Friday, February 4, 2011

More Ledes . . . Nuts And Bolts

Some basic points to remember:
>>> Don't forget to translate big words to more simple language.

Why say, incarceration fee," when no one uses words like that in everyday language? Why not just say, "jailing fee" or something like that? If you're not sure what word could be used as a substitute, ask a source or check a thesaurus!

>>> Don't forget articles.

I don't mean stories. A mean a grammatical article, like a, an, the.

Like here: A car was stolen today and location revealed by the car thief.

It should be, . . . and the location . . .

If you're not sure if you have articles, read your story out loud and ask yourself if it sounds like you've formed complete sentences. If not, it's usually because you're missing an article.

>>> Use proper tense.

If you're writing about something that is happening, use a present tense. If you're writing about something that has already happened, use a past tense.

For example, is it that a car thief calls police? No, he called police.

You can still use an active tense; just make sure it's properly positioned as present or past, depending on the facts.

For example, is it that the groom was speeding? Yes, he was.

>>> Punctuation goes inside of quote marks.

So don't do this:

"I do".

. . . do this . . .

"I do."

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