Category Archives: Writing Advice

The suggestions of good writers.

How structure will make you a more effective writer.

The reporter sits there wringing her hands, then sighs as she throws her printout on the desk.  “It’s just a mess,” she says, “I just don’t know where I’m going with this.” This not-so-imaginary scene in a Craft classroom, the … Continue reading

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In writing, the magic is in the details.

We’ve talked often about how reporters should work hard to capture storytelling details in their notebooks and infuse them into their stories.  In writing, the magic, not the devil, often is in the details. We were intrigued, then, with how … Continue reading

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Here’s the nut of the matter.

I didn’t have to think long when asked recently for the number one problem I see in students’ writing.  It’s the nut graf, that simple but hard-to-execute idea of telling readers why they should care about your story and, importantly, … Continue reading

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Here's the drill: Read, Report, Write, Review, Repeat.

Here’s an easy-to-use formula for writing at CUNY:  Read + Report + Write + Review + Repeat = Better Writing.  Let’s put the microscope on each element to give you a sense of how it works: READ – In the … Continue reading

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Reading is one secret to better writing.

“The smell of death was overpowering the moment a relief worker cracked open one of the hospital chapel’s wooden doors. Inside, more than a dozen bodies lay motionless on low cots and on the ground, shrouded in white sheets. Here, … Continue reading

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Hook your readers early and often.

With the longer, more in-depth stories required in the spring semester, there’s the temptation to use a long wind-up to pitch your story to readers.  In fact, as Jere Hester reminded Write Stuff, it’s more critical than ever on these … Continue reading

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Shed your assumptions about what's expected.

After a two-month immersion into grading admissions tests for the Class of 2011, your humble Write Stuff scribe is ready to think and talk about writing again. Shed your assumptions:  That’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever … Continue reading

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An excellent adventure in reporting, Part II

Valerie Lapinski fell in love with Studs Terkel’s work a few years ago when she was preparing a radio series about jobs in a small southeast Alaska town. Little did she dream then that the death last year of the … Continue reading

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An excellent adventure in reporting.

It started with an e-mail just past midnight Nov. 3 and ended with a Nov. 12 story on the Metro front of the New York Times. But what happened in between for Damiano Beltrami was a classic case of a … Continue reading

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A long-time print journalist finds her voice in blog.

When Trudy Lieberman started a blog on health care coverage two years ago for the Columbia Journalism Review, she felt like she’d been let out of prison.  Suddenly, after four decades confined to the strictures of print journalism — 5W’s, … Continue reading

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