Say What You Mean

Writing clearly and concisely is a huge part of the stories I write everyday. I write stories for Weber State News, and many times I'll only have thirty seconds to tell a story. In order to get the important ideas across, I have to write concise sentences. It's also important with broadcast news to write clearly. When you listen to a newscast, you only get to hear the information one time. It's important to not use jargon or unnecessary words. With that being said, I enjoyed reading chapter nine. The rules discussed are issues I deal with in my broadcasting work each day.

A professor I had recently said, "Say what you mean, and mean what you say." This quote kept popping into my mind while reading the chapter. Don't use jargon or words the average person won't understand. Write clear, concise sentences. It's important to think about each individual word in the sentence to make sure it is contributing to the meaning of the sentence. If a word is distracting, remove it. When I remember those rules, I write better sentences.

The editing mistake I found this week was at my brother's basketball game. My sister and I are always the loudest in the audience and scream whenever our team steals the ball or makes a basket. One of the player's parents loves that we get into the games. The dad gave us a note. The first sentence said, "Your stentorian, loud cheering helps the team win games." Honestly, what in the world does stentorian mean?! I looked it up, and stentorian means loud. The sentence is repetitive, and the word loud should be used to make the sentence easier to understand.