Critical Thinking Checklist

1. Reading, not editing, is the first step 

• Give the story a quick reading for content - without making any editing changes.

2. Organization. 

• Is the lead labored or long? 
• Is there a nut paragraph, no lower than the third or fourth graf, that tells succinctly why the story is in the paper?
• Does the story contain the essential five W's and H?
• Is the news presented in the order of importance? 
• Does the story have a good ending that will make the reader remember it? 
• Did the lead's writer mine the story for information that will grab the reader's attention? 

3. Clarity.

• Is the story clear? 
• Is it complete? 
• Are there unanswered questions? 
• Are there unexplained contradictions?

4. Fairness. 

• Is the story balanced? 
• Are sources reliable and identified? 
• Does the story give both sides? 
• Does it provide an opportunity to reply to charges? 
• Does it libel anyone? Is it in good taste?

5. Length. 

• Is the story too long, too short, just right? 
• Is there more information than is useful or interesting to the reader? 
• Can it be made shorter without sacrificing anything truly important?

6. If there are problems in any of the areas listed above, go back to the writer with questions and suggestions. Ask the writer to fix the story. This is part of the feedback that makes a good story better and makes the writer and the editor a team.

7. After the first reading, review the story again. Have you done everything that is needed or are you trying to avoid dealing with difficult questions? Leave no question unanswered. Have you listened to your instincts, your experience? If you have a hunch, have you followed it? Remember that gut feelings are an important part of editing.

8. Check one more time to make sure the reader can understand the story.

Also...

• Have you checked grammar, punctuation and spelling?
• Are verbs generally active and lively, rather than passive and dull? Do subjects and verbs agree? Is verb tense consistent?
• Is the time element clear? Does the reader know when things happened? Remember that chronology is a good organizing device.
• Are historical facts and dates correct?
• Does usage conform to style?
• Have you changed awkward phrases, shortened marathon sentences, chopped up long paragraphs, eliminated repetitiveness and redundancy, killed cliches?
• Have you checked the weird name in the city directory, telephone book or library?
• Has the writer removed "stutter quotes," a direct quotation followed by a paraphrase of the same thing, or vice versa?
• Does the story avoid jargon? Have you removed foreign words or phrases, unexplained acronyms and unexplained technical terms?
• Are numbers correct? Double-check any math, including percentages, to make sure it is right.
• Does the story avoid the use of words in place of "said?"
• Does the story avoid hyperbole? Has the writer refused the temptation to set records for the biggest, best, tallest, shortest? Remember there's always a faster gun.
• Have you corrected grammar in a quote unless there is a special reason for the ungrammatical usage?
• Is there enough background for the reader who missed the last story?

Warren Watson, API (Originally developed by Watson, Lou Ureneck and Jon Kellogg for the Portland Press Herald/ Maine Sunday Telegram)

About Close Reading

What is Close Reading?

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_reading

In literary criticism, close reading describes the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. Such a reading places great emphasis on the particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they are read.

The technique as practiced today was pioneered (at least in English) by I.A. Richards and his student William Empson, later developed further by the New Critics of the mid-twentieth century. It is now a fundamental method of modern criticism.

Close reading is sometimes called explication de texte, which is the name for the similar tradition of textual interpretation in French literary study, a technique whose chief proponent was Gustave Lanson.

A truly attentive close reading of a two-hundred-word poem might be thousands of words long without exhausting the possibilities for observation and insight. To take an even more extreme example, Jacques Derrida's essay Ulysses Gramophone, which J. Hillis Miller describes as a "hyperbolic, extravagant… explosion" of the technique of close reading, devotes more than eighty pages to an interpretation of the word "yes" in James Joyce's great modernist novel Ulysses[citation needed].

Literary close reading and commentaries have extensive precedent in the exegesis of religious texts. For example, Pazand, a genre of middle Persian literature, refers to the Zend (literally: 'commentary'/'translation') texts that offer explanation and close reading of the Avesta, the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism. The scriptural commentaries of the Talmud offer a commonly cited early predecessor to close reading. In Islamic studies, the close reading of the Koran has flourished and produced an immense corpus. But the closest religious analogy to contemporary literary close reading, and the principal historical connection with its birth, is the rise of the higher criticism, and the evolution of textual criticism of the Bible in Germany in the late eighteenth century.

