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Category Archives: Writing Advice
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
Posted in Writing Advice
Tagged crains new york business, endings, global quotes, ledes, nut graf, paragraphs, patrick clark, structure, topic sentences, transitions
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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
Posted in Writing Advice
Tagged Chip Scanlan, Eugenia Miranda, Lisa Riordan Seville, nut graf, Overflow magazine, Patrick Wall, Philadelphia inquirer, Poynter
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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
Posted in Writing Advice, Writing Good Leads
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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
Posted in Writing Advice
Tagged Gene Weingarten, Pulitzer Prizes, Read good writing, Sheri Fink, Stephen King
2 Comments
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
Posted in Writing Advice
Tagged Almudena Toral, Jere Hester, nut graf, Reader hooks, Shane Kavanaugh, storytelling details, vivid quotes
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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
Posted in Writing Advice
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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
Posted in Writing Advice
Tagged Andy Lehren, FBI profiling, FOIA requests, investigative reporting, Jere Hester, Studs Terkel, Valerie Lapinski
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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