Eight Things You Learned in English Class That You Need to Forget

Okay, so you’ve got a decade or more of English classes behind you and you’re about to take your first journalism course. Here’s the bad news: All those years of English class have probably left you with a lot of bad habits.

Why? Because many things taught in English courses are pretty much the exact opposite of what’s required in newswriting. So here are eight things you learned in English 101 that you need to leave behind – and I mean right now – when banging out your first deadline news story.

1. The First Person

Repeat after me: There is no “I” in the news. News stories are not written in the first person. Period.

2. Your Opinion

Chances are you’ve had an English class where you were encouraged to keep a journal chronicling your feelings about such fascinating topics as the weather, the movie you saw last weekend or the boyfriend who just dumped you.

Feelings, schmeelings. You’re in the news business now, and your readers don’t care how you feel about much of anything. So get over it and get on with giving your readers what they want – the news.

3. Adjectives

This relates to no. 2. News stories are supposed to be opinion-free. But even if you’re not conscious of revealing your innermost thoughts, an adjective or two will do it for you when you’re not looking. Example: “The brave demonstrators protested the draconian government policies.” See what I mean? Two little adjectives and your impartiality is gone. So leave the adjectives out.

4. Big, Pretentious Words

They may have impressed your English teacher. They won’t impress your editor. Remember, news stories are written for a mass audience – everyone from the fifth grader to the rocket scientist. So use simple, clear language that anyone can understand.

5. Longwinded Sentences

Not every sentence in a news story needs to read like “See Dick run.” But generally they should err on the side of brevity. Use the Subject-Verb-Object formula to craft your sentences and this should be no problem. Try to limit yourself to one main idea per sentence. And if a sentence gets too long, put a period on it and start a new one.

6. Giant Honking Paragraphs

Paragraphs the size of small villages – those with, say, a dozen or more sentences – may be fine for Jane Austen, but they’re no good in news stories. Keep your paragraphs to just one or two sentences each. Short paragraphs look less imposing on the news page, and are easier for an editor on deadline to cut.

7. Present Tense

News stories are almost always about something that has already happened. So keep your articles in the past tense. The exception: magazine-style feature articles.

8. Misspelled Words

I guess they still teach spelling in English classes, but you could have fooled me. In a dozen years of teaching journalism I can’t tell you how many hundreds of articles I’ve edited that were jam-packed with misspelled words. So get out your dictionary, and use the damn thing.

source: journalism.about.com

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