Don't Use Big Words

In promulgating your esoteric cogitations, or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable, philosophical, or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your conversational communications possess a clarified conciseness, a compacted comprehensibleness, a coalescent consistency, and a concatenated cogency. Eschew all conglomerations of flatulent garrulity, jejune babblement, and asinine affectation. Let your extemporaneous descantings and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and veracious vivacity, without rhodomontade, or thrasonical bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous prolixity, psittaceous vacuity, ventriloquial verbosity, and vaniloquent vapidity. Shun double entendres, prurient jocosity, and pestiferous profanity, obscure or apparent. In other words, talk plainly, briefly, naturally, truthfully, purely. Keep from " slang"; don't put on airs ; say what you mean ; mean what you say. And don't use big words.

— Pennsylvania School Journal, May, 1875.

Silent Dead Hed

By Buy?

HEADLINE IN EDITOR & PUBLISHER ONLINE:

Gannett Rejects Offer to By Tucson Paper



Published: April 11, 2009 10:00 AM ET
TUCSON Gannett Co. rejected the latest offer from a California media group seeking to buy the Tucson Citizen but negotiations continue, a spokesman for the group said Friday.

David Ganezer, publisher of the weekly Santa Monica Observer and a spokesman for the Santa Monica Media Co. declined to elaborate because of a nondisclosure agreement with Gannett.

Bulletin Board

I will leave messages here.
You can ask questions or make comments using the comment mode. When you do so, they will pop up on my Google Reader.

• Subject: Independent Florida Alligator Seeks Section Editors, Online Staffers and More!!

The Alligator is recruiting section editors and online staff. We are currently accepting applications for all positions. All students interested in getting involved with the Alligator this fall are encouraged to apply.

- A section editor is in a management position, responsible for finding, assigning and editing stories for grammar, content and style. Additionally, a section editor must communicate with other desks in the newsroom to work on collaborative projects.

- Online staff members help produce the paper daily, create multimedia and work on special online projects. Students with experience in video editing, HTML/CSS, Javascript and/or content management systems are preferred.

The deadline for submissions is August 21. Phone interviews will be held in the order that applications are received. It is possible that the position will be filled prior to the Aug. 21 deadline, so students are encouraged to complete the attached application as soon as possible. All applications should be sent to apply@alligator.org.

Brian Kelley

Managing Editor / Print

The Independent Florida Alligator

Cell: 904-412-4585

bkelley@alligator.org

• ACES scholarships for editors.

Click here to download an application form.

Quorum of the Twelve Apostates

An Interesting Freudian Slip?



April 6, 2009 - Brigham Young University's student paper, the Daily Universe, made a very interesting typographical error.

Instead of typing the word 'apostles' into the caption of the photo published in their newspaper, somebody 'accidentally' slipped in the word 'apostates.' The caption reads the phrase as 'Quorum of the Twelve Apostates' rather than 'Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.'

Which by all accounts is hilarious.

But Brigham Young University is feeling the heat. And the local media are having a field day with the story.

Apparently, some 18,500 newspapers were recalled to be completely reprinted and students were simply notified to visit the newspaper's website until the new editions were published and distributed.

Burglary vs. Robbery

Burglary vs. Robbery

From AP: burglary, larceny, robbery, theft Legal definitions of burglary vary, but in general a burglary involves entering a building (not necessarily by breaking in) and remaining unlawfully with the intention of committing a crime.

Larceny is the legal term for the wrongful taking of property. Its nonlegal equivalents are stealing or theft.

Robbery in the legal sense involves the use of violence or threat in committing larceny. In a wider sense it means to plunder or rifle, and may thus be used even if a person was not present: His house was robbed while he was away.

Theft describes a larceny that did not involve threat, violence or plundering.

USAGE NOTE: You rob a person, bank, house, etc., but you steal the money or the jewels.

Because there has been some confusion between a burglary and robbery (and admittedly it can be confusing, but we as journalists want to use words as correctly as possible), I offer up two stories from the Sun that helps make the distinction I hope.

Here is the burglary story. Nowhere does it call him a robber or mention robbery. It does note he may be suspected in some thefts (maybe stealing stuff out of peoples’ cars or back yards or open garages) and other burglaries. MAKES THE DISTINCTION

Burglary

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20080929/news/809290207

Man arrested in burglary where homeowner hit on head

An arrest has been made in the case of a homeowner who walked in on a burglary and got hit over the head.

Levy County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Michael David Santerfeit, 38, of Chiefland, on Friday.

He was charged with burglary, aggravated battery and grand theft for the Sept. 20 incident.

According to Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Evan Sullivan, Santerfeit broke into a home in the 9800 block of NE 65th Lane outside Bronson. Once inside, Santerfeit allegedly stole medication and other items worth more than $300.

The homeowner told deputies he got back to his home around 5 p.m. and saw that the back window had been broken. He told deputies that he walked in and was hit on the head with a crowbar before his attacker fled in a white Ford Escort. The victim was treated at the scene. He identified Santerfeit from a photo lineup and told deputies the man had done some odd jobs for him previously.

