialised

audience and a specialised market you'll sound naive if you don't use the specialised jargon they expect.

Just make sure you use it correctly.

8. Don't use sexist language

Many readers are offended by sexist terms like businessman, newsman, sportsmanship, mankind,

founding fathers, maiden voyage and Lady Luck. They would prefer business executive, reporter, fair

play, humankind, forebears, first voyage and just plain luck.

Of course, you can go a little crazy and end up with clumsy writing trying to deseed every single word

you put to paper, so use common sense. Don't change "manipulate" to "personipulate." Half the battle is

being aware that words can offend. The best way to check a term for pejorative content is to ask yourself

whether you would use the same term for the opposite sex and whether you would want it said about you.

9. Don't mind-read

When writing about people and using the occasional paraphrase to season your direct quotes, there's a

tendency to drift into word constructions such as "The mayor feels that big business is wrecking the

economy. Don't. It's better to say, "The mayor says big business is wrecking the economy." The same

advice holds for describing emotions. Don't say, "The senator was angry. Tell us "The senator shook his

fist at the audience and demanded silence." We'll get the idea. Mind reading is for clairvoyants and has

no place in the professional job of reporting.

10. Avoid partial quotes

Interview techniques take practice, and many beginning writers have difficulty "getting the entire quote,"

so they write happily along and "quote only as much" as they are certain, that is correct in their notes. But

"partial quotes" are obtrusive and harder "on the reader" than full quotes, as you will naturally have

noticed in these two sentences. If you have only a piece of a quote that seems important to you, ask your

source to repeat it until you get it all. With practice and experience, you'll eventually learn to jot down

quotes more quickly and fully.

11. Avoid redundancies

Like clichés, some redundancies slip into the language and appear to grow roots. You see them so often

that you begin to use them without thinking. You write "close proximity" and "assemble together" and

"true facts" without considering the improper waste of words. You describe something as "plain and

simple" or "right and proper" or "reasonable and fair," adding unnecessary verbiage. If you're a freelance

writer getting paid by the word, this is not the way to increase your word count.

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12. Don't switch tenses

Some apprentice writers have difficulty choosing tenses. Attributions hop back and forth from present

tense to past tense:

Murtaza says government waste must stop. He said, "It has become rampant."

Which is it to be? "Says"? "Said"? Pick one and stick with it. Check to see if you have placed your

subject in space and time. If you have, past tense is better. "Murtaza, testifying at a special session last

Tuesday, said But if your speaker is floating, pinned neither to a specific location nor a specific time,

present tense is often best. "Murtaza, a supporter of free trade, says whichever you choose, use it

throughout your story. Consistency is the hallmark of a good writer.

13. Don't allow inconsistencies in style

A good writer also uses a consistent pattern in punctuation, spelling and other language basics. To help

you maintain consistency, use a good stylebook. Many newspapers and magazines have their own style

and consistency rules.

If you work for a single publication, learn the proper style and use it. If you are a freelancer writing for

several publications, you might decide to make it easier on yourself by using the Associated Press

stylebook. Most editors are acquainted with the wire-service stylebook and will at least recognise that

you've tried to regulate consistency in your writing.

The main purpose of any set of style rules is to help you reach a level of uniformity. Editors will

appreciate your copy more if you show consistency with spellings, punctuation, numerals, capitalisations,

abbreviations and so on. They prefer their own style, of course. Just remember that style is basically only

a matter of preference. It varies from publication to publication. The clever writer will pick up on style

preference and give each publication the style it likes.

14. Avoid common grammatical mistakes

Good grammar is a sign of an educated person. If you want to sound like a clod, save it for informal

chatting with your friends and family. Don't inflict sloppy grammar on editors or on readers. There are,

unfortunately, hundreds of rules and principles governing proper grammar and usage, far too many for

easy memorisation. Most people who commit grammatical gaffes do so without even realizing it. But

ignorance is no excuse. Like someone sitting at a dinner table eating peas with a spoon and mashed

potatoes with a knife, you'll still look bad. Until you become more conversant with the mechanical details

of good writing, the only salvation is to buy a good grammar handbook--something simple like Strunk

and White's The Element of Style, or something more complex like Penn's Reference Handbook of

Grammar and Usage or any of the other detailed handbook and refer to it frequently. Even after you

reach a good working relationship with the basic rules of grammar, it's a good idea to go back and review

the rules every two or three years. Even good writers tend to forget the principles and need occasional

tune-ups.

In the meantime, check your current awareness by looking at the following four examples, dealing with

nominative versus objective pronouns, dangling participles, noun/verb/pronoun agreement and split

infinitives. If you don't quickly recognise the all-too-prevalent error in each, you may be in trouble.

15. Don't misuse ellipses

One of the quickest ways to irritate an editor or a copy desk is to use ellipses (those three dots... that

separate copy) incorrectly. The ellipsis is a favourite device of the beginning writer, although no one has

ever figured out why. Sometimes beginners use two dots, sometimes a half-dozen, but innovation in

punctuation is frowned upon. If you want to appear professional, make sure you use ellipses only when

necessary and only correctly. There are three proper uses for the ellipsis. One is formal: to indicate an

omission from quoted or cited material. The other two purposes are dramatic. Use ellipses to denote

pauses ("We could get the money, but it would be ... wrong"), or to suggest a sentence that trails off,

without being completed ("Frankly, my dear, I don't give a......)

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16. Avoid exclamation points

Unless you're writing for a market that likes exclamation points (like James Lake's adventure magazines

for men), you might as well put a piece of tape over that particular word processor key and never use it

again. Frequent use of the exclamation point will mark you as the greenest of amateurs. You can't punch

up a dull piece of copy by applying the to it. Once you learn to get along without the exclamation point,

you can remove the tape and put it back into your writing repertoire for the infrequent occasion for which

it will be handy.

17. Don't mistreat quotation marks

Another piece of standard punctuation that gives many writers fits is the simple quotation mark. It

shouldn't be a problem. The rules are hard and fast. But the errors crop up anyway. Here's a rule worth

remembering: For American publications, periods and commas that run adjacent to the quote mark go

inside the quote.

Questions marks, colons and semicolons may be inside or outside, depending on the sense of the sentence

and whether they are part of the quotation. If you're writing features and magazine articles, you'll be

using lots of quotes, so you may as well turn to some handy guide and learn all the rules now.

18. Use common comma sense

Some punctuation rules are definite--quotation marks, question marks, periods, ellipses, semicolons and

colons. Other punctuation rules can be moderately soft, depending on the style rules used by your target

publication. Hyphen rules fall in this category. So do some comma rules. The main thing about commas is

to use them sensibly. Will you put a common before the "and" in a series or not? Formal English says

yes. General English says it's optional, unless you're following a specific style guide, such as AP style,

which says no. All comma rules aren't that soft. If you aren't sure, check your nearest style or grammar

handbook.

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