9780312442675

Written for journalists by journalists,Working with Wordsprovides the examples, exercises, and rhetorical advice theAssociated Press Stylebookdoes not. The ideal reference for journalism students, the sixth edition focuses on improving grammar and style by offering more grammar help, more on ethics, and more on writing for online media.

BRIAN S. BROOKS is a professor and chairman of the editorial department at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He is coauthor ofNews Reporting and Writing, Eighth Edition (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005), Telling the Story, Second Edition (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004), and The Art of Editing, Eighth Edition (2005).

JAMES L. PINSON has taught journalism for more than 15 years -- at the Missouri School of Journalism and at Eastern Michigan University -- and has addressed various press groups on the subjects of grammar and other editing skills. He has also worked for newspapers in Colorado, Missouri and Michigan, and has a doctorate in journalism and a master's in creative writing.

JEAN GADDY WILSON is managing partner for media with Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., a strategic trends analysis firm in New York City which pioneered futures planning using its trademarked STEP (Strategic Trends Evaluation Process). As an adjunct faculty member at the Missouri School of Journalism, she founded three national journalism organizations: New Directions for News; Journalism and Women's Symposium; and the National Women and Media Collection. She was a founding member of the Council of Presidents, whose members lead the editorial organizations in newspapers, and of the International Women's Media Foundation. She has served as a Pulitzer Prize Nominating Juror for Journalism, and currently serves on the IBM Advisory Board and IBM Mobile Human-Centric Computing Advisory Board.

Preface

v

Introduction for Students

1

(4)

What Makes Good Writing Work, Anyway?

2

(1)

How to Master Mechanics

2

(3)

PART ONE Grammar and Usage

5

(162)

Grammar Basics

7

(18)

Using Standard English

7

(4)

Why Don't We Write How We Talk?

8

(1)

Conventional Wisdom

8

(1)

Competing Grammars and Stylebooks

9

(1)

Grammar and Confidence

10

(1)

Communicating Well

10

(1)

Talking Shop

11

(1)

Key Principles of Grammar

12

(12)

Web Resources: Grammar Help

24

(1)

Phrases, Clauses and Sentences

25

(9)

Phrases

26

(1)

Phrases as Subjects and Objects

26

(1)

Phrases as Verbs

26

(1)

Phrases as Modifiers

26

(1)

Phrases as Connecting Words

26

(1)

Clauses

27

(1)

Independent Clauses

27

(1)

Dependent Clauses

27

(1)

Restrictive Versus Nonrestrictive

28

(1)

Journalism Tip: Punctuating Nonrestrictive Phrases and Clauses

29

(1)

Sentences

29

(3)

Journalism Tip: Using Different Types of Sentences

31

(1)

Sentence Errors

32

(2)

Fragments

32

(1)

Fused Sentences

32

(1)

Comma-Splice Sentences

32

(1)

Run-on Sentences

33

(1)

Subjects and Objects

34

(18)

Kinds of Subjects

35

(1)

Kinds of Objects

36

(1)

Common Nouns Versus Proper Nouns

37

(3)

Journalism Tip: Using Trademarks

39

(1)

The Forms Nouns Take

40

(2)

Forming Singulars and Plurals of Nouns

40

(1)

Forming Possessives of Nouns

41

(1)

Pronoun Person, Number and Gender

42

(1)

Pronoun Cases

43

(3)

Nominative Case With Pronouns

44

(1)

Journalism Tip: Predicate Nominatives in Formal Writing Versus Broadcast

45

(1)

Objective Case With Pronouns

45

(1)

Possessive Case With Pronouns

46

(1)

Relative Pronouns

46

(4)

Whose Versus Who's

49

(1)

Pronouns Ending in Self or Selves

50

(1)

Verbal Nouns: Gerunds and Infinitives

50

(2)

Verbs

52

(26)

Helping Verbs Versus Main Verbs

52

(2)

Transitive Verbs Versus Intransitive Verbs

54

(2)

Tenses

56

(6)

The Simple Tenses

56

(1)

The Perfect Tenses

57

(2)

The Progressive Tenses

59

(1)

Shall Versus Will

59

(1)

Regular Verbs Versus Irregular Verbs

60

(2)

Sequence of Tenses

62

(4)

Past Tenses

62

(1)

Present Tenses

63

(1)

Journalism Tip: Journalism and Sequence of Tenses

64

(1)

Future Tenses

65

(1)

Making Verb Tenses Agree

66

(1)

Active Voice Versus Passive Voice

66

(5)

Journalism Tip: When Not to Change Passive Voice to Active

70

(1)

Mood

71

(4)

Indicative Mood

71

(1)

Imperative Mood

71

(1)

Conditional Mood

71

(1)

Subjunctive Mood

72

(2)

Journalism Tip: Verb Moods

74

(1)

Nouns Used as Verbs

75

(1)

Verbals

76

(2)

Gerunds

76

(1)

Participles

76

(1)

Infinitives

77

(1)

Making the Parts Agree

78

(12)

Subject-Verb Agreement

78

(1)

Conjunctions

78

(1)

Collective and Uncountable Nouns

79

(2)

Journalism Tip: Groups of People in the News

80

(1)

Names of Teams and Musical Groups

81

(1)

Other Confusing Nouns

82

(1)

Indefinite Pronouns

82

(2)

Intervening Nouns and Pronouns

84

(1)

Prepositional Phrases

84

(1)

Subject and Predicate Nominative in Disagreement

85

(1)

Inverted Order

85

(1)

Making Pronouns and Antecedents Agree

86

(1)

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

86

(1)

Clear Pronoun Reference

87

(1)

Making Sentences Parallel

88

(1)

Make Items in a Series Parallel

88

(1)

Make Verbs Parallel

88

(2)

Modifiers and Connecting Words

90

(14)

Modifiers

90

(1)

Forms of Adjectives and Adverbs

91

(2)

Adjectives Versus Adverbs

93

(1)

Coordinate Adjectives Versus Compound Modifiers

94

(3)

Journalism Tip: Compound Modifiers Without Hyphens

96

(1)

Articles

97

(1)

Sentence Adverbs

97

(1)

Participles

98

(1)

Double Negatives

98

(1)

Interjections

99

(1)

Connecting Words

100

(1)

Prepositions

100

(1)

Conjunctions

101

(2)

Coordinate Conjunctions

101

(1)

Correlative Conjunctions

102

(1)

Subordinate Conjunctions

102

(1)

Conjunctive Adverbs

103

(1)

Getting Words in the Right Order

104

(5)

Misplaced Modifiers

104

(1)

Adverb Placement

105

(1)

Less Confusing Jumbled Word Orders

106

(3)

Usage: Finding the Right Word

109

(58)

Journalism Tip: Conservative Stylebook Rules

110

(1)

Misused Words and Mistaken Phrases

111

(9)

Confused Words

120

(47)

PART TWO Mechanics

167

(58)

Punctuation

169

(19)

Commas

170

(5)

Always Use a Comma

170

(3)

Never Use a Comma

173

(1)

Possibly Use a Comma

174

(1)

Quotation Marks and Other Problems of Quoting

175

(6)

What to Quote

175

(2)

Attribution of Quotations

177

(3)

Paraphrases

180

(1)

Quotations Across Paragraphs

180

(1)

Other Issues With Quotes

181

(1)

Semicolons

181

(1)

Colons

182

(1)

Dashes

183

(1)

Parentheses

184

(1)

Hyphens

185

(1)

Apostrophes

185

(1)

Slashes

186

(1)

Periods, Exclamation Points and Question Marks

187

(1)

Spelling Relief

188

(37)

Spelling Rules

188

(4)

Prefixes

188

(1)

Suffixes

189

(1)

Journalism Tip: Spelling and Your Career

190

(1)

The Silent e

190

(1)

Other Spelling Rules

191

(1)

Words Often Misspelled

192

(6)

Hyphenation as a Spelling Problem

198

(22)

Rules for Hyphenation

198

(2)

Looking Up Words for Hyphenation

200

(1)

One Word, Two Words or Hyphenated?

