Improving Later Paragraphs

Each paragraph, regardless of its placement in a story, should present only one idea or unit of thought. When reporters shift to a new topic or a new phase of the same topic, they should start a new paragraph. Because the quotation in the following example introduces a new idea – a fact unrelated to the topic of American norms – it should be placed in a new paragraph. At the same time, the topic of American norms might be expanded to explain or illustrate it more clearly:

Living with his cousin has helped Faisal adjust to American norms. He added, “We often cook Middle Eastern dishes and invite our American friends over to our apartment.”

REVISED: Faisal said living with his cousin has helped him adjust to American norms. He explained: “Life is so much freer here than in the Middle East. My cousin explains your ways to me and shows me what to do.”

They often cook Middle Eastern dishes and invite American friends to their apartment.

Avoid generalities that have to be explained in a later paragraph. If you focus on a story's specific details, the generalities often become unnecessary. The following para­graphs illustrate that principle. Until they were revised, they emphasized general topics rather than any specific information that sources provided about those topics:

She described the life she observed in New Zealand.

REVISED: She said life in New Zealand is relaxed and carefree.

He also talked about the economic hardships faced by unwed mothers.

REVISED: He said 80 percent of unwed mothers under the age of 18 drop out of high school, and 84 percent become dependent on welfare.

Also avoid reporting details within each paragraph in chronological order, especially about reporting the overall story in chronological order. Instead, emphasize the news. Many paragraphs report that a topic was discussed, and then slowly proceed to the results. Consequently, the most important details are buried in the final line:

Next on its agenda, the City Council opened bids to determine who would receive a contract to construct the recreation center. The lowest bid was $1.5 million. The budget for the center was only $1,240,000. “It was very disappointing,” the mayor said. “Now we'll have to go back over the plans with our architects and eliminate some of the options to lower its cost. It'll delay construction six to nine months.”

REVISED: The construction of a recreation center will be delayed six to nine months because the bids were $260,000 more than budgeted for the work.

The city had allocated $1,240,000 for the work, but the lowest bid was $1.5 million. The mayor said that city officials will “have to go back over the plans with our architects and nominate some of the options to lower its cost.”

Shorten Your Sentences

Beginners use sentences that are too long and complicated. Yet the longer a sentence, the more difficult it is to understand. Moreover, when too many ideas are combined into a sentence, none receives the clarity and emphasis it deserves. As you read the following sentences, you are likely to stop and to start again. Why? All sentences contain more ideas than most readers can absorb at a glance. As you read each, count the number of ideas it contains:

Thirty-year-old Melvin Holder, an employee at the McDonald's at 3710 Lake Ave., was cleaning the closed restaurant at 2:40 a.m. when the two men, one wearing a ski mask, knocked on a locked door, pointed a revolver at him and demanded to be let in.

 WRITING ACTIVITIES 2

Task 6: Writing Second Paragraphs

(A) Critically evaluate the second paragraph in the following stories. Which of the second paragraphs are most successful in:

(1) providing a smooth transition from the lead;

(2) continuing to discuss the topic summarized in the lead;

(3) emphasizing the news: details that are new, important and interesting?

1. Jewel C. Harris, 42, of 2245 E. Broadway Ave. was arrested and charged with aggravated battery after her car struck a bicyclist, police say. Jerry R. Harris, 24, also of 2245 E. Broadway Ave., was transported to Memorial Hospital with cuts, bruises and a broken leg.

2. The School Board has expelled eight more students for using drugs, bringing the total this year to 81. Only one of the eight students appeared before the board last night to defend herself. She was accused of selling marijuana to a classmate. 

3. A man claiming to have a bomb tried to rob the First Federal Savings and Loan Co. at 9:05 a.m. today. A man carrying a brown paper bag told a teller that it contained a bomb and that he would kill everyone in the bank unless she gave him $10,000. 

4. A 22-year-old auto mechanic and his wife delivered their triplets at home Monday because there was not time to drive to a birthing clinic. Barbara and Paul Wyman of 2020 Lorry Lane delivered their triplets at 4:30 a.m. The babies and their mother are reported in excellent condition.

5. Complaining that college administrators are insensitive to their needs, 50 handicapped students, some in wheelchairs, picketed the Administration Building Friday. About 10 percent of the student population is handicapped, but there is no way of determining how many there really are. When the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was passed, the disclosure of information about handicapped students was prohibited. The law is intended to ensure that a handicapped student is not discriminated against and denied entrance into a college. 

6. Peter Laguna, a 24-year-old Alabama man, went on trial Wednesday on charges of armed robbery. The first witness was Lynita Sharp, a clerk who was working at the convenience store when it was robbed on July 18. 

7. The School Board voted Tuesday to construct an elementary school on Grant Avenue. Two years ago, the Meadow Woods Subdivision offered to give the board land for the school.

8. A 22-year-old man today pleaded innocent to violating his probation, arguing that his poor education made it impossible for him to understand the instructions given by his parole officer. The defendant, Henry Forlenza, told the judge that he dropped out of high school and never learned to read. 

(B) Come back to Tasks 3-5, choose any story and on the basis of the given information write a lead and a secondary paragraph. While writing, keep in mind your target audience, time, space and if necessary, intertextuality.

So now you have acquired some knowledge about the genre of a news story; you have practiced in writing separate components of this article, and further you will try to develop the skills necessary for writing complete stories. But before doing this it is worthwhile paying attention to one more very important aspect in journalistic writing. It is finding information for your planned story.

As future journalists you know different ways of gathering some data, statistics, etc for an article. One of them, of course, is conducting interviews. Maybe you know that in the American and the British journalistic traditions an interview is not a newspaper genre but mainly the method of looking for information.

6.4 Interview

• How would you define the term “interview”?

• What types (classifications) of interview do you know?

• Have you ever conducted any interview? If yes, share your experience. Did you face any difficulties?

• If you could interview any person in the world, who would you choose? Why? What would you ask them?

• What makes a good interview from your point of view?

Interview is

• a formal consultation usually to evaluate qualifications (as of a prospective student or employee);

• a meeting at which information is obtained (as by a reporter, television commentator, or pollster) from a person;

• a report or reproduction of information so obtained.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/interview

Interview is a conversation between two or more people where questions are asked by the interviewer to elicit facts or statements from the interviewee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interview

6.4.1 Types of Journalistic Interviews

One of the most fundamental tasks a journalist engages in before writing a story is gathering information. A key part of that process involves calling, e-mailing or in-person interviewing of people who have knowledge about the subject of the story. There are different classifications of interviews. Further in the text you will read about 10 types of interviews journalists use more often. If you are interested in the examples (scripts) of these interviews you may find the whole texts of these interviews on the following site: www.kcnn.org/interviewing/chapter2.