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Style in Journalistic Writing

Journalists should prioritize simplicity and brevity in their writing to ensure audiences easily understand the content. This involves keeping sentences under 20 words and paragraphs to 2-3 sentences, while also favoring active voice over passive voice. Additionally, precision in word choice is crucial, avoiding slang and ensuring each word is used according to its dictionary definition.

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36 views1 page

Style in Journalistic Writing

Journalists should prioritize simplicity and brevity in their writing to ensure audiences easily understand the content. This involves keeping sentences under 20 words and paragraphs to 2-3 sentences, while also favoring active voice over passive voice. Additionally, precision in word choice is crucial, avoiding slang and ensuring each word is used according to its dictionary definition.

Uploaded by

pamularcomarrymae
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Simplicity & Brevity

Journalists should write with simplicity--in such a way that audiences can easily
understand the content without having to read it multiple times. The goal is to break down
even the most complex concepts, and write them in our own words so that everyone “gets
it.”
Writing with brevity (short and to the point) helps create simplicity. The longer a
sentence is, the more difficult it is to understand. Also, audiences don’t like long paragraphs
because they look too overwhelming to read. Journalists therefore strive to keep sentences
shorter than 20 words, and paragraphs no more than 2-3 sentences, in general. Some
paragraphs are only one sentence long, which is fine.
Example of a wordy sentence full of redundancies:
The musicians’ future plans for their recording studio would require their studio
executives to totally demolish and completely rebuild the facility at a cost of five million
dollars, which is something the studio president, an elderly divorced woman named Myra
Curtis, vehemently refused to do.
Sentence revised for simplicity and brevity:
The musician’s plans for their recording studio would require executives to rebuild it
for $5 million, which President Myra Curtis refuses.
Another way to achieve simplicity is by writing in the active voice, which simply means
using this format: subject, verb, direct object. For example:
 Passive Voice: The article was written by Murray.
 Active Voice: Murray wrote the article.
Passive voice sentences are avoided because they are longer, more difficult to
understand, and sometimes make it unclear as to whom did what. That can be particularly
problematic in journalism because it’s our jobs to make it clear to audiences who is
responsible (whether good or bad) for the events of the story.
Precision
Precision means that each word should be used as it was intended by its original
“dictionary” meaning. Meanings often evolve over time, but in journalistic writing, we stay
true to the book. There should also be no slang or abbreviations.
Here are a couple of examples: “cop” and “kid.”
A cop is a slang term for a police officer, and a kid is, by definition, a baby goat.
Journalists should therefore not use them unless for their intended meanings. When in
doubt, look it up: a dictionary is a journalist’s best friend.

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