Archives for 2009

Print Journalism

June 30, 2009 by Roy Johnson

essays on journalism – from print to the Internet

More than 12.5 million national newspapers are sold in Britain every day. The figure goes up to 14 million on Sundays. And for every copy of the Guardian sold each day, ten copies of the Sun cross the counter – which is what led former Sun editor Kelvin McKensie to rather cruelly call the Guardian ‘the world’s worst newspaper’. This publication covers every possible aspect of print journalism, and I suspect it has been produced in the hope of becoming a standard text in departments of journalism and media studies.

The chapters are written by ex-journalists now teaching at four universities – City London, Sheffield, Cardiff, and Lincoln – so it seems there must be a regular career path leading out of the Street of Shame and showing other people the best way to get there. Articles in the first section deal with the history, structure, and the financing of print media. Who owns what; which titles sell most copies; and how they make a profit.

There’s a certain amount of overlap and repetition here, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing, because the newspaper and magazine publishing business is a lot more complex than it appears on the surface. The second section gets straight down to practical advice for would-be journalists: how to be a reporter; how to conduct interviews; what makes a good news story; how to write good introductions and structure paragraphs.

Then, moving into the newsroom itself, there are chapters on the role of news editor, what sub-editors do, and how pictures are captioned. The individual essays could profit enormously from more illustrative examples, and almost every page is crying out for graphics.

The would-be journalist is given a detailed breakdown of news features, and more importantly how to successfully pitch your ideas to editors, then how to write them if and when they are accepted.

Once you have written your piece and checked it several times over for style, content, accuracy, spelling, and grammar, it then goes to a features editor who will edit it all over again. There’s a whole chapter explaining this process. It’s a tough world, and this is required reading for anybody who wants to make a success of freelance writing.

You are unlikely to be invited to write comment or opinion pieces, but you could break into print via reviewing. How to write them is explained in detail – and these days its as likely to be reviewing radio and TV programmes as traditional books and theatre performances.

Print journalism is now as we know being challenged by the online world – though you are even less likely to earn income from it. There are essays which analyse the differences between newspapers’ print and online versions, and technical advice on how monitor screen and web browsers affect how and what we read on screen.

There’s also advice on writing blogs and wikis, before the collection winds up with essays on the ethics and law in journalism, copyright, and intellectual property rights – which is one of the best short explanations of a complex issue I have seen for quite some time.

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Richard Keeble (ed), Print Journalism: a critical introduction, London: Routledge, 2005, pp.347, ISBN: 0415358825

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Pronouns – how to understand them

September 12, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Pronouns – definition

Pronouns stand instead of nouns (to avoid repeating them).

Examples

Personal pronouns stand instead of names:

I me you

he him we

us they them

Relative pronouns act as reference links:

which who that

Use

Pronouns are frequently used in both speech and writing .

By using them we are able to avoid frequent repetition of a name. Compare these statements.

First, the proper noun John is used throughout.

John’s in the Army and John looks good in John’s uniform as John strides along.

Second, the proper noun is used initially and followed by pronouns.

John’s in the Army and he looks good in his uniform as he strides along.

NB! Fasten your safety belt. There’s a lot more on this topic.

There are several different kinds of pronouns. These can be classified as personal, possessive, reflexive, emphatic, demonstrative, interrogative, exclamatory, relative, and pronouns of amount and number.

Personal pronouns derive from the grammatical term ‘person’. This itself is of Latin origin [dramatis personae] meaning characters in a play. This term has been transferred to the characters in a story or dialogue, which may be shown as follows:

Singular Plural

I we

NOMINATIVE you you

he, she, it they

me us

ACCUSATIVE you you

him, her, it them

	Singular	Plural
	I	we
NOMINATIVE	you	you
	he, she, it	they
	me	us
ACCUSATIVE	you	you
	him, her, it	them

Possessive pronouns denote possession as in the following example:

The dress was mine and now its hers.

Possessive pronouns follow the same pattern as the personal pronouns:

Singular Plural

mine
yours
hers, his, its mine
yours
theirs

Singular	Plural
mine yours hers, his, its	mine yours theirs

Reflexive pronouns are often used as objects of verbs. For example:

I found myself rolling down the hillside.

