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.
by Harpreet Bhagrath | Jan 17, 2012 | Fussy Editor
Hi, Jatin.
Divya’s writing style can be difficult on readers. You need to edit her copies closely for readability and style. Her style is very stale and is full of clichés that don’t even fit.
Here’s just one sentence to clarify how we edit a copy for style:
This Salman and Asin starrer promises to be a mixed bag of fun, comedy, family drama and romance that is promised to be a breath of fresh air and is sure to make you to smile even after you’ve left the theatre.
There are so many mistakes in this sentence, I feel like a mosquito in a nudist camp; so much to bite.
This should have been edited: make you to.
Then, she is doing one too many promises.
Next, coming to the style edit, the sentence is too long for the readers’ comfort. Three ideas, all in one sentence, without any idea being subordinated to another, make this a particularly heavy sentence. Three ideas are:
- This Salman and Asin starrer promises to be a mixed bag of fun, comedy, family drama and romance
- It is promised to be a breath of fresh air
- It is sure to make you to smile even after you’ve left the theatre.
Divya needed to cut it short or make two sentences out of it. Or she should have subordinated one idea, like I did below. I would have written something like this (if I was to keep her ideas and meaning intact, which I would not; I would use a better idea here):
A mixed bag of comedy, family drama, and romance, this Salman and Asin-starrer is sure to make you smile even after you’ve left the theatre.
I cut the phrase “promises to be a breath of fresh air”. The reason?
First, there’s something wrong with the idea. “A mixed bag of fun, comedy, family drama, and romance” is not a breath of fresh air for the Bollywood audiences. Bollywood is awash with such masala flicks. If anything, it’s a breath of stale and stinky air. Kindly ask Divya to take some other positive idea from the film to call it a “breath of fresh air”.
Second, the phrase was such a cliché. The phrase has been beaten too many times now and has lost its appeal. The first time someone used “a breath of fresh air”, it was clever and refreshing for the readers, indeed; they could have even smelt the fresh air. But now that it’s become such a cliché, it has lost its significance. So, kindly eschew clichés like “breath of fresh air” and also ask your writers to go easy on them.
There was another cliché in this sentence: make you smile.
The rest of the piece was equally stale and full of clichés.
by Harpreet Bhagrath | Dec 28, 2011 | Fussy Editor
Hi Ayurdhi,
Kindly only write what you have thoroughly checked to be true. Where did you read she is a supermodel? No source has mentioned this. Kindly explain how you could possibly confuse swimsuit model with a supermodel. Where did you read Elin and supermodel in the same sentence? And where did you read two boys and Tiger Woods in the same sentence? Kindly reply with links to where you took these two facts from.
You have a responsibility towards readers: providing them true information that has been thoroughly checked. Of course, you cannot report facts using the usual reporting procedures, still you can double check them before you put them down. And in this instance, no double checking was even required. What was required was keeping your eyes open. Kindly don’t write irresponsibly like this again.
And if you are not sure of a fact, we have a golden rule in media: “When in doubt, leave it out.”
Let’s hear your side of the story.
Cheers,
Ayurdhi’s Response
About nordegren being a supermodel, the terms swimsuit and super, both have been used–
http://www.huliq.com/8738/89793/tiger-woods-divorce-settlement-all-bets-are
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977936395&grpId=3659174697259616&nav=Groupspace
http://www.timesoftheinternet.com/absolutely-fabulous/elin-nordegren-tiger-woods-wife-secrets-revealed/
The two boys thing was mistake on my part, since everywhere online it was mentioned as “children”.
Ayurdhi
Alright Ayurdhi,
There is a difference in a well known source and an unknown online tabloid like timesoftheinternet.com, though gather.com is relatively a better source. But I take it that not being in the media for long, not being told before in as many words, and being of tender age, you could possibly not appreciate the difference. But this is how you learn.
Also, understand that a few fussy readers just love to nail the media when they can. They get a kick out of it. Let’s not give them a chance.
Kindly thoroughly check a fact from now on, if it is coming from an unknown source like timesoftheinternet.com. Having gone through 3-4 sources, I have made up my mind on Elin’s profession. She’s a swimsuit model for sure. But I understand that the definition of a supermodel is vague. Most of the people take her to be a highly paid international model of repute who appears in haute couture shows.
Kindly learn from your ‘boys’ mistake.
Harpreet Bhagrath
by Harpreet Bhagrath | Dec 15, 2011 | Fussy Editor
Hi Prerna,
I am not publishing your cancer/obesity news on TJ today. Among other reasons, the chief reason is how you have distorted news facts in the news.
This is what the original source tells me:
The statistic also showed that, of all cancers attributable to an excess BMI, only three types accounted for more than 65 percent of the new cases. Out of the 124,000 new cases, 33,421 were of endometrial cancer, 27,770 of post-menopausal cancer, and 23,730 of colorectal cancer.
This is what you wrote:
According to the research, there were 33,421 endometrial cancers, 27,770 post-menopausal breast cancers, and 23,730 colorectal cancers, and 65 percent of all these were attributed to be caused due to obesity.
This is what you sent after ‘correcting’ yourself:
According to the research, out of 124,000 cancers caused in year 2008,there were 33,421 endometrial cancers, 27,770 post-menopausal breast cancers, 23,730 colorectal cancers and 65 per cent of all these were attributed to be caused due to obesity.
This is still wrong. It is clear to me you don’t understand the news before writing your copies.
Credibility is the hallmark of a journalist. We, in the media, are nothing if we are not credible. A doctor can afford not being credible. An engineer or an MBA can afford not being credible. But not a journalist!
You do it all the time. I cannot trust your word myself. Now how do I expect our readers to rely on your word?
Kindly learn from this communication.
Harpreet Bhagrath
by Harpreet Bhagrath | Oct 16, 2011 | Fussy Editor, Tutorials for Our Editors
Hi, Jatin.
Can you kindly edit The Journeyer copies better in future? Here: http://www.thejourneyer.net/smart-moms-share-house-and-family-work-together-33237.html. This was a very poorly written article and edited equally badly. We need to reject articles this poorly written straightaway.
The issues start from the title of the article: “Smart Moms Share House and Family Work Together!” Share together? Can we share something separately?
The rest of the article is just terrible; weak ideas, presented even more weakly, and one of the poorest diction I have come across in recent times. For instance, does she even know the meanings of words incoming and splendor? Even if she does know their meanings, she doesn’t know how these words work in a sentence. She also doesn’t know how the word fulfilling works, or even break through, which is decidedly a compound word, breakthrough. And all these diction issues in one graph alone.
Here, the original masterpiece for you: A mom taking care of one and all of the family, fulfilling them with all needs will make a break through when she is incoming bucks to add to her function at home. With this additional responsibility she adds one more feather to her hat making her more and more splendor.
Her pathetic diction is evident in the entire piece. Kindly go through the article again to see what I mean. You should have just canceled it; no need to publish such crappy pieces.
I can go on like this with the rest of the article, but I gotta stop somewhere. Better things to do. So I stop now.
Too much work is involved in writers like her. The issue is as much with her English, which is terrible, as with her ideas and the way her brain works; she is not focused on clear communication at all. With non-writers like her, it’s best to just leave them alone and not have anything to do with them, unless they are paying us to train them.
