Oct. 25 & 28, 2004
"Said" and "says": As the Style Manual says, you shouldn't be using much of anything else. Not just because it breaks the flow of the sentence, but because it's so easy to get wrong using a thesaurus.
WRONG: "I didn't like the movie," assessed Tom Swift, a first-year in CIT.
It's wrong because "assess" is not a "speaking" verb. You assess a gemstone or a financial record, not a quotation! We could fix the problem by using a roughly equivalent "speaking" verb:
RIGHT: "I didn't like the movie," opined Tom Swift, a first-year in CIT.But it's much easier, when in doubt, to use the standard verb "say" instead, and save your editors the trouble.
BETTER: "I didn't like the movie," said Tom Swift, a first-year in CIT.
Avoid the verb "state" in news articles, unless you are trying to convey stiltedness. One appropriate use of "state" is when "say" is incorrect; e.g. in quotes from e-mails or news releases. But "wrote in an e-mail" is also correct, and often preferable.
Other misused and overused words: "express," "describe," "speak."
Use a comma in numbers at least 10,000. Do not use commas in numbers less than 10,000.
Use an en dash to indicate a range of numbers.
N.B.: The words "from... to..." also denote a range. The two
idioms do not mix.
WRONG: Over 1,000 students showed up for the event, which was held from 3:00-6:00 in Rangos.
RIGHT: Over 1000 students showed up for the event, which was held from 3 pm to 6 pm in Rangos.
RIGHT: Serves from 3 to 6 diners.
RIGHT: Serves 3–6.
Commas set off personal titles whenever those titles follow a name. They do not set off initial titles or descriptors.
WRONG: Jimmy Neutron, boy genius said that he was working on an invention.
RIGHT: Jimmy Neutron, boy genius, said that he was working on an invention.
RIGHT: Boy genius Jimmy Neutron said that he was working on an invention.
Another way to think of this rule is that there always ought to be a main thread running through the sentence that reads smoothly when any comma-delimited section is taken out. Thus, use commas around the most insignificant descriptor of the subject. Consider:
RIGHT: Your friendly neighborhood boy genius, Jimmy Neutron, says "boo!" to you, "pooh pooh!" to you.
Here Jimmy Neutron's name is less important than the fact that he's your friendly neighborhood boy genius.
RIGHT: Friendly neighborhood boy genius Jimmy Neutron says "boo!" to you, "pooh pooh!" to you.
Here Jimmy Neutron's "boy genius" designation is less important than his name. Since the designation comes before the name, it has no bracketing commas.
WRONG: H. 2697 proposes that the funds in question can be used for either operating expenses or for capital projects.
WRONG: The whereabouts of the bunker are only known to a select few.
WRONG: It's not hard to draw parallels between Ware's and Schultz's styles, especially when one arms himself with a collection of the latter's work.
WRONG: Once an article has been edited by their respective section editor, the editor-in-chief edits it.
WRONG:One would not want to listen to their favorite rock station by tuning into their gamma-ray radio; the sheer energy of these high frequencies would give you radiation poisoning before the song was over.
DEBATABLE: Someone left their calculator in Wean 7500 yesterday.
The Tartan does not use the generic pronoun "him," as in "Someone left his calculator in Wean 7500 yesterday." However, we don't have much of a policy as to what we do use. The best course of action is usually to avoid the question altogether.
BETTER: A calculator was left in Wean 7500 yesterday.
BEST: Two people left their calculators in Wean 7500 yesterday.
WRONG: Still, the debaters gravitated to the issues they wanted to address, eliciting one audience member to question the speaker by calling out, "Why don't you answer our questions?"
BETTER: Still, the debaters gravitated toward the issues they wanted to address, causing one audience member to call out in frustration, "Why don't you answer our questions?"
You have a word count. Use it wisely. Don't use your words to repeat things the reader already knows; use them to supply new information that will sharpen the reader's mental picture of the scene you're describing. In the above example, we already know the audience member is "questioning" the speaker, because there's a question mark in his sentence. So don't bother to repeat that information. Extend the rhythm of the sentence with a description of the audience member's feelings, tone of voice, or anything like that — as long as it's new information.
Note in passing: "Elicit" is not an intransitive verb. You can elicit a reaction, but you cannot elicit someone to do something. This gets back to the point about using big words in inappropriate ways: When in doubt, don't do it!
WRONG: Team captain Lucy Van Pelt said: "We played really well out there today." She added that, "we need more defense."
RIGHT: Team captain Lucy Van Pelt said, "We played really well out there today," but added that the team needs "more defense."
Use the proper punctuation to set off quoted material from the main text. When you incorporate a quote into the flow of the sentence, don't use any punctuation to set it off — it should just flow right along.
When you need to report a complete quotation, use a comma to set it off from the rest of the sentence. You can also use a colon, period, or other end-of-sentence punctuation, but only if you know how.
WRONG: Team captain Lucy Van Pelt said: "We played one heck of a game out there today."
RIGHT: Team captain Lucy Van Pelt was jubilant: "We played one heck of a game out there today."
SHOW-OFF: How was Van Pelt taking the loss? "We played one heck of a game out there today," she said, "but we just weren't good enough. I blame our shoddy defense."
Paraphrasing quotes can be done in two ways: Replace quoted material with non-quoted paraphrase (as above), or use brackets to paraphrase inside the quotation. Beware of excessive paraphrasing! If you paraphrase a quote too much, and don't include the original complete source in your notes on the Intranet, you'll be tying your editors' hands. Consider:
DRAFT: Wallach called for the WTO to either "shrink or sink." Stating that it is "a political question, a power question," she addressed those gathered saying, "These policies will affect your generation." Wallach urged those who disagreed with current trade policies to start "building power to demand for change."Notice the use of the unnecessary progressive tense; the "stating"; the ambiguous "those"; and the redundant "saying." But how much can the editor do to fix this paragraph when it's peppered with tiny out-of-context quotes?
FINAL: Wallach called for the WTO to "shrink or sink." Claiming that it is "a political question, a power question," she told the audience, "These policies will affect your generation." Wallach urged those who disagreed with current trade policies to start "building power to demand for change."
As you can see, not much changed. Inside that paragraph is a lean, mean, vibrant one struggling to get out — but we can't see any more than the writer lets us see. So I can't offer you a "good" version of that paragraph; I've got nothing to work with.
AWKWARD: One such student is Sally Kimball. Kimball gave insight into how those students outside the Humanities Scholars Program view the students within. She sees the program as a sort of "honors program for humanities students." Kimball went on to say that the HSP must be a great way to make friends.
The problem is that the paragraph uses two different tenses to talk
about the same subject: Kimball's interview. It's hard to fix the
awkwardness without redoing the entire paragraph's structure.
Especially watch out for inconsistent tenses in interview-heavy
Pillbox and Sports articles.
It's okay to use present tense in news articles, especially when
writing about ongoing stories. In general, avoid present tense when
recounting interviews, but avoid inconsistent tenses even more.
In other words, write from the perspective of a particular day
— either the day of the interview, or Monday (the day the paper
comes out). But pick one — don't alternate between viewpoints!
There are some things The Tartan does differently from other papers; you just have to learn them by heart. (Or leave them to your poor copy editors!)