Short and Sweet
Monday, February 28, 2011
One problem journalists face is adding additional words to their stories that they don't need. Excluding additional words keeps readers interested in the article.
Twitter is one of the newest form of technology that has helped the news industry. Since Twitter forces individuals to limit their thoughts to 140 characters, this has led them to shorten their thoughts in a more concise form of communication.
One common thing that happens is that people don't think before they write. This lack of preparation causes the writer to frantically drag on in their articles.
By rambling to an audience, readers will become bored and won't finish reading an article. Readers want the journalist to get to the point quickly.
An aid for journalists, is to read the written material before it is published and see if any unnecessary words can be eliminated. By revising the work, it will help readers to stay interested in the material.
The news industry is fast. Journalists want their material read and by revising their work, journalists might have an opportunity to compete within the fast-paced news industry.
photo credit:Max Chafkin, creativecommons.org
5 comments:
As a journalism student I find myself using extra words all the time. Editing is a major part to excluding those unnecessary words, but I also find that when editing I sometimes add those extra words. Twitter has helped me decrease the usage of those words, and I recommend a Twitter account to all future journalists for that reason.
Twitter has helped me realize you don't have to add a bunch of extra words in your story to get your point across. Readers enjoy articles that are short, simple, and straight to the point of bringing out the importance of an article.
This has been one of the hardest issues I've had when writing. I get something written but it ends up being too long and I have to revise it significantly.
I've had problems with unnecessary words in the past and in present, but I have noticed an improvement thanks to Twitter and how it forces you to really think about what needs to be said.
Twitter..Never thought I would say this, but thank you. It helps me get my point across and hopefully I can transfer that over to my writing skills.
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