On 5/24/08, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
SlimVirgin wrote:
On 5/23/08, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I'm a bit alarmed about the references in this thread to newspaper journalism techniques. Do recall, everyone, that such articles are recycled, in most cases in 24 hours.
I'm not sure I see the difference. For example, the earlier point about cutlines/captions applies to any publication that uses them. Of the points raised today, which ones do you feel apply only to newspapers?
Let's look at a concrete example: [[Alexander Cordell]]. Do we really need the journalists' technique here: "Son of the Empire"; "In Love with Wales"; "Evocative Writing"? That's like a certain style of newspaper writing. But not right for WP tone, I believe.
I agree that the headers there are not good, but I'd say the same if I saw them in a newspaper or magazine.
We should concentrate, mainly, on having articles well organised, so that people can find the information they want. Once that's done, improving readability is an essentially trivial copy-editing function.
Copy editing isn't that easy, Charles. I know we have a few editors who make it look easy, but that's because they're very good at it. For most of us, it can be a struggle.
OK, go back to the quote at the start of the thread:
"Ahab seeks one specific whale, Moby-Dick, a great white whale of tremendous size and ferocity. Comparatively few whaling ships know of Moby-Dick, and fewer yet have knowingly encountered the whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off Ahab's leg. Ahab intends to exact revenge on the whale."
How hard is it to do this?
"Ahab seeks one particular whale, Moby-Dick: a great white whale, of tremendous size and ferocity. Few whalers know of Moby-Dick, and fewer yet have knowingly encountered it. In a previous meeting, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg. Ahab intends to exact revenge."
That removes some redundancy, punctuates, watches the choice of words.
Yes, it's a big improvement, but in fairness, it's not a major copy edit. It really is quite difficult to turn an article from something disjointed and poorly written into a flowing narrative. It's especially frustrating when the works gets reverted, or more often chipped away bit by bit over the following weeks and months. When we see a well-written piece of prose, we should hesitate to wade in unless we're sure we can improve it, but very few people have that attitude, maybe because they think good writing is easy, or because they think it doesn't really matter.