How to write so your words will be read, valued, and acted upon."Bill Watterson William B. "Bill" Watterson II (born July 5, 1958) is an American cartoonist, and the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes and select Target: The Political Cartoon Quarterly Magazine drawings. Biography Watterson was born in Washington, D.C. once drew a comic strip comic strip, combination of cartoon with a story line, laid out in a series of pictorial panels across a page and concerning a continuous character or set of characters, whose thoughts and dialogues are indicated by means of "balloons" containing written speech. of Calvin that shows Calvin reading the label on the package of a microwave dinner," Don Ranly said at the opening of his presentation at the recent NEPA conference in Washington. "In his classic outraged face, Calvin screams his protest: 'Six minutes to microwave this?? Who's got that kind of time?!'" It's all about time, Ranly emphasized. "After all, time is more than money. Time is life. You waste my time, you waste my life. "Readers are most likely to give you time if you offer them something useful. Yes, they'll read for relaxation and entertainment, but many don't turn to you for that. "Remember, the opposite of useful is useless." Ranly said that whenever crafting a story, think about time. Put it in such a way that takes the reader the least amount of time. Inject in·ject v. 1. To introduce a substance, such as a drug or vaccine, into a body part. 2. To treat by means of injection. urgency. Write for surfers, whether your writing appears in print or online. Don't write for readers; write for non-readers, scanners, surfers. The medium is the message Ranly, who's always been a fan of Marshall McLuhen, said, "Anytime a new medium emerges, it affects all media." The internet has made scanners out of all of us. Write in chunks, the reader rules, remember the reader. When writing for online publications, remember that 21 lines fill a screen. Write accordingly. Break stories up into separate entities. Subheads are great, but each subheaded component should stand on its own, Ranly advised. Service journalism Service journalism is at its core personal. It promises insights, secrets, strategies, tips and direction to consumers rather than serving as just another piece of entertainment. And in that way, the majority of magazines that sell so well on our newsstands are classifiable as service Useful, usable, and used are the operative words in what Ranly describes as "service journalism." "Always look to give readers useful information in a usable way (I prefer three-column formats). The whole purpose is to get the information used. That's service journalism," Ranly said. We might add that information that is actually used is also at the heart of your high newsletter renewal rates. "You must present information in the most usable way. You must present it in such a way that people will clip it out and stick it on the refrigerator--or bulletin board, or place it in a retrievable file. Some have called it refrigerator journalism," Ranly said. In a nutshell nut·shell n. The shell enclosing the meat of a nut. Idiom: in a nutshell In a few words; concisely: Just give me the facts in a nutshell. Adv. 1. The four goals of the service journalist are: 1. Attention 2. Comprehension 3. Retention 4. Action Use summary blurbs, use graphics, have a Q & A column, repeat things in different ways for different people, Ranly advised. RELATED ARTICLE: The power of the box. When you can, put some information in a box. Boxes or sidebars, like lists, get more attention, cause better comprehension and aid retention. 1. A reference box. For more information, see, read, call. 2. A note box. Take notes from your articles as if you were studying for an exam. Give them to your readers to complement, reinforce, supplement your message. 3. A glossary A term used by Microsoft Word and adopted by other word processors for the list of shorthand, keyboard macros created by a particular user. See glossaries in this publication and The Computer Glossary. box. If you wonder whether all of your readers will understand all of your terms, put those terms in a glossary box. Find a way to indicate which words are defined by putting them in color or in a different typeface The design of a set of printed characters, such as Courier, Helvetica and Times Roman. The terms "typeface" and "font" are used interchangeably, but the typeface is the primary design, while the font is the particular implementation and variation of the typeface, such as bold or italics or underlining un·der·lin·ing n. 1. The act of drawing a line under; underscoring. 2. Emphasis or stress, as in instruction or argument. them. Also, teach readers how to pronounce pro·nounce v. pro·nounced, pro·nounc·ing, pro·nounc·es v.tr. 1. a. To use the organs of speech to make heard (a word or speech sound); utter. b. difficult words. They will remember them better. 4. A bio box. When writing about a person and you need to say something about where the person lived, went to school, and worked, put this information in a separate box so that your main story is not interrupted in·ter·rupt v. in·ter·rupt·ed, in·ter·rupt·ing, in·ter·rupts v.tr. 1. To break the continuity or uniformity of: Rain interrupted our baseball game. 2. by these facts. If you have more than one person in the story, bio boxes are even more useful. --Don Ranly Don Ranly, Ph.D. has taught at the University of Missouri School of Journalism The Missouri School of Journalism [2] is the world’s first school of journalism. It was founded by Walter Williams on Sept. 14, 1908, on the campus of the University of Missouri–Columbia. for the past 29 years. He is the author of several books on writing and editing, including News Reporting and Writing (7th ed.) He has also conducted more than 950 seminars for organizations, corporations, associations and individual publications and publication companies. 902 S. Glenwood Ave., Columbia, MO 65203, 573-882-7059, fax 573-884-5293, don@ranly.com.www.ranly.com |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion