Table of Contents

PART ONE – WRITING FOR THE MEDIA
1 Understanding Journalism and the News
What’s News? What’s Journalism? What’s Opinion?
Defining News
Defining Journalism
Defining Opinion
Confronting Perceptions of Media Bias
The Political Climate and “Fake News”
The State of the Media Industry
The Importance of Newspapers
Newspapers May Decline, but Journalism Thrives

2 The Basics of Writing for Journalism
Journalistic Writing Versus Fiction Writing
Clarity
A Clarity Checklist
Write Short Sentences and Paragraphs, and Use Common
Words
Anticipate Readers’ Questions
Include Specifics
Explain Numbers and Statistics
Correctness
A Correctness Checklist
Use Correct Grammar, Usage, Spelling and Style
Write to Your Audience and Purpose
Use the Right Story Formula
Maintain Objectivity in Your Writing
Rules of Objective Writing
Modifiers to Be Avoided
JOURNALISM TIP: Writing for Eighth-Grade Readability

3 Writing News That’s Fit for Print
Pick the Best Angle
Types of News Leads
Hard-News Leads
Who Was Involved?
What Happened?
When Did It Happen?
JOURNALISM TIP: Words to Avoid in Attributing
Information
Where Did It Happen?
Problems with Hard-News Leads
What Comes After the Hard-News Lead?
Soft-News Leads
Soft-News Clichés
What Comes After the Soft News Lead?
Using Paraphrases and Transitions to Build a Story

4 Writing News for Radio and Television
Print and Online Versus Radio and Television News
Use a Conversational Style
Personalize the News
Make It Easy to Understand
Keep It Short
Keep It Timely
Make It Clear
Radio and Television Journalists Must Know Grammar
Radio and Television Journalists Must Know Pronunciation
Radio and Television Hard-News Leads
Starting With the Who
What Happened?
Other Points to Remember
Radio and Television Story Structure
Radio and Television Style Summary
Preparing Your Manuscript for Radio
Preparing Your Manuscript for Television
Editing and Other Symbols
Pronunciation
Abbreviations
Numbers
Punctuation
Names
Spelling

5 Writing News for Online and Mobile Media
Online Media Are Unique
Be Clear
Be Correct (And Credible)
Be Concise
Writing and Presenting News Online
SEO: Writing with Search Engines in Mind
Writing for International Audiences
Writing for Blogs
JOURNALISM TIP: Editing Your Own Copy
Promoting News on Social Media
Legal and Ethical Concerns
Corrections

6 Writing News for Strategic Communication
The Strategic Communication Process
Setting Your Goal
Choosing the Target Audience
Designing the Message
Determining Timing of the Project’s Launch
Evaluating the Impact of Your Campaign
How Public Relations Writing Differs From News Writing
Essentials of a Good News Release
Following Up with Media Contacts
Legal and Ethical Issues in Strategic Communication
Skills Needed by Strategic Communicators

7 Sexism, Racism and Other “Isms”
Why You Are Where You Are in Today’s Language
What Does That Mean to You?
The Future Arrives on Little Feet
A Shifting “Center of Gravity”
Language Turns to the Future
Update With Working With Words Language Triangle
1. New social change—to recognize current reality, look for the action.
2. New standards of language—the changing world and social media.
3. Resulting new video/content requirements.
New Players in the New Millennium
A Brief History of “Isms” in the U.S.
Dealing With Current Reality
Sexism
Racism
Ageism
Other Stereotypes
The Nonbias Rule
Seven Ways to Be Up to Date Instead of Out of Date

PART TWO – GRAMMAR AND USAGE

8 Choosing Your Words
Know the Meaning of Words Often Confused
Choose Simpler and Clearer Wordings
Use Fewer Words
Use Simpler Words
Use Exact Words
Be Fresh, Not Stale

9 Grammar Basics
Solving Common Problems
1. Use the right word.
2. Make sure your words agree and go together.
3. Make sure your words are in the right order
4. Use the right form of the word.
5. Punctuate according to sentence grammar
Understanding in More Depth
Using Standard English
Why Don’t We Write How We Talk?
Conventional Wisdom
Competing Grammars and Stylebooks
When Is an Error Not an Error?
Grammar and Confidence
Communicating Well
Talking Shop

10 Phrases, Clauses and Sentences
Solving Common Problems
1. Beware of common sentence errors.
2. Know the difference between restrictive versus nonrestrictive elements
JOURNALISM TIP: Punctuating Nonrestrictive Phrases and
Clauses
Understanding in More Depth
Phrases
Clauses
Sentences
JOURNALISM TIP: Using Different Types of Sentences