Sullivan said Santerfeit is also a suspect in several thefts and burglaries in Levy County and likely will face additional charges. Deputies are asking anyone with information on Santerfeit or who may have seen a white, four-door, Ford Escort being driven suspiciously in their neighborhood to call Investigator Mark Morgan at 486-5111. Callers can remain anonymous by calling Crime Stoppers at 877-349-8477.

And here is one in which the guys is pulling up to open garages and grabbing stuff. No break-in here. It is a robbery.

Robbery

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20080929/news/809290209

Couple thwarts robbery attempt

A 64-year-old woman and her 63-year-old husband teamed up to thwart a would-be robber at their home Sunday afternoon.

Maryjane and Michael Schaer told Gainesville Police that at about 11:40 a.m. they saw a man drive a 2008 Dodge SUV up to their open garage door in the 2000 block of NW 15th Avenue. The couple said the man began loading their power lawn tools — including a leaf blower and a generator — into the back of the SUV.

Michael said when he approached the man, the man tried to drive away.

Meanwhile, Maryjane got into the passenger seat of the SUV and turned off the ignition, reportedly telling the man not to leave. Michael told police he was at the driver’s door dialing 911 on his cell phone and trying to get the man to get out of the vehicle.

The man allegedly grabbed a knife with a locked blade from the console of the SUV and was opening the 4-inch blade when Michael began hitting him. The blows prevented the man from using the knife and he ran off.

According to an arrest report, the man was found on a creek bank a short distance from the Schaer home. The man was identified as Thomas William Sinnott, 50, of Alachua. He allegedly told police he would drive around and look for open garage doors so he could steal lawn equipment.

Sinnott was charged with robbery with a deadly weapon and burglary of an occupied dwelling for the incident at the Schear home. Police also charged him with failing to return leased property for not returning the SUV to Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

According to arrest records, Sinnott picked up the SUV from Enterprise at the Gainesville Regional Airport on Aug. 5 and renewed it for the next few weeks. Enterprise employees told police that when he quit renewing and paying for the rental, they went to his home, but neighbors told them he had moved out a week earlier. When he was arrested, Sinnott allegedly told police he had not made any payments for the leased vehicle in several weeks.

A Note to Dr. R's Labs

Key Words & Online Heds

• KEY WORDS: For every headline you write in this lab you are expected to put above the headline several key words. I will take off points if they are missing.
• For purposes of this class, one column = 2 inches
• Also, every story you edit should also include an online headline of about 12 to 15 words labeled as the "online hed."

Case:Subjective, Objective, Possessive

Case (from: http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/casetext.htm)

Case is the grammatical function of a noun or pronoun. The three cases in modern English are subjective (he), objective (him) and possessive (his). They may seem more familiar in their old English form - nominative, accusative and genitive. There is no dative case in modern English.

First though the good news. You cannot really go wrong here, we have shed most of our cases and as a result English is easier than many other languages because nouns and some indefinite pronouns (anyone, someone, everyone, and so on) only have a distinctive case form for the possessive. However, a remnant of old English is that pronouns have distinctive forms in all three cases and must be used with care.

The pronoun cases are simple. There are just three:-
1. Subjective case: pronouns used as subject.
2. Objective case: pronouns used as objects of verbs or prepositions.
3. Possessive case: pronouns which express ownership.

Personal Pronoun
Subjective/Nominative	Objective/Accusative	Possessive/Genitive
Referring to the subject in a sentence	Referring to the object in a sentence	The apostrophe form of the word ("Lynne's).
I	Me	Mine
You	You	Yours
He	Him	His
She	Her	Hers
It	It	Its
We	Us	Ours
They	Them	Theirs
Who	Whom	Whose

These pronouns, and who and its compounds, are the only words that are inflected in all three cases (subjective, objective, possessive). In nouns the first two cases (subjective and objective) are indistinguishable, and are called the common case. One result of this simplicity is that, the sense of case being almost lost, the few mistakes that can be made are made often, even by native speakers, some of them so often that they are now almost right by prescription.

