Editing
Each day, Poynter's News University will share a tip, a suggestion or idea to help your reporting, writing, editing, photography, design, and multimedia work better. We'll draw tips from our more than 150 training modules. Follow us on Twitter with our #nutip hashtag. Or subscribe to our RSS feed.
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#622Changing vs. Editing: A change is something you want to do. An edit is what the copy needs to be clearer to your audience.Jun 18, 2013
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#616Use "which" for clauses that offer incidental information; use "that" for clauses that give information necessary for the sentence. (The stream, which rises dangerously during flood season, flows near the village. The stream that rises dangerously during flood season flows near the village.)Mar 26, 2013
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#591Journalists should to be willing to make the call (say what is true and what is not) when fact-checking--for politics or any topic.Oct 11, 2012
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#440Pick out and highlight the who, what, when, where, why and how in a story. You'll see whether you've left out any key facts and whether the facts are in a logical order.Aug 22, 2011
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#439Don't be too clever in headlines and use words that distract rather than attract. You want the reader to move to the body of the story, not move past the story.Aug 19, 2011
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#438Editors should ask a lot of questions to help a writer get to the transformative quality – that which makes readers see the world in a different way – of a feature story.Aug 18, 2011
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#378If you edit merely by finding holes in a story, you will end up with a longer and less coherent story as the reporter struggles to answer all of your questions. Look at the big picture.May 31, 2011
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#349As a writer, know what you don’t know — and prepare to conquer your weaknesses. Whether you have trouble with subject-verb agreement, tense shifts or spelling, listen to your inner alarm and always have a stylebook or website handy to double-check yourself.Apr 27, 2011
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#346Want shorter stories in your publication? Don’t give reporters mixed messages; if you say you want shorter stories, don’t give the longest and flabbiest stories the best play.Apr 23, 2011
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#336Do not multitask when editing. Prioritize the kinds of errors you are looking for and hit the most important ones in the first read. Then work down the list, targeting other errors in separate passes of the copy. You can’t find all errors in a story at one time.Apr 13, 2011
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