He gave himself a pat on the back.

Reflexive pronouns are also used with prepositions, as in:

I felt the sadness sweeping over me.

She pulled the blanket over her.

Bring your friends with you.

After a preposition, the pronoun looks like a plain personal pronoun; but the context is reflexive. The archaic usage perhaps makes this case more clear, as in:

Now I lay me down to die

Emphatic pronouns are used in such contexts as:

I’d like a glass of wine please, and (you) have one yourself.
(emphasising who must have one)

She herself wanted to join the company.
(emphasising the subject of the sentence)

Demonstrative pronouns are used for pointing things out to the listener. They are:

this, these (nearby)

that, those (at some distance)

such (meaning ‘such as’)

same (meaning ‘the same as’)

These are the best flowers in the shop.
Those are the Alps in the distance.
They have such exciting parties.
I asked for a box and was sent the same.

Interrogative pronouns are used to ask questions. They are:

who? whom?

whose? which? what?

Who was at the party?
Whom did you see at the party?
Whose friend was the woman in the red dress?
Which dish did you most enjoy?
What did you do all evening?

Exclamatory pronouns. The word ‘what’ is often used to exclaim on an issue in the following way:

What a night!
What she could have achieved!

Relative pronouns are as follows:

who whom whose

which that what as

Those who arrive early can begin.
The woman whom I met sent me a postcard.
We met the couple whose house we bought.
Those tins which we brought came in useful.
I always write about topics that interest me.
I always mean what I say.
It was as beautiful a garden as ever I saw.

Pronouns of number are as follows:

one more

few neither enough

One of them was ill.
Neither of the girls had a raincoat.
Few people understand the value of money.
More people may join the club next week.
Enough is as good as a feast.

Pronouns of amount are as follows:

anyone nobody

something everybody

These are used as in the following statements:

Anyone who had a heart would take her.
Everybody gathered round the lake.
Something will have to be done about the food.

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Publicity, Newsletters and Press Releases

May 22, 2009 by Roy Johnson

beginner’s practical guide to promotional writing skills

Oxford University Press have just brought out a series of short beginner’s manuals on communication skills. Their emphasis is on compact, no-nonsense advice directly related to issues of everyday life. Alison Baverstock’s guide shows you how to generate effective publicity and promotional writing skills through careful writing. It’s aimed at anyone who needs to publicise an event, an organisation, or a cause – whether it’s a big commercial business or just your own hobby. She starts from the position that the written word is powerful and important, and that different standards of correctness or informality are required depending on the medium – be it email, letters, press releases, or company reports.

Next comes what she calls ‘promotional writing’ – copy which is trying to persuade, sell something, or convince readers. Her advice is to avoid jargon, and to choose short, clear expression, rather than writing which is striving to impress. You should check your grammar, and avoid the common pitfalls of weak writing – such as split infinitives, misplaced apostrophes, and inconsistent tenses.

She shows how to write press releases to gain publicity, and how to angle a story to make it more appealing. The secret is to make clear distinctions between different media, and she gives plenty of examples, showing how to contact people to advantage in a way that’s more likely to get your story accepted.

The general advice is quite logical. You need to make your appeal for attention attractive, accurate, and functionally effective. This means going into a lot of detail and being rigorous about names, phone numbers, and contact details.

On newsletters she emphasises the importance of the relationship with subscribers. As a newsletter editor myself, I was interested to see that she places maximum importance on the interest of the reader, not on the writer or editor. Obviously, the newsletter should be interesting, and she explains a number of strategies for hooking the reader’s attention.

There are also lots of excellent tips along the way, and examples of good and bad practice based on real-life situations. This guide will be of use to anybody who wants to engage with the world of public writing.

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Alison Baverstock, Publicity, Newsletters and Press Releases, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp.98, ISBN: 0198603843

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Publish your academic writing

October 1, 2009 by Roy Johnson

getting your academic work into print – and on line

If you want to get ahead in the world of colleges and universities, there are no two ways about it – you will have to face the challenges of academic publishing. It might be articles, reports, or the results of a research project. It could be chapters from a thesis, or the whole work itself – re-drafted into book form.

