The Pathfinder, Issue 16, Jan. 13:
THE GOOD:
- Great job by Amy, Jed and crew for filling up a 12-page edition on short notice. You guys rawk.
- A well-reported and timely front-page story by Jed on campus power outages. (Page 1) Tribune has had nothing about any of this, which you think would be of interest to many of its readers.
- Engaging column debut by Kasi Klimes on her amorous neighbors. (Page 2)
- Another fine movie dissection by Katy. (6) I was impressed by her Vampire cure-Christian rebirth correlation — that's the kind of analysis and interpretation I appreciate in film reviews.
- I always enjoy Alex's restaurant reviews, and I'm sure I'm not alone. (7) I am amazed, however, that she would suggest that Rooster's excellent service made up for its essentially crappy food. Wow. No way is this discriminating diner leaving a tip if the food blows.
- The women's basketball team has got to love Jed's plug for their program in his sports column. (11) More sports coverage, please.
- A super "Word on the street" question to start off the semester. (12) I love this feature. In fact, I love it so much, I wish we would think about doing at the Tribune.
THE NOT-SO-GOOD:
- Where exactly on campus were the submersible transformers that crapped out? (1) Curious readers like this one want to know.
- Press release on MLK Day of Service badly needed to be rewritten to give it the kind of objectivity required of a news story. (1)
- Column jump on Page 4 was too wide. Break that puppy into at least two columns to make it easier to read.
- I've always seen underwear referred to as "skivvies," not "skibbies," as per Jed's sports column, but maybe he's coining a new word. (11)
AND SOME STUFF TO WORK ON:
- Semicolons are used to join related sentences that otherwise would be separated by a period. Colons, on the other hands, are design to introduce a dependent idea. Example: This is the example.
- Per Kasi's column: Maintain the same tense throughout the story. It starts off in present tense, which is an effective device for bringing the reader into the story, but then it veers in and out of that and past-tense voice. Confusing to readers.
- The Beez Rule of Thumb on Courtesy Titles says that unless someone can successfully remove one of your vital organs, do not refer to them in stories as "Dr. This" or "Dr. That," regardless of what kind of sheepskin they may have on their office walls. It's confusing to the reader and unneccesary to stroke those egos on campus that are already five sizes too big.
- Mixup, as a noun, is one word.
- When it comes to capitalization, there are two styles of headline writing: The eastern U.S. style that capitalizes everything except articles, conjunctions and prepositions, and the western U.S. style that only capitalizes the first word and then subsequent proper names (The Associated Press favors this one). Either is legit, but this Pathfinder issue has it both ways. My advice: Pick a style and stick to it throughout.
- Don't use the pound sign (#) when referring to a particular number. Use "No. 5" or "No. 451" instead.
- You may think rewriting press releases takes too much time, but, honestly, you have to edit them anyway, so you might as well hone your J-school skills while you're at it. And then they won't read like the home team wrote them (which it basically did).
- Spell out percent, as in 100 percent, not 100%. A codicil here: The percent sign (%) is allowed in headlines because it's shorter.
2 comments:
If the service is good I always tip, regardless of the food, because as a server it is just common knowledge that sometimes the kitchen just messes something up, and that is way beyond the servers control. So if the service is good tip, and maybe dont go back to that restaurant again, or order something else.
I hadn't considered that, Alex, but your approach makes a lot of sense. I stand corrected. Thanks.
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