Push for Clarity of Expression in Your Writers’ Copies

by Harpreet Bhagrath | Feb 5, 2012 | Fussy Editor

Jatin,

Here are a few suggestions for improvements in your copy.

http://www.totalfilmy.com/feature/20110304/salman_incites_asin_eat_bugs-32440.html

This news was written well, and I enjoyed reading it. But a few minor issues can still be fixed, I feel.

Apparently, when the ‘Ready’ hero Salman Khan incited the ‘Ready’ heroine Asin to gobble up insects, which they had hit upon at the sets of ‘Ready’ in Thailand, the actress without the slightest hesitation, stepped forward and gulped it down.

Kindly match the pronouns with the nouns they refer to. In the sentence above, pronoun ‘it’ (gulped it down) refers to the noun insects, which is plural. So we need a plural pronoun: them. Gulped ‘them’ down.

You can improve a little on word choice too.

The ‘Ready’ female protagonist, without shilly-shallying caught hold of one of the insects, guzzled it…

Guzzled is an ill-fitting word here. She ate the insect or drank it? I mean if we can show that she drank the insect along with water, then guzzle may be used here. But that would still be pushing it.

http://www.BDupdates.com/content/goldman-invested-450m-facebook-109238.html

Kindly check the headline above and inform the erring writer too. News headlines are mostly written in historical present tense. Here’s some more information for you and your writers: https://cosmosmedia.info/writing-news-headlines/

Here’s another news edited badly by you: http://www.scivista.com/content/car-lovers-assemble-81st-geneva-auto-show-7812466.html

Kindly see to it that in your writers’ news, the ideas are clear and make sense to the readers. In this sentence from Nancy Anderson’s news, it’s not clear if the car’s per galon mileage is good or bad.

Though the latest creation of Lamborghini covers 13 miles per gallon, it couldn’t make its place in the market like other supercar makers, due to the sky high gas prices.

In this sentence, I don’t know why we have used the word ‘specifies’.

For such people, Jon Oakley’s British company, Oakley Design, specifies in taking more power out of Ferrari 458 and adding it to Lamborghinis.

Then, in this para, there’s bad grammar and a few words could have been bettered.

The show is scheduled to end on Mar. 13 and till now, the chief attention (attraction could be better here) of the show have been (bad grammar) Volkswagen’s Bull, which was loved by hippies in the 1970s and Hyundai’s i40 D-class, which is more popular as an easily reached luxury station wagon.

The phrase ‘an easily reached’ needs tweaking; ‘an easily reachable’ is a slight improvement, but I would still reserve this phrase for physical places, rather than cars. I am more likely to use ‘approachable’, but I will end up with ‘affordable’, which is a way more fitting word here than the vague, unidiomatic phrase ‘an easily reached’.

Kindly take this news up with Nancy Anderson and discuss all these issues.

http://www.scivista.com/content/car-lovers-assemble-81st-geneva-auto-show-7812466.html

Monitor This Writer Closely

by Harpreet Bhagrath | Jan 31, 2012 | Fussy Editor

Dear Mukti,

A follow up of the recent TJ news edited by you revealed a few issues. Kindly take care of such mistakes in your forthcoming edits.

We need appropriate, right sized, sharp (not grainy) photos that have not been ‘photoshopped’. The photo that the writer had chosen was not only grainy, it was also photoshopped: http://www.themedguru.com/20110408/newsfeature/superbug-found-delhi-drinking-water-86144316.html. You can see that someone has worked on the photo to put three photos together, obviously photoshopped. In news like these, you need to ask the writer to change the photo or change it yourself.

Then there were other issues in the edited copy.

A Cardiff University’s team of scientists has…

A team of Cardiff University’s scientists has…

This sub-heading:

samples from all over Delhi

Samples should have been capitalized. Also, the sub-heading has to be a complete thought, so the sub-heading becomes: Samples collected from all over Delhi.

Yamuna River,Ramesh Nagar district,

Punctuation mistake.

The study authors say, “some samples…

Some should have been capitalized.

The authors say,”NDM-1 is widely disseminated

Quote marks need fixing.

Manisha has edited the news again, but I have attached the original news edited by you.

You are not supposed to spend more than 15 minutes on a writer’s copy. If it takes more than that, just call the writer or message him/her on Yahoo Messenger (if he/she is available) to get the write-up corrected. It is OK to call the writer at night if the writer has chosen to write at night. After they submit the news, they are supposed to be accessible to you till it gets published. When the write-up gets published, all responsibility is yours and your pay will be marked down.

We will have to penalise you for this news, I’m afraid, Mukti. Similar such issues were found in the news edited by you before as well, but this is the first time we are apprising you of the mistakes left. (Ideally, it should not come to that.)

Wordiness and Hyphenation

by Harpreet Bhagrath | Jan 28, 2012 | Fussy Editor

Hi, Sumit.

I haven’t gone through this copy, but on a cursory look, it needs a couple of corrections.

http://www.scivista.com/content/20110411/gas-prices-near-all-time-high-price-7812612.html

The content at the bottom is coming out all bold; something to do with <strong></strong> html coding. The slash must be missing. Plus the headline has a superfluous word ‘price’. “Gas prices near all time high price” should have been either “Gas prices near all-time high” or “Gas near all-time high price”.

Plus, kindly note the hyphen use in all-time. The hyphen is required. But don’t change the heading now; for technical reasons, after publishing the copy, we can change the rest of the news but not the heading.

Issues Abound in This Writer’s Copy

by Harpreet Bhagrath | Jan 22, 2012 | Fussy Editor

Hi, Mukti.

This news needs another edit from you:

http://www.scivista.com/content/20110503/rim-unveiled-thinnest-and-most-powerful-blackberry-bold-9900-9930-7812673.html

There were three mistakes in the headline itself. Kindly edit the headline and inform the erring writer too. News headlines are mostly written in historical present tense. Here’s some more information for you and your writers: https://cosmosmedia.info/writing-news-headlines/.

Also, instead of a semi colon, a colon was needed in the headline.

Then, it should have been Blackberrys in the headline. Or Blackberry smartphones.

The final headline should have been “RIM unveils thinnest and most powerful Blackberrys: Bold 9900, 9930” or “RIM unveils thinnest and most powerful Blackberry smartphones: Bold 9900, 9930”

Then, there were issues throughout the news.

…ever increasing empire of Apple and Google…

Should be empires, unless Apple and Google work as partners.

According to RIM, these are the thinnest and most powerful Blackberry till date
Should be ‘Blackberrys’

In the software department RIM has made a huge improvements too

The mistake is obvious; you just need to edit closely

Bold 9900 and 9930 come with a powerful 1230mAh battery that gives it enough power for multitasking over a long period of time.

Kindly match the pronouns with the nouns they refer to. In the sentence above, pronoun ‘it’ (gives it enough power) refers to two nouns: Bold 9900 and 9930. So we need a plural pronoun: them. …gives them enough power.…

The phones come with inbuilt 8 GB memory which can get expanded up to 32 GB. 

Comma after ‘which’ required.

Preposition missing.

Edited sentence becomes: The phones come with inbuilt 8GB memory, which can be expanded to up to 32GB.

There were other such issues scattered throughout the article, but I’ll stop here.

A bit more time consumption in editing is required, Sumit.

Kindly also ask the writer to give you cleaner copies in future.