I was reading Chapter 1 before School started, but never thought of blogging it, till honestly right now. What it said makes sense to me. Sometimes, when I'm writing a news article--I can't think of the right words to use, so rather than give simple details I'll go into long-windness for example:
"Seton Hill's football program played the McDaniel College Green Terror at 1 in the afternoon on Saturday. This was the first meeting between the teams, but not between the coaches." (30 words)
It could be:
"Seton Hill's football program played the McDaniel College Green Terror on Saturday. This was the first meeting between the teams, but not between the coaches." (25 Words)
or
"Seton Hill's football program played the McDaniel College Green Terror on Saturday. This was the first meeting between the teams." (20 words)
or
"The Griffins played the Green Terror on Saturday, the first time the teams met". (14 words)
Sure the last example doesn't look like the first one at all--it looks like an incomplete sentence, but it does get the point across.
Also, as a journalist, I have found that I tend to use words that make the article sound more like a conversation im having with someone than a news article. I have to try and stay away from that.
Posted by lougagliardi at September 27, 2005 11:11 AM | TrackBackto be honest..i wasn't even thinking of that.
And obviously you know I'm just getting these done so i can turn SOMETHING in tomorrow.
I really got to step up my act on blogging.
But yeah, I lost alot of the deadwood on my writing that example, which I think shows how far along I'm coming as a journalist.
Posted by: Lou Gagliardi at September 27, 2005 12:38 PMWow, Lou, you sure pared away the deadwood. In everyday conversation, we use a lot more words than we need to, but that's in part because often our words are just filler, while we are communicating with the tone of our voice, gestures, and body language.
Your revision loses the fact that the coaches had met before, which was a kind of nice angle.
"Seton Hill's football team met the McDaniel College Green Terror for the first time on Saturday, but their coaches are old friends." (22 words) (I wanted to say "Seton Hill met the McDaniel College Green Terror," but then I'd have to put "football" somewhere else in the lead.)
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at September 27, 2005 11:44 AM