The reference book is small and poorly bound, the dozen or so thin pages bound with a single piece of laced-up blue leather.
Despite its size, the palm-sized booklet has a front embossed with gaudy gold swirls and floral arrangements. The title and author are picked out in similar gold lettering, the sub-title scrunched up and listing slightly at the end to accommodate the last few letters.
A Forward
Literature is art. Literature is the soul. Within the masterstrokes of an elegantly worded sentence lies all the beauty and passion of the author that penned it. And literature, like art, is a silly and wasteful enterprise.
Let the bleeding poets and the tree-humpers burn out their own retinas with pastels and pens. If you want to be respected by anyone, abandon the idea that you will write the next ‘Great Azerothian Novel.’ Your mother was right; you won’t ever get past the first hundred pages and stop telling yourself that quitting your job will help loosen your ‘creative fluids’. Actually try and provide something worthwhile to the world.
Information, like nutrients, is a necessity for survival. Both nobles and peasants require news, whether it be to entertain or inform and words are the means to spread it. If words are food than newspapers are the take-out canisters that contain them. And, most importantly of all, journalists are the greasy chefs that peddle these hot cakes to the hungry masses. Since this analogy must be stretched for a bit longer, news –like food- can be prepared by the aspiring sous chef one of two ways: Correctly and Incorrectly.
This is a style guide for those aspiring journalists who hope to strike out at that elusive goal of The Truth. Through the use of these guidelines even the most simple-minded and illiterate starry-eyed romantics can be brought down to the vile truth that what you are destined to do is a dark, thankless job that is one part adventure to twenty parts drudgery and work.
If you reject this advice I will personally stuff this book down your throat, both literally and metaphorically. It is small enough to fit in most humanoid esophagi for a reason.
Sincerely,
Prof. Vita Duke
Tools of the Modern Journalist
As with all careers there are certain tips and guides that can be followed to help ease the transition from pan-handling poet to hard-chewing editor. While there is no substitute for experience below are a few simple tips that can help ease you past most of the major blunders.
Standards and Style
If Literature is an Art, Journalism is a Science. Deviation from the well-tread path will, contrary to popular belief, not makes you well respected as a ‘deviant’ and ‘rogue’ writer. It will make you seem like a pretentious hack and earn you an esophageal obstruction.
Below are a few rules and tips on the standards a good journalist should follow, designed to help the aspiring journalist sculpt an article without neutering their elegant spirit and creative influence. They are also designed to help keep journalists from using buzz-words like ‘elegant spirit’ and ‘creative influence’.
What are you, six?
Surviving Amongst the Lesser People
When I have found out this elusive truth I certainly shall share it with the masses.
I shall certainly attain some award or medal for that kindness to humanity. Until then, however, we must endure in its absence.
The book concludes with a few blank pages and a short paragraph with the author's personal and contact information.
No explanation as to where Vita Duke earned her title as professor is provided.
Despite its size, the palm-sized booklet has a front embossed with gaudy gold swirls and floral arrangements. The title and author are picked out in similar gold lettering, the sub-title scrunched up and listing slightly at the end to accommodate the last few letters.
The Modern Scribe
The Art of Journalism, The Importance of Standards &
Endurance in the Face of the Mentally Bankrupt
By Prof. Vita H. Duke
Endurance in the Face of the Mentally Bankrupt
By Prof. Vita H. Duke
A Forward
Literature is art. Literature is the soul. Within the masterstrokes of an elegantly worded sentence lies all the beauty and passion of the author that penned it. And literature, like art, is a silly and wasteful enterprise.
Let the bleeding poets and the tree-humpers burn out their own retinas with pastels and pens. If you want to be respected by anyone, abandon the idea that you will write the next ‘Great Azerothian Novel.’ Your mother was right; you won’t ever get past the first hundred pages and stop telling yourself that quitting your job will help loosen your ‘creative fluids’. Actually try and provide something worthwhile to the world.
Information, like nutrients, is a necessity for survival. Both nobles and peasants require news, whether it be to entertain or inform and words are the means to spread it. If words are food than newspapers are the take-out canisters that contain them. And, most importantly of all, journalists are the greasy chefs that peddle these hot cakes to the hungry masses. Since this analogy must be stretched for a bit longer, news –like food- can be prepared by the aspiring sous chef one of two ways: Correctly and Incorrectly.
This is a style guide for those aspiring journalists who hope to strike out at that elusive goal of The Truth. Through the use of these guidelines even the most simple-minded and illiterate starry-eyed romantics can be brought down to the vile truth that what you are destined to do is a dark, thankless job that is one part adventure to twenty parts drudgery and work.
If you reject this advice I will personally stuff this book down your throat, both literally and metaphorically. It is small enough to fit in most humanoid esophagi for a reason.
Sincerely,
Prof. Vita Duke
Tools of the Modern Journalist
As with all careers there are certain tips and guides that can be followed to help ease the transition from pan-handling poet to hard-chewing editor. While there is no substitute for experience below are a few simple tips that can help ease you past most of the major blunders.
- Identify the mood of your article
It’s fine if you decide to write a serious, fact-driven article. It is also fine if you are writing a feel-good fluff piece. Just pick what you’re going to do and stick with it; do not let anything from either end of the spectrum mix.
The mood of an article is an important thing. Just like a tense shift, a shift in mood in an article can be jarring for readers.
- One person makes a rumor. Two people make news
Far too many times have I seen articles with only one source attributed. That is sloppy journalism and, to be blunt, just lazy. If you want to create a good article find more than one source to quote and collect information from, preferably from different sides of the story.