11 Subjects and Objects
Solving Common Problems
1. Choosing among that or which, or who or whom
2. Understanding how to use pronouns ending in self or selves.
3. Spelling singulars, plurals and possessives correctly.
4. Choose the right pronoun case.
5. Capitalize proper nouns (nouns referring to actual names).
6. Know when to capitalize names that are neither clearly proper names nor common nouns.
7. Make nouns and pronouns possessive before a gerund.
Understanding in More Depth
Kinds of Subjects
Kinds of Objects
Verbal Nouns: Gerunds and Infinitives
More on Forming Singulars and Plurals of Nouns
More on Forming Possessives of Nouns

12 Verbs
Solving Common Problems
1. Know when there should or should not be an s
at the end of a verb. 
2. Don’t confuse the verbs can, may, shall and will with could, might, would and should, or with each other.
3. Don’t misuse helping verbs — the verbs added to a main
verb.
4. Don’t misuse irregular verbs – those that don’t make their
past forms by adding ed.
5. Normally, avoid passive voice.
6. Avoid using nouns as verbs that editors dislike.
Understanding in More Depth
What’s the Difference Between a Verb and a Predicate?
What are Helping Verbs and Main Verbs?
What are Transitive Verbs and Intransitive Verbs?
Understanding Verb Tenses 
Principal Parts of Common Irregular and Other Confusing
Verbs
Sequence of Tenses 
Keeping Verb Tenses Consistent
More on Active Voice Versus Passive Voice
What Is Verb Mood?
JOURNALISM TIP: Verb Moods
What are Verbals?
 
13 Making the Parts Agree
Solving Common Problems
1. Make sure each subject and its verb agree in number. 
JOURNALISM TIP: Groups of People in the News
2. Make sure each pronoun agrees with its antecedent in number, gender and person. 
3. Make sure each sentence’s words, phrases and clauses have parallel structure.
Understanding in More Depth
More on Subject-Verb Agreement with Conjunctions
More on Subject-Verb Agreement with Uncountable Nouns
More on Subject-Verb Agreement with Other Confusing
Nouns
More on Prepositional Phrases
More on Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
More on Making Verbs Parallel

14 Modifiers and Connecting Words
Solving Common Problems with Modifiers
1. Use the correct forms of adjectives and adverbs. 
2. Don’t confuse adjectives with adverbs. 
3. Know the difference between coordinate adjectives and compound modifiers. 
4. Know how to use articles correctly. 
5. Set off sentence adverbs with commas from the rest of the sentence. 
6. Don’t use double negatives.
7. Punctuate interjections correctly. 
Solving Common Problems with Connecting Words 
1. Pay attention to how you use prepositions and whether the preposition is necessary.
2. Make sure that you use the correct conjunction to connect equal or unequal parts of a sentence.
Understanding in More Depth
More About Other Kinds of Modifiers
More About Participles
More About Interjections
More About Correlative Conjunctions

15 Getting Words in the Right Order and Punctuation
Getting Words in the Right Order
Solving Common Problems
1. Place modifiers as close as possible to the word they
modify.
2. Adverbs require extra attention to placement in verb
phrases because different orders are preferable here depending on the meaning.
Understanding in More Depth
Understanding Preposition Placement
Understanding Split Infinitives
Punctuating for Clarity
Solving Common Problems with Commas
1. Know when always to use a comma. 
2. Know when never to use a comma.
3. Know when you might want to use a comma.
Solving Common Problems with Quotations
1. Know what and how to quote. 
2. Know how to attribute quotations and paraphrases.
3. Know how to carry quotations across paragraphs. 
4. Know how to handle these special issues with quotes. 
Solving Common Problems with Punctuating Pairs of Modifiers
1. Use the correct conjunction to connect equal or unequal parts of a sentence – a coordinating one for equal parts, a subordinating one for unequal parts – and punctuate them correctly.
2. Set off conjunctive adverbs with a comma after them.
3. Know the difference between punctuating coordinate adjectives and compound modifiers.
Understanding Punctuation in More Depth
Semicolons 
Colons 
Dashes 
Parentheses 
Hyphens
Apostrophes 
Slashes 
Periods, Exclamation Points and Question Marks 

PART THREE – REFERENCE LISTS

Bias-Related Terms

One Word, Two Words or Hyphenated?

Spelling
Spelling Rules 
JOURNALISM TIP: Spelling and Your Career 
Hyphenation as a Spelling Problem 
Words Often Misspelled

Tightening
What to Tighten, A-Z

Trademarks and Generics
Former Trademarks Now Also Considered Generic
Not Trademarks
Trademarks That Pose Other Spelling Issues
Usage
Usage Differences
Misused and Confused Words and Phrases  

Appendix: Associated Press Print and Web Style Summary
Abbreviations and Acronyms 
Punctuation
Symbols 
Dates 
People and Titles
Organizations 
Places 
Miscellaneous
Capitalization 
Proper Nouns 
Geographic Regions 
Government and College Terms 
Religious Terms 
Titles 
Miscellaneous
Numbers
Cardinal Numbers 
Numerals With Suffixes 
Numbers as Words 
Other Rules for Numbers 

Online Resources
Index
Copy-Editing Marks
Overcome These Twenty Common Errors