Quite apart from your subject, there are two important things to keep in mind. The first is that your work will be scrutinised not only by the publisher, but by specialist reader(s) who are experts in your subject. They will be looking at the quality of your work in terms of commonly accepted academic standards; and they will checking to see that you have demonstrated that you are up to date with the latest research in your field of study.

If they give your work the thumbs up, the publisher will them be making sure that you have presented your work in compliance with their own house style guides. Publishers are increasingly demanding these days : they use economic arguments to transfer a lot of the work of compositors and editors back onto authors.

Writing for Academic Journals
Rowena Murray is an experienced writer on the subject of academic writing. She is author of How to Write a Thesis and How to Survive Your Viva. What she says in this guide should be encouraging for people in ‘new’ universities, people in disciplines which have only recently been considered academic, and those in professions such as the NHS which are under pressure to become more academic.

She deals with the important issue of getting to know your target publications. There’s really no way round this: you need to know what they’re looking for, and how they want it presented. For those who might not have written a scholarly paper before, she shows you how to analyse one and uncover its basic structure and arguments – with a view of course to constructing your own.

The next part of the book deals with how to find a topic and develop an argument. You can do this by mining your reading notes, expanding a brief presentation, or maybe adapting a chapter from your dissertation or thesis.

There’s also lots of sound advice on planning, outlining, and the art of writing abstracts. She also shows you how to draft your text and create the appropriate style. This is followed by the process of revision and editing,

Although it is aimed at those writing for publication, this book will in fact be useful for anyone who wishes to sharpen their academic writing skills and understand something about the process of preparing a text for its public launching.

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Getting Published
Jerry Wellington starts by looking at the variety of positive reasons why people write and publish – as well as the numerous fears which might prevent others from doing so. He argues largely in favour of publishing in established, printed journals on the grounds that they offer the author more credence and protection. Next comes advice in taking account of the publication in which your writing will appear. You need to take into account its readership, and most crucially the type of article or review and how it will best fit the editor’s requirements.

He then goes through the process of submitting an article for publication – both from the writer’s and publisher’s point of view. Much of this is taken up with the pros and cons of the peer review process. Then comes the case of publishing in book form. After warning quite rightly that you shouldn’t write a word until you have a contract, he then shows you how to prepare a publication proposal in great detail. Finally he looks at future possible trends in publishing – which focus largely on electronic journals and what’s called ‘self-archiving’ – which is covered next.

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Scholarly Journals at the Crossroads
This is a review of the arguments for and against electronic publishing of academic writing – largely the work of Stephen Harnad. His argument is that scholars working in what he calls the ‘esoteric’ fields of narrow specialisms (particularly the sciences) do not need to publish on paper; they merely wish to be read by their peers.

And since they don’t expect to be paid for what they make public, why shouldn’t they put their work straight onto the Net in preprint form. Once their work is on the Web, they can invite comment, make whatever revisions they feel warranted, then archive the finished article in digital form. By following this procedure, peer review is maintained, but the system works more rapidly and less expensively. Most importantly, they can avoid the dinosaur procedures and high costs of traditional print journals. As he puts it himself (in characteristically succinct form):

“What scholars…need is electronic journals that provide (1) rapid, expert peer-review, (2) rapid copy-editing, proofing and publication of accepted articles, (3) rapid, interactive, peer commentary, and (4) a permanent, universally accessible, searchable and retrievable electronic archive.”

The more books one reads on electronic publication, Hypertext, and digital technology, the more one realises how convenient, comfortable, portable, and aesthetically pleasing the printed book remains – produced by what Nicholas Negroponte describes as “squeezing ink onto dead trees”. But this does not invalidate Harnad’s proposal: if a text is urgent, hot, and written for a minority – we’ll read it on-screen, add comments, and send it back within the hour, rather than wait for the Dinosaur Publishing methods (and timescale) of ‘getting it onto paper’.

This is a book for specialists, but it encompasses issues which are part of the profound effect of the forces of digitisation and the Internet. The vested interests of commercial publishers and academic institutions may take some time to shift, but their fault lines are remorselessly exposed here. Harnad’s vision and his debate with contemporaries gives us a view of a world which is breaking apart, in the very process of being overtaken by the forces of New Technology.

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Towards Electronic Journals
Carol Tenopir takes a similar view and considers it more-or-less inevitable that print production costs will push academic writing towards digitised publication. The Web was actually created so that academic researchers could share their findings across the Internet – doing so quickly and free from any commercial restrictions.

If you write a paper on rocket science, you can put the results directly onto a web site and announce the fact to special interest groups. That way, you can invite feedback, critical comment, and peer review – and receive it fairly quickly, instead of having to wait up to two years as you would if the paper was put into the slow-moving production methods of commercial publishers.

Scholarly journals take a long time to produce; they are very expensive; and very few people read them. Why bother then, when the same results can be made available fast, free of charge, and to a much wider audience? How much does it cost? What are the trends in scholarly article authorship and readership? What are the overall implications of electronic journals to publishers, libraries, scientists, and their funders? These are some of the fundamental issues underpinning this book.

The argument on costs is overwhelming. Electronic publishing saves on printing costs, re-printing costs, storage costs, archiving, and inter-library loan costs. And all the other arguments return again and again to the obvious advantages of electronic publication.

They point out that readers both inside and outside universities will continue to demand materials in printed form. Which is true. It’s amazing how many people continue to print out documents – for the sake of convenience, and habit. But to quote Nicholas Negroponte again, the future is digital.

This is a study which is aimed at researchers, librarians, publishers, and anyone interested in electronic publication, and they go out of their way to provide hard evidence for decision-makers.

If you are interested in one of the lesser-known but burgeoning forms of electronic publishing – then you should find this a rich source of hard facts for the debate.

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Publishing on the Internet

October 2, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a selection of resources

What if your ambitions are for publishing on the Internet? After all, many writers now launch their work in writers forums, creative writing groups, and even in personal weblogs. The Internet has made it possible to reach a worldwide audience with just a few IT skills – and it’s all for free!

You have the chance to place your work in writers’ groups, you might create your own web site, or you could start blogging. In addition, you could promote your work via a personal website and an email newsletter. Whichever route you choose, you should be aware of the difference between writing for the screen and the printed page.

What follows is guidance and resources covering all these new possibilities. You need to know what is available for writers on the Internet, and where to find it. eBooks and email publishing are a very attractive and cost-effective option you can learn about easily. Blogging is cost-free and currently very hip. And knowing the difference between writing for the screen or for print will show that you know what you are doing.

The Internet: A Writer’s Guide
The main strength of Jane Dorner’s book is that she is a professional writer who practices what she writes about. She writes for both print and screen, and promotes her work via a personal web site. This book explores both the new opportunities for writers created by the Internet and the practicalities of publishing on your own site.

She touches on writing groups which exist in the form of mailing lists, websites, newsletters, chat groups, and conferences, and she also deals with eBooks plus annotated lists of all the sources a writer could possibly wish for – from libraries to bookshops, dictionaries to writing circles, newspapers to writing style guides, electronic publishers to free Internet service providers.
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Creative Web Writing
If you are mainly interested in traditional creative writing Jane Dorner has another book which shows you the skills you need if you want to put your writing onto the Internet. She is speaking to those people who have been creating poems and stories in their back rooms and getting nowhere. This guide covers collaborative story-telling, research online, interactivity and flexible text, as well as the nuts and bolts of styling for screen reading. Most importantly, she explains the range of new markets, new technologies, and how to apply them.

Creative genres are covered, including autobiography, poetry, broadcasting, screen-writing and writing for children. She also describes how to look carefully at contracts, how to submit your writing to an electronic publisher, and how to deal with Print on demand (POD) outlets. There’s a very useful survey of the various delivery methods and payments for eBooks. This is one of the most popular methods for aspiring authors to reach new readers. This section will be required reading if you are thinking of venturing into this world.

The central part of the book deals with new forms of writing using Web technologies. This is one field in which she has clearly done her homework. She shows examples of writing in the form of Blogs (Web-logs) email (epistolary) narratives, fictions illuminated by graphics, the weird world of MUDs and MOOs, Flash-animated writing, and phonetic poetry.
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The Internet Writer’s Handbook
Karen Scott’s book is a detailed guide to publishers of the two formats which are most digital – e-zines and e-books. It’s in the form of an international A-Z of the best websites for writers to target, with full contact details for all websites listed. She offers plenty of detail on how to submit your work , how much publishers will pay, and even how they are most likely to respond. The topics these eBook publishers cover range from poetry and fiction, through non-fiction feature writing, to specialist technical and hobbyist publications.
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Punctuation

May 21, 2009 by Roy Johnson

beginner’s guide to the basic principles of punctuation

Oxford University Press have just brought out a series of short beginners’ manuals on communication skills. Their emphasis is on compact, no-nonsense advice directly related to issues of everyday life. Punctuation in English can be almost as tricky as spelling. Robert Allen cleverly approaches the topic by explaining what punctuation is for, and how it can help you to write more effectively.

He recognises that choices are not always clear cut. Does a pause in a sentence warrant a comma, a semi-colon, or maybe even a dash? And his explanations of the answers are illustrated throughout by everyday, practical examples. Beginners in particular will find his explanations very reassuring. He describes the basics of constructing statements and how they are best expressed using the basic elements of punctuation – from the comma to the full stop. Next comes the more complex issues of representing speech and using such punctuation marks as the colon and the semicolon. Don’t worry – everybody has problems with that one!

In fact there’s a useful section on how to avoid the most common mistakes in punctuation – such as using too many commas, or using the comma as a substitute for the full stop.

The second part of the book is a simple checklist of each common mark of punctuation – showing how each is used. And he ends with comments on the most popular problems – including what he calls ‘the grocer’s apostrophe’.

This is easy to read and understand. It’s a book which will be suitable for anyone unsure about what is ultimately a matter of taste and style.

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Robert Allen, Punctuation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp.104, ISBN: 0198604394

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Punctuation – how to use it correctly

September 12, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Punctuation – definition

Punctuation in English language is used in writing to show the stress, ryhthm, and tone of the spoken word.

It is also used to clarify the meaning of sentences.

Examples

There are four common marks of punctuation:

These represent pauses of increasing length in a sentence.

comma [ , ] semicolon [ ; ]

colon [ : ] full stop [ . ]

Use

The following paragraph uses all the four common marks of punctation.

Punctuation should always be used lightly, even sparingly, and as accurately as possible. You will discover through practice that there are three basic rules: the comma, semicolon, and colon mark increasingly long pauses; full stops are used to separate distinct sentences; and a new paragraph should always
be employed to begin a new topic or point of argument.

NB! ‘Punctuation’ in speech is produced by tone, rhythm, stress, and intonation.

The four most common marks of punctuation are dealt with in detail in their own sections:

commas – semicolons – colons – full stops

The other common marks of punctuation are described below:

brackets – exclamation mark

dash – oblique stroke

hyphen – question mark

Some miscellaneous remarks on punctuation.

Brackets (these) are used to insert a remark (like this, for instance) or a qualification of some sort into a sentence.

Take care! If they are used too frequently they create a choppy, unsettling effect.

Full details in the section on brackets.

The dash (—) is used to indicate a sudden change of thought, an additional comment, or a dramatic qualification.

That was the end of the matter — or so we thought.

Dashes can also be used in pairs to insert a comment or a short list:

Everything — furniture, paintings, and books — survived the fire.

They should not be used as a substitute for brackets, or mixed with them.

The dash is not the same thing as the hyphen (which is shorter) but this distinction is rarely made in the UK.

The exclamation mark (!) indicates surprise, anger, or alarm.

What a mess!
Get out of this house at once!
The ship is sinking! Jump in the lifeboat!

Exclamation marks should be used with restraint. The more frequently they occur, the weaker becomes their effect.

The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald once remarked that using an exclamation mark was rather like laughing at your own jokes.

The question mark [?] is used to show that a question has been raised.

The question mark is always placed at the end of the sentence.

The following examples are questions:

What are you going to do?
How much is that doggy in the window?
Why is that woman staring at us?

Since the question mark is placed at the end of a sentence, no full stop is required. [If you look closely, you will see that the question mark (like the exclamation mark) contains its own full stop.]

The following are not questions.

He wondered what to do next.
She asked herself the same question.
What will happen to them is a mystery.

The hyphen [ – ] is a short dash used to connect (parts of) words.

These might be prefixes:

re-enter co-operate pre-enrol

They can be compound adjectives:

multi-storey car park extra-marital sex

They can be used when when forming compounds such as

son-in-law couldn’t-care-less

The oblique stroke [ / ] is sometimes used to separate items in a list:

oil/water mix Kent/Surrey boundary

italic/Roman type 1972/73

It should not be used as a substitute for words such as and, plus, and or.

Try to avoid the either/or construction and such lazy (and ugly) compounds as this:

‘it will help to create an entire social/sexual/ideological system’.

The oblique stroke might be useful when taking notes, but it should be avoided in formal writing for the sake of elegance.

Miscellaneous remarks on punctuation.

Many aspects of punctuation are ultimately a matter of personal preference and literary style.

The general tendency in most public writing today is to minimise the amount of punctuation used.

There are also minor differences in practice between the UK and the USA.

The suggestions made above are based generally on conventions in the UK.

Double punctuation [“What’s the matter!?”] is rarely used, except in very informal writing such as personal letters or diaries.

The combination of colon-plus-dash [: — ] is never necessary. Some people use this [it’s called ‘the pointer’] to indicate that a list will follow, but the colon alone should be sufficient.

The importance of punctuation can be illustrated by comparing the two following letters. In both cases, the text is the same. It’s the punctuation which makes all the difference!

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy — will you let me be yours?

Gloria

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

Yours, Gloria

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Punctuation in essays

August 24, 2009 by Roy Johnson

sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Punctuation is used in writing to indicate the natural pauses, stress, and intonation of the spoken word. It is also used to clarify the meaning of a sentence.

2. The most common marks of punctuation are the comma, the semicolon, the colon, and the full stop. These represent pauses of increasing length.

3. If you are in any doubt about punctuation, then use as little of it as possible. Write in short, direct sentences. It is perfectly possible to write clearly and efficiently using only the comma and the full stop.

4. Avoid using abbreviations (i.e., etc., &, e.g.) as well as too frequent use of the dash ( – ) and the exclamation mark (!). These all create the impression of a style which is too casual and chatty.

5. Abbreviations such as e.g. and i.e. are acceptable (and may be desirable) in your notes. However, if you wish to use any of these expressions in the body of your text, they should be written out fully in words – as for example and that is.

6. Short, clear, and simple sentences are usually more effective than those which are long and complex. If you are in any doubt at all, split up any longer sentences into two or three which are shorter. You are more likely to make your meaning clear with shorter rather than longer sentences.

7. What follows is an example of an entire paragraph which has been punctuated using only the comma and the full stop. [The subject is the structure of a paragraph.]

The central thought or main controlling idea of a paragraph is usually conveyed in what is called a topic sentence. This crucial sentence which states, summarises or clearly expresses the main theme, is the keystone of a well-built paragraph. The topic sentence may come anywhere in the paragraph, though most logically and in most cases it is the first sentence. This immediately tells readers what is coming, and leaves them in no doubt about the overall controlling idea. In a very long paragraph, the initial topic sentence may even be restated or given a more significant emphasis in its conclusion.

8. The paragraph which follows demonstrates the correct use of the comma, semicolon, colon, and full stop. These are the most common marks of punctuation.

Punctuation should always be used lightly, even sparingly, and as accurately as possible. You will discover through practice that there are three basic rules: the comma, semicolon, and colon mark increasingly long pauses; full stops are used to separate distinct sentences; and a new paragraph should always be employed to begin a new topic or point of argument.

9. The use of brackets (technical name ‘parentheses’) should be kept to a minimum. They are used to indicate a supplementary remark, an authorial aside, or a qualification of some sort. However, if they are used too frequently they interrupt the flow of the argument and create a choppy, unsettling effect.

10. Square brackets [like these] are used to indicate authorial additions. They indicate your changes to somebody else’s text, or your comments on it. For instance, if you are quoting a text which requires brief explanation, you would insert your own remarks between square brackets.

Thompson’s article then goes on to claim that ‘these dramatic upheavals [in government policy] were heralded by cabinet reshuffles earlier in the year’ (3) and it ends with an analysis of the election results.

11. If a quotation contains a mistake in the original you might wish to indicate that the error is not your own. This too is indicated by the use of square brackets.

The senior government minister who was recently acquitted of kerb-crawling claimed that at long last his ‘trails [sic] and tribulations’ were at an end.

12. Exclamation marks (!) should be used as little as possible in academic essays. They tend to create a slightly juvenile, overexcited tone. In any form of writing, the more frequently they are used the weaker becomes their effect.

13. The question mark (?) too should be used as little as possible. In fact questions should not normally be raised in essays – unless you are going to answer them. Keep in mind that most essays are posed in the form of questions which you should answer.

14. Try to minimise the use of the dash ( – ). These may be used singly to indicate an afterthought, or in pairs to insert an explanatory comment or a short list:

Everything – furniture, paintings, and books – survived the fire that broke out last week.

They should not be used as a substitute for parentheses, or mixed with them.

15. The hyphen ( – ) is a short dash used to connect prefixes to words (multi-storey car park) or when forming compounds such as ‘son-in-law’ or a ‘couldn’t-care-less’ attitude.

16. In general, the oblique stroke (/) should not be used as a substitute for words such as ‘and’, ‘plus’, and ‘or’. Try to avoid the either/or construction and such lazy (and ugly) compounds as ‘an entire social/sexual/ideological system’.

17. Note that the combination of colon-plus-dash [: – ] (which is called ‘the pointer’) is never necessary. Some people use this to indicate that a list will follow, but the colon alone should be sufficient.

18. Too frequent or uncontrolled use of these marks of punctuation tends to create a loose, sloppy style. You should normally keep them strongly in check, otherwise you might produce writing as bad as this:

What then went wrong? – how was the political impetus of the late 60’s/70’s lost that manifested itself so strikingly in the field of film study?

19. Quotations are normally shown in single quote marks – ‘like this’. When quoting speech use double quote marks:

The tutor remarked that “These conventions are designed to give your essays a pleasing and well-designed appearance”.

20. You do not need to put full stops after titles such as Mr, Dr, and Co (unless they occur at the end of a sentence). They are also not required in well-known business and company titles such as BBC and IBM. This is a practice which has now gone out of fashion.

21. Make a clear distinction between marks of punctuation such as the comma and the full stop, otherwise this may appear to produce weak grammar.

22. Many aspects of punctuation are ultimately a matter of personal preference, current fashion, and (in the case of newspapers and commercial publishers) what is known as ‘house style’. There are also minor differences in practice between the UK and the USA. The suggestions made above are based generally on common academic conventions in the UK.

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Questions in essays

August 24, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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1. Any essay questions you have been asked to answer should be written out – both accurately and in full:

on the rough notes for your essay plan
on the first and final drafts of the essay itself

2. Doing this will help you to understand its key terms and its instruction terms and to keep the essay topic(s) in mind whilst you are planning and writing the essay.

3. It should also help you to relate each part of your argument to the question whilst you are in the process of writing the essay.

4. Some people find it useful to write out the question on a card. This is then kept propped up before them as a constant reference point and a reminder whilst they are planning and writing the essay.

5. When writing an essay, you should repeatedly refer back to the question and ask yourself – “Is my argument relevant to what has been asked for? Am I answering the question and following its specific instructions?”

6. Essays which do not start with the question written out in full are almost always those which wander off the subject in question. The reason for this seems to be that without the specific topics (and limits) set by questions before them, many students feel free to change the subject or treat it in a different way to that required. Do yourself a favour – always write out the question.

Asking questions

7. When writing an essay, try to avoid presenting your argument in the form of questions or ‘queries to yourself’. This too often has the effect of subtly changing the subject of the essay.

8. Avoid expressions such as – ‘but is this really true?’, ‘can we tolerate this any longer?’, or ‘but what would have happened if Thatcher had not ordered the invasion at that time?’

9. Remember that you have been asked to answer the question or discuss the issue which the essay rubric poses. It is your task to provide a response or an answer. You should be generating an argument which puts forward ideas and observations of your own on the topic(s) in question.

10. If you wish to make the point that something is a problem or that differences of opinion on the subject exist – then just say so. You should also say what those differences are, and go on to relate them to the question.

11. Be prepared to explain the problem or explore these differences of opinion, giving examples and explaining their relevance to the original question.

12. Do not include any observations on how difficult the essay question is to answer. Even if this is true, your task is to provide an answer. Remember that you should not normally include within an essay any comments on how you came to compose it. [The only exception to this is a report in which you have been asked to include such comments.]

13. In almost all cases, the golden rule is as follows:

Do not be tempted to raise questions in essays – unless you are going to answer them.

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Quite Literally

June 27, 2009 by Roy Johnson

problem words and how to use them properly

Do you know the difference between blatant and flagrant? Do you know the plural of cul-de-sac? This is one of those books which is supposed to be a source of reference, but which for any language enthusiast is so entertaining, you can’t put it down. In this sense it’s rather like Bill Bryson’s Troublesome Words and Mother Tongue, Keith Waterhouse’s Newspaper Style and Lynne Truss’s recent Eats Shoots and Leaves.

Wynford Hicks offers a comprehensive tour – from accede to zucchini. His examples are very up to date, taken from recent newspapers, magazines, and fiction – and not all of them positive. There’s a bad example of ‘due to’ quoted from the second sentence of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for instance. He takes a lot of trouble over words of foreign origin which do or do not need their accent – cafe, pate – and he takes the trouble to illustrate all his points with practical examples:

adapter, adopter
an adapter is someone who adapts, eg a novel for the stage, while an adopter is what you need when your electric plug doesn’t match the socket.

Some of his judgements I would take issue with. For instance, I think he is wrong to suggest that there’s no capital in achilles heel, though we can see why there is no need for an apostrophe; and I don’t see why dover sole doesn’t need a capital either, as he claims.

But of course a lot of these terms are ‘disputed’ – and different style guides offer different interpretations. For instance, celibate can mean either unmarried or abstaining from sex. It doesn’t matter if it’s voluntary or not. There’s lots of scope for controversy here. For this reason, I’m going to keep this guide alongside all the rest.

Like most style guide compilers, he has his own favourites – such as a reliance on the Longman Guide for matters of judgement, and an amazing confidence in Salman Rushdie for an ear to good usage. But I liked the fact that he was able to quote grammatical mistakes from the work of Iris Murdoch, Doris Lessing, and Margaret Drabble.

He’s good on those many words in English which look deceptively similar, but which have quite different meanings:

definite, definitive
definite is precise, definitive is precise and conclusive

And he offers a ruling on one of the most difficult punctuation cases I know:

dos and don’ts
which once had three apostrophes, but now only needs one

He takes into account the differences between American and English usage, and foodies might be interested in his distinction between two terms which are often confused:

marinade, marinate
meat or fish is marinated (soaked) in a marinade, a mixture of wine/vinegar, oil, herbs, and spices. Fruit is macerated, soaked in alcohol and sugar.

He’s very good at spotting persistent misuses – parameter for boundary, militate/mitigate, rebut/refute, sensual/sensuous, and so on.

This is a useful, humane, and non-pedantic guide to good English, and a thoroughly entertaining book. Even though I disagreed with the occasional item, I read it from first page to last.

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Wynford Hicks, Quite Literally, London: Routledge, 2004, pp.251, ISBN: 0415320194

Archives for 2009

essays on journalism – from print to the Internet

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Pronouns – definition

Examples

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beginner’s practical guide to promotional writing skills

getting your academic work into print – and on line

a selection of resources

beginner’s guide to the basic principles of punctuation

free pages from our English Language software program

Punctuation – definition

Examples

Use

sample from HTML program and PDF book

sample from HTML program and PDF book

problem words and how to use them properly

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