by Harpreet Bhagrath | Feb 23, 2012 | Fussy Editor
Hi, Sumit.
Can you ask this writer to use smaller paragraphs and use sub-headings?
If the writer is not providing sub-heads, then you kindly give at least two in a story. But the best is to get the writer to do the needful in the first place.
Plus, the write-up could do with a bit more editing, I’d say.
As told by an anonymous “source” Snooki, the Situation and their gang are making $100,000 per episode, and the new star cast will be a lot cheaper, besides that hefty amount they earn in appearances.
Kindly ask the writer to use proper punctuation. The introductory phrase “As told by an anonymous “source”” should have been separated with a comma.
Then, the phrase “besides that hefty amount they earn in appearances” doesn’t cut very well with me. The idea could have been incorporated (or rather ‘positioned’) in the sentence better.
The edited, reader-friendly sentence should have read something like the following:
As told by an anonymous “source,” Snooki, the Situation, and their gang are making $100,000 per episode — besides that hefty amount they earn in appearances, and the new star cast will be a lot cheaper.
Kindly notice such semantic issues in writers’ copies and teach them the right way, so that they don’t trouble you repeatedly on the same issues.
But even if you’re favorite juiceheads and guidettes be removed from Jersey Shore,…
In this sentence, you needed to edit closely. you’re is the problem part.
The whole news is littered with similar issues. So talk to the writer, so that he submits cleaner copies to you in future.
by Harpreet Bhagrath | Feb 17, 2012 | Fussy Editor
Hi, Jatin.
When your writers take a quote from within the text of the news with the intent of turning it into the headline, you (and they) have to see if that quote can stand alone and make sense to the readers.
This is the headline I refer to: “Due to certain date hassles I am going ahead with Rana”–RGV
Despite being such a long quote, it did not make much sense; we consumed so much headline space, and still said nothing meaningful.
The headlined quote has to be compact and appealing to the audience, make sense, and present the gist of the news. One or two of these four attributes can be missing once in a while in a ‘quote headline’, but on the whole, we try to cover all four.
I am sending a copy to Prerna as well.
by Harpreet Bhagrath | Feb 12, 2012 | Fussy Editor
Hi, Nilankeeta.
Kindly edit your writers’ copies thoroughly. Lately, we have found many mistakes in copied edited by you, especially Dr. Alvi’s. Below, I have taken up just one of the articles to discuss a few corrections with you.
http://www.ellemoney.com/featured/your-relationship-hurting-your-career-33148.html
Relationship demands commitments and compassion for each other but when foundations creep in it becomes unbearable and hard to tolerate.
In this sentence, I don’t understand the use of the word foundations. For the sentence to make sense, either the word foundations or the phrase creep in needs to be tweaked; like foundations shake or mistrust creeps in or suspicion creeps in. Foundations can’t possibly creep in; I can’t think of a situation where foundations might creep in.
However, a balance should be maintained between relationship and career.Here are some ways to handle your work and relationship as well:
Kindly correct the punctuation mistake. Plus, the second sentence could have been bettered. Something like Here are some ways to achieve that. Readers will have no difficulty understanding what does that refer to. The punctuation mistake in the para above was the absence of space before Here.
Keep your professional and personal lives separate and compartmentalized. Do not mix them. Never discuss your work life with your loved one.
This para contains an objectionable idea: never to discuss work life with your spouse. This will raise most readers’ brows, as spouses usually discuss work matters to let some steam out and marshal their thoughts. That’s one of the things spouses are for: sharing work worries. I’m pretty sure our credibility will suffer when we so pedantically tell our readers such an objectionable idea. Plus, we are using a very strong word here: never. Kindly ask your writers to go easy on strong words like never, unless such words can be justifiably used.
Give frequent calls, visits and gifts to keep the relationship alive and latent.
In Dr Alvi’s copy, I repeatedly come across mistakes in word usage. Here, the word latent has been used so wrongly. I think she wanted to use the antonym of latent, and mistakenly believes latent to mean its opposite. She should have ended the sentence at alive, which is close to being the antonym of latent.
There were other such issues scattered throughout the article, but I’ll stop here.
Kindly discuss this feature with Dr Alvi soon, so that she can minimise such mistakes.
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
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.)
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.
