Good Writing

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Good Writing

• Advanced Reporting and Writing
• Journalism and Media Studies Centre
• The University of Hong Kong
• Gene Mustain

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Good Writing

• 1) In general, keep sentences short to medium.
  But vary their length.
• Short, medium, long, short, medium -- variety
  yields rhythm, and keeps the reader moving
  through the story.

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Good Writing

• 2) Prefer simple sentences, not complex.
• A simple sentence has one independent clause. An
  independent clause can stand alone as a complete
  sentence.
• For example Tung Chee-hwa was the loser in
  Sundays District Council elections.

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Good Writing

• 2) Prefer simple sentences, not complex.
• A complex sentence has one independent clause,
  and at least one dependent clause. Standing
  alone, the dependent clause is not a sentence.
• For example Tung Chee-hwa was the loser in
  Sundays District Council elections because
  people were voting against the government.

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Good Writing

• Too complex Tung Chee-hwa was the loser in
  Sundays District Council elections because
  people were voting against the government and
  also the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment
  of Hong Kong, which supported the government
  during the Article 23 controversy that caused
  500,000 people to take to the streets last July
  and march against proposed legislation some saw
  as infringing upon personal freedoms.

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Good Writing

• William Zinsser in On Writing Well
• Clutter is the disease of writing. We are a
  society strangling in unnecessary words,
  circular constructions, pompous frills and
  meaningless jargonthe secret of good writing is
  to strip every sentence to its cleanest
  components.

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Good Writing

• 3) Use words people know.
• What is a supplicant? (A word I once used.)

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Good Writing

• Officials in Hong Kong and Singapore moved
  yesterday to quash claims of political overtones
  in the bidding war for a university consultant
  contract.
• What is quash -- a plant or animal?

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Good Writing

• What about this?
• Officials in Hong Kong and Singapore sought
  yesterday to downplay political overtones in the
  bidding war for a university consultant
  contract.

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Good Writing

• 4) Dont use unnecessary words.
• A metal workshop in Yuen Long where a powerful
  blast killed three workers and injured four
  others on Saturday has been found to have had no
  license to store acetylene cylinders. (31 words)

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Good Writing

• How about this?
• A metal-working shop where a Saturday explosion
  killed three and injured four was not licensed to
  store gas cylinders. (19 words -- 12 less)

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Good Writing

• 5) Use active voice use strong verbs.
• Active A leaking tank triggered the explosion.
• Passive The explosion was caused by a leaking
  tank.

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Good Writing

• 6) Write the way you talk.
• Not like this The manager of a money-lending
  firm, who pleaded guilty to dishonestly
  appropriating 2.4 million from his employer, was
  described by two Democratic Party legislators as
  a honest man with many good qualities.

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Good Writing

• How about this?
• Two Democratic Party legislators say a man who
  stole 2.4 million from his boss is a honest man
  with many good qualities.

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Good Writing

• 7) Use words that help your reader see. These
  dont
• The first and only International Anti-Corruption
  Newsletter is being published on the Internet by
  the Independent Commission Against Corruption
  (ICAC).

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Good Writing

• How about this?
• Hong Kongs corruption watchdog is publishing
  the first Internet newsletter designed to help
  sleuths around the world catch crooks.

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Good Writing

• Helping people see
• On a good day, he can be seen tap-taping along
  Pell St.

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Good Writing

• Helping people see
• He sits at the same round table, his back to the
  wall...

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Good Writing

• 8) Develop your own style and voice.
• From Elements of Style Every writer, by the
  way he/she uses language, reveals something of
  their spirit, their habits, their capacity and
  bias.Put your own brand on your writing.

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Good Writing

• 9) Try to express, not impress.
• Even though writing is an act of ego, you want to
  express ideas, not impress people. So use clear,
  simple language. The minute you try to impress,
  to show off, you will fall flat on your face.

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Good Writing

• Best tip for last
• 10) After youre done, rewrite it. And then do it
  again.