It is simple logic: If you want the truth, do you just ask a single person for what they saw? Or do you ask multiple people for their opinions and thoughts? The latter allows for a broader and more informative account.
- Hunt the story. Follow every detail and do not falter in the pursuit
If you hear an interesting tidbit of information do not squirrel it away or just shrug it off as something that ‘probably won’t amount to anything.’ As a journalist it is your job to be nosey. You will search for information. You will hunt down sources. You will hunt down the sources that the first source gave you.
And if at first your questions fail then push in alternative ways. Just because one person isn’t willing to share information doesn’t mean his enemy isn’t willing to offer his own personal account or a friend doesn’t want a few minutes of fame.
- Those you get information from are sources. They are not editors.
Do. Not. Show. People. An. Article. Before. It. Is. Printed.
An article shown to the public before being shown to an editor is doomed from the start. The article of a novice journalist will invariably contain some error or failure and, when shown, will bring undue criticism and complaints upon them.
- Deadlines are lines that, if you cross, will result in you being murdered
Information is perishable. It cannot be placed on a shelf and expect it to age well. If you are tasked to write an article then you shall write it before the allotted time. A journalist who cannot follow a deadline is a journalist who shall be, in short order, disemboweled and thrown to the wolves.
- Your work is only your own to a point
Now, this is getting into the legality of things. Yes, you wrote the words. And yes, it is your article. We are paying for it. And we are paying you well.
However, editors have something called Editor’s License. That is because what editors are paying you for will go on to fill their own project, a project that carries their names and pride. To that end they reserve the right to alter a story to accommodate their needs.
Anyone that is so fond of their ‘child’ that they demand everything from its misspellings to inane blabber remain is a writer ill-suited for this business. Expect your article to be changed.
- Check with an editor before using an anonymous source
Not all articles are fluff pieces. Sometimes you will be dealing with sensitive information, information that can put people in uncomfortable situations if their name is attached to it. As such, people will often request anonymity when giving information.
An anonymous quote or attribution is allowed. However, without a name attached the impact is weakened. Some people will also attempt to be noted as anonymous for their own benefit.
To avoid these situations ask your editor or supervisor on whether a source should go under anonymous or not.
- Take good notes and never fudge details when a little when work is required
Do I need to elaborate? When you become a journalist you purchase a notebook and if you do not fill it within the week step up or go screw off. Jot down ideas. Quotes. Anything and everything shall go into this trapper-keeper.
If you are writing an article and find your notes lacking, either cut the subject in question or go collect the information needed. Do not create little lies or make ‘logical leaps’ as to what the person meant. Measure twice and cut once, as they say.
Standards and Style
If Literature is an Art, Journalism is a Science. Deviation from the well-tread path will, contrary to popular belief, not makes you well respected as a ‘deviant’ and ‘rogue’ writer. It will make you seem like a pretentious hack and earn you an esophageal obstruction.
Below are a few rules and tips on the standards a good journalist should follow, designed to help the aspiring journalist sculpt an article without neutering their elegant spirit and creative influence. They are also designed to help keep journalists from using buzz-words like ‘elegant spirit’ and ‘creative influence’.
What are you, six?
- Quotations are direct translations, not paraphrasing
When you take a direct quotation of another’s words and introduce it into a piece, you are taking their character into your hands. The words you print will be attributed, for good or ill, to the person you are quoting. Any mistakes you make will become their mistakes. And any rage they feel will become your broken limbs.
Journalists have been killed or fired (And, when you are serious about your job, the two are not mutually exclusive) over paraphrasing quotes or mis-attributing information to the wrong person.
While you are not allowed to change or modify the words between quotation marks, you are allowed to make a few grammatical changes. You can change punctuation, capitalization and, in the case of recent quotations, fix spelling mistakes.
- Attribute your information
When crafting an article, facts are an indispensable tool. Facts, however, cannot be drawn simply from the air. In an article you must attribute the facts you collect, whether the attribution be anonymous or have a concrete name.
“According to,” “After questioning” and “In recent documents” are all buzz-words one should roll out before spouting a fact or figure.
- Third person for distance, First person for involvement
There is no shame in writing stories that you are involved in. You can throw out your opinions and your beliefs in articles as well. The only thing you need to remember is to use the appropriate tense.
A good rule of thumb is, for unbiased news stories, use third person and, for news stories that involve your personal opinions and observations, use first person. “I think,” “I found” and “I believe” are good buzzwords for people to see htat this is an article based around the author’s observations.
- Use adjectives carefully
Adjectives can be dangerous. They modify nouns and can, in the wrong hands, change the entire tone of a piece.
There is no reason not to use adjectives. Just be careful how you use them and what adjectives you use.
- Lead the article carefully
There are two ways to start an article: With a story or with an overview of the story’s contents. However you lead the intro must be snappy, however. In the first paragraph the reader should get a feel of how the article will go and should want to read further in.
- Keep paragraphs snappy and simple
A big paragraph is a poor paragraph. While the occasional six to seven sentence may be used, the majority of the article should be a slew of concise paragraphs of three to four sentences.
A good journalist is concise and concrete in their language and formatting.
Surviving Amongst the Lesser People
When I have found out this elusive truth I certainly shall share it with the masses.
I shall certainly attain some award or medal for that kindness to humanity. Until then, however, we must endure in its absence.
The book concludes with a few blank pages and a short paragraph with the author's personal and contact information.
No explanation as to where Vita Duke earned her title as professor is provided.