Kinds of Headline Deks: Standard vs. Narrative

Standard drop (or dek) heds

Communities' recovery paces differ
Bouncing back from disaster could
take longer in less-well-off areas

State Attorney's Office gets astronaut case file
Nowak's arrest prompts review of psychological screening

N. Korea agrees to nuke deal
Main reactor to shut down within 60 days

One Year Later Golden Mosque Is Still in Ruins
Deep Scar in Sunni City
With a Shiite Shrine

Hybrids become more of a tough sell
Incentives offered on many models as gas prices fall

Seven Dead in Iraq Crash
U.S. chopper goes down near
Baghdad, fifth U.S. aircraft
lost in the past month


Narrative Drop (or Dek) Hed Examples
(Here, the second hed narrates a short story. It is written like a sentence, includes all the sort of words that would be excluded from a standard headline, and includes all the appropriate punctuation, including a period at end)

Quickly, here is an example of the difference:

Standard Hed:

Small towns, big dreams
County’s rural cities see downtown
revitalization as key to survival
VS.

Narrative Hed:

Small towns, big dreams
The county’s financially strapped
rural cities are hoping the ongoing
efforts at revitalizing their downtowns
will be their key to survival.


Narrative Examples

Grammy Vindication
The Dixie Chicks’ big win
has exposed tensions between
Nashville and Hollywood.

Ovations in Her 60s
Anja Silja’s life and career
are intertwined with legends.

So what does $250,000 get you these days?
The median resale price of a home in Central Florida has
hovered at a quarter of a million dollars for almost a year,
and analysts worry that figure could begin to fall.

Troops doubt intelligence quest in Iraq
A recent sweep for car-bomb
makers in Iraq has shown that
successes for U.S. intelligence
will take time to produce results.

AP's Note on Dictionaries

For spelling, style and usage questions not covered in this stylebook, consult Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, published by Wiley.Use the first spelling listed in Webster's New World College Dictionary unless a specific exception is listed in this book.

If Webster's New World College Dictionary provides different spellings in separate entries (tee shirt and T-shirt, for example), use the spelling that is followed by a full definition (T-shirt).

If Webster's New World College Dictionary provides definitions under two different spellings for the same sense of a word, either use is acceptable. For example, although or though.

If there is no listing in either this book or Webster's New World College Dictionary, the backup dictionary is Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, published by Merriam-Webster Inc.

Geographic Names

Webster's New World College Dictionary is also the first reference for geographic names not covered in this stylebook.

FOREIGN: The first source for the spelling of all foreign place names is Webster’s New World College Dictionary as follows:–Use the first-listed spelling if an entry gives more than one.–If the dictionary provides different spellings in separate entries, use the spelling that is followed by a full description of the location.
If the dictionary does not have an entry, use the first-listed spelling in the National Geographic Atlas of the World.On the Net:www.nationalgeographic.com

NEW NAMES: Follow the styles adopted by the United Nations and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names on new cities, new independent nations and nations that change their names.

OPINION OR GOOD REPORTING?

IS IT OPINION OR GOOD REPORTING
AND AN EXAMPLE OF WRITING WITH AUTHORITY?

In an unusual twist to the sometimes bitter fight over bilingualism in Miami, complaints have been filed with the Dade County Fair Housing and Employment Appeals Board by two women …
VS
Complaints have been filed with the Dade County Fair Housing and Employment Appeals Board by two women …

• I raise this issue because it is an issue that arises often.
• Editors here removed the clause in front of complaints –
• “In an unusual twist to the sometimes bitter fight over bilingualism in Miami,”
• because they felt unusual is an opinion term and didn’t feel it was necessary.
• I WOULD DISAGREE – IT GIVES CONTEXT – IF THE WRITER KNOWS WHAT SHE OR HE IS TALKING ABOUT REGARDING THIS SUBJECT, I WOULD SAY LEAVE IT IN.
• And, you would never remove it unilaterally. You would consult first with city desk or even the reporter.
• As Professor Foley told you in reporting, it is the job of the journalist to make sense of a confusing world.
• Often a good reporter who knows much about a subject and writes with authority can inform his or her stories with this kind of contextual matter derived from the hard work of reporting.
• Certainly, these editors have good instincts here, but they need to be cautious. It is a balancing act and the editor needs to ensure that reporters do not say more than the truth.
• This, of course, is WHY editors have to be aware of all the news in their community and nationally and internationally.

The issue arises again here -->

• The issue of bilingualism has led to heated debate in Miami.
• Editors note that heated sounds like opinion.
• Here, again, the reporter is writing with authority and can say this if history shows it is so.

Would You Use This Photo?

The photo at the link below was selected as “best photo” by the Associated Press Managing Editors Association on the basis of:

• Composition
• Technical quality
• Strong news value
• Visual appeal

The question for you to answer in a comment to this post is: Would you use this photo. If yes or no, please explain why. Add your answer as comment to blog item. (There really is no right or wrong answer here. Just be able to defend your actions to your editor. (Grading: X if you do, 0 if you do not.)

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhrxdnf3_465cbsnbwgh