201

(19)

American Versus British Spelling

220

(4)

Web Resources: Spelling

224

(1)

PART THREE Style

225

(80)

Writing as a Journalist

227

(13)

Keys to Good Journalistic Writing

229

(1)

Clarity

230

(4)

Writing Levels

230

(1)

Unanswered Questions

231

(1)

Specifics

231

(1)

Awkward Constructions

232

(1)

Math and Clarity

233

(1)

Correctness

234

(5)

Objectivity

235

(1)

Rules of Objective Writing

235

(4)

Web Resources: Writing Help

239

(1)

Conciseness

240

(34)

Tightening

241

(4)

Use Fewer Words

241

(2)

Use Simpler Words

243

(1)

Use Exact Words

244

(1)

Be Fresh, Not Stale

244

(1)

What to Tighten, A to Z

245

(28)

Web Resources: Concise Writing

273

(1)

Sexism, Racism and Other ``isms''

274

(31)

Don't Be Ridiculous

276

(1)

Language Turns to the Future

277

(1)

New Players in the New Millennium

278

(1)

A Brief History of ``isms''

279

(1)

Future Realities: More Language Transformation Coming

280

(1)

Dealing With Reality

281

(4)

Sexism

281

(1)

Racism

282

(2)

Ageism

284

(1)

Other Stereotyping

285

(1)

The Nonbias Rule

285

(1)

Symbolic Annihilation

286

(1)

Dumping Today's Stereotypes

287

(16)

Web Resources: Sensitive Language

303

(2)

PART FOUR Writing Methods for Different Media

305

(50)

Writing News That's Fit for Print

307

(17)

News Leads

309

(1)

Pick the Best Angle

310

(1)

Hard-News Leads

311

(5)

Who Was Involved?

312

(1)

What Happened?

312

(2)

When Did It Happen?

314

(1)

Where Did It Happen?

315

(1)

Problems With Hard-News Leads

316

(2)

Soft-News Leads

318

(1)

Soft-News Cliches

319

(2)

What Comes After the Lead?

321

(2)

Web Resources: Journalism Reviews

323

(1)

Writing News for Broadcast

324

(15)

Print Versus Broadcast News

325

(4)

Use a Conversational Style

325

(2)

Personalize the News

327

(1)

Make It Easy to Understand

327

(2)

Keep It Short

329

(1)

Keep It Timely

329

(1)

Make It Clear

329

(1)

Broadcasters Must Know Grammar

329

(1)

Broadcast Hard-News Leads

330

(2)

Start With the Who

330

(1)

What Happened?

331

(1)

Other Points to Remember

332

(1)

Broadcast Story Structure

332

(2)

Broadcast Style Summary

334

(4)

Preparing Your Manuscript for Radio

334

(1)

Preparing Your Manuscript for Television

334

(1)

Editing and Other Symbols

334

(1)

Pronunciation

335

(1)

Abbreviations

335

(1)

Numbers

336

(1)

Punctuation

337

(1)

Names

337

(1)

Spelling

338

(1)

Web Resources: Broadcasting

338

(1)

Writing for the Online Media

339

(16)

Online Media Are Unique

341

(6)

Correctness and Credibility

343

(1)

Conciseness

344

(1)

Consistency

345

(1)

Completeness

346

(1)

The Sixth C

346

(1)

Writing and Presenting Online News

347

(2)

Packaging for the Web

349

(1)

Online Media Versus Traditional Media

350

(1)

Journalism Ethics in the Electronic Age

351

(2)

Web Resources: Online Media

353

(2)

Appendix Wire-Service Style Summary

355

(11)

Abbreviations and Acronyms

355

(4)

Punctuation

355

(1)

Symbols

356

(1)

Dates

356

(1)

People and Titles

356

(1)

Organizations

357

(1)

Places

357

(2)

Miscellaneous

359

(1)

Capitalization

359

(4)

Proper Nouns

359

(1)

Geographic Regions

360

(1)

Government and College Terms

360

(2)

Religious Terms

362

(1)

Titles

362

(1)

Miscellaneous

363

(1)

Numbers

363

(2)

Cardinal Numbers

363

(1)

Numerals With Suffixes

364

(1)

Numbers as Words

364

(1)

Other Rules for Numbers

365

(1)

Web Resources: Associated Press Style

365

(1)

Bibliography

366

(3)

Index

369

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Working with Words: A Handbook for Media Writers and Editors

Working with Words: A Handbook for Media Writers and Editors

031244267X

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials