![]() ![]() For more details on how to keep and use a style guide, see Chapter 15: Newsroom books. Use this advice to create your own style guide. In these chapters, we try to give you some general guidelines for language use and writing style. ![]() Unfortunately, many small or new organisations do not have their own style book. You should ask your editor or chief of staff for a copy of your organisation's style book. These are books which lay down rules for language you must follow in your particular paper or broadcasting station. Style books: You may get some guidance on such things as sentence length, punctuation or word usage from your organisation's style book. Learn the general points and try to apply them to your own language or languages. Many of the general points we make about writing style will apply to these other languages. Above all, use words and grammar which are most easily understood by your readers or listeners.Īlthough you are reading this in English, you may do a lot of writing in other languages. If this is so, you should use the form which is accepted as correct by the most literate educated people in your country. Language is developing all the time, and your country may not yet have a well-established set of rules for English. It may sometimes be difficult to decide what is correct in the English used in your country. There are often also differences in the way English is written or spoken within individual countries. There are differences between, for example, UK English and American English. It is worth remembering, however, that even a language as common as English is not exactly the same all over the world. This book is written in English, so these chapters concentrates on the English language. You will be failing in your job.įor many journalists today, English is the main language used for newspapers or magazines, radio, television or the Internet. If you fail in this, people will stop buying your newspaper or tuning in to your radio or television station. You should be able to examine the most complicated issues and events then translate them into language which your audience can understand. Most readers or listeners will not have your knowledge of language, so you must simplify it for them. Your main task as a journalist is to help people understand what is happening around them in their village, in their country and in the world. In the three following chapters we show how to avoid some common language problems, we suggest some rules for news writing style and we give advice on translating news from one language to another. In this chapter, we give guidance on how to write sentences for maximum understanding and why care over language is important. This is the first of four chapters about language and style in news writing. ![]()
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