Blog Archives: Writing
Following the success of our 2006 Cookie Contest, the Office of Creative Services is once again hosting a baking contest at noon, Dec. 14, at the home of Marcia Busch-Jones. The contest is open to all Creative Services employees and will be judged by five staff members, all of whom are precluded from entering the contest. Accepting bribes is discouraged.
Contest Rules
This year´s contest has two categories: Cookies and Bars. Each cookie or bar will be judged based on appearance and flavor. Entries must be homemade, and each person can enter a maximum of one time in each category, for a total of two entries. Please bring approximately two dozen cookies or bars for each entry. Judges: please refrain from compromising your palates with alcohol, spicy foods, or excessive sweets prior to the contest.
Categories:
Best in Show
Damen´s Choice
Best Taste
Best Appearance
I think many writers must use this tip: When I've worked especially hard on writing something, and I want to make sure that it sounds good, I close the door to my office and read the copy aloud. The ear is a great editor. It catches clunky, awkward constructions and sentences that are too long. It reminds you to vary sentence structure and length to hold your reader's interest. Reading aloud lets you hear the cadence of what you've written so you know if you're achieving the desired effect; it lets you know when your writing is smooth and when it "sings."
"Millennial": it's a term I'm hearing often these days, particularly in the weekly editors' meetings at the Office of Creative Services. As one of the few (okay, maybe the only) Millennial in the office, I bristle every time someone mentions the word. Funny, because until recently, I thought the generic term for my generation was "Gen Y." And until I heard this new descriptor, my only annoyance was that I didn't make it into Generation X.
But what is a Millennial? The term is used--along with "Gen Y"--to describe the group of people born in the 80s and 90s. I've even heard that it's used to describe anyone born between the years of 1979 and 1997. As with Gen X and the Baby Boomers, Millennials supposedly share certain characteristics--having overprotective, or "helicopter" parents, for example. Perhaps because of these helicopter parents, we are sheltered, achieving, and special (we think we're special, anyway). We are also technologically savvy, teaching our parents the newest trends, which they will then, by this definition, use to find the quickest way to e-mail our professors, demanding next semester's syllabus so their child can be the best-prepared student. Other descriptors I've heard include "confident," "team-oriented," and "conventional." I've even heard students' rudeness be attributed to being Millennials--we're just too darn special to be bothered with saying "excuse me" when we bump into someone. I perked up at this one. You mean I can be a jerk and blame it on my generation? This is great!
But then I thought about it, and I realized my dad would kick my butt if he saw me acting that way. In fact, he'd probably fly in and salvage the situation before anyone thought less of me. Wait a second--that is so, like, Millennial of me.
In fact, the more I think about it, the harder I fight against this Millennial accusation, the more I become one. No wonder my co-workers are smirking at my protests. I'm just too "special" to believe I fit in a category.
What do you think? Submit a comment and let ME know. But could you e-mail it to my dad first?
Do Midwesterners speak without an accent? Are e-mail and messaging ruining American English? Are mass media homogenizing regional dialects? Why is Buffy the Vampire Slayer linguistically significant?
The short answers are no, probably not, no, and because of its great slang. For the long answers, check out the Web site for Do You Speak American? This three-part television series, featuring reporting by Robert MacNeil, debuted on public television a couple of years ago. Its Web site is a great resource for information about the history, dynamics, and future of American English.
WTIU viewers can see the first part of Do You Speak American? on Friday, August 11, at 9 p.m. The other parts will air on subsequent Fridays. You can also order the series on DVD or video, or you can buy the book.
Do you agree or disagree with what Do You Speak American? has to say? Do you think American English is in decline, or are we merely expressing ourselves in new, informal ways? What do you love or despise about our language? Submit a comment and let us know. Thx! TTFN
The editors at the Office of Creative Services have no problem with being described as "style geeks." Our weekly meetings consist, in large part, of intricate analyses of the finer points of punctuation, grammar, clarity, and other burning questions (to our way of thinking) related to writing style. We all have strong opinions, but we also rely on a few external "big guns" such as Merriam-Webster Online, The Chicago Manual of Style, and The Associated Press Stylebook. Each of us has one or two personal favorite sources as well. Mine would have to be The Slot, a Web site (no, we haven't switched to "website" yet) maintained by Washington Post business copy editor Bill Walsh. (Walsh is also the author of some entertaining books; my favorite is The Elephants of Style.)
Over the past decade we've synthesized all of these influences and our own best judgments into four editions of the Indiana University Style Guide. The most recent edition is now available online. If you're a style geek like us (or even if you're not), we hope you'll check out the new edition.
We also hope that you'll let us know your opinions. (For example, is it time for the big switch to "website"? Should we stick with "advisor," or return to "adviser," which is favored by many spelling purists? How can we defend the lowercasing of "zip" in "zip code"? Which is better, "a historic" or "an historic," and why?)
Our comment board is always open, and we're eager to talk style with you.
Three commas and a conjunction walk into a bar. They eye three attractive single words sitting at the same table. "Let's join them," says the first comma. "But there are four of us and three of them," observes the second comma. "We won't be needing you," the conjunction says without pause, drawing a pistol on the third comma. The words gasp. "I don't trust him," the second word whispers to the third word. "He looks like a serial comma killer."
Despite all it does to eradicate ambiguity and champion clarity, the serial comma has been under the gun for quite some time. Also known as the Harvard comma, it is the last comma placed before a conjunction in a list of items such as "lions, tigers, and bears." And it performs vital, heroic functions every day. For example, it can break up a scandalous affair. Consider its absence in the dedication, "I would like to thank my parents, Mr. T and Sister Mary Catherine."
Or consider its absence in, "My favorite types of sandwiches are BLT, ham, peanut butter and jam and tuna fish." A jam and tuna fish sandwich? Blech. No thank you.
The detractors in this great comma divide say the serial comma is inefficient and redundant. And in many cases, that's true. But we writer-editor types like consistency. And when you're writing for an audience, it's best to be safe, not sorry. Imagine you're planning the grand opening of your new travel agency, and you overlook the serial comma in the advertising copy, "The grand opening will feature slide shows, free t-shirts and vacations to Europe." A free trip to Europe? Great. Can I bring my pet Chihuahuas, grandma and Uncle Dave?
I was the editor, and Marge, a former Marine sergeant, was the secretary in the public information office at another Big Ten university. We both proofread the employee publication that I wrote and edited each month. She could proofread circles around me. "How do you do that?" I asked her. "It's simple," she said. "I just read syl-la-ble by syl-la-ble." That advice has served me well for more than 30 years. It's especially useful if you are proofing something that you've written. Since you know what it's supposed to say, you tend to read what's in your mind. Reading syllable by syllable rather than word by word or phrase by phrase slows you down enough to catch small errors on the page (or screen).
Of course, this kind of proofreading won't catch dangling modifiers or awkwardly constructed sentences, but those tasks are in the domain of editing, not proofreading. Some people used to advocate reading sentences backwards to catch errors. That method generally nets only spelling errors, and a spellchecker can do that more quickly for you these days. And we all know the fallacy of relying too heavily on a spellchecker, which can trip you up with homonyms, missing words, and other errors that a careful proofing will catch. Give syl-la-ble by syl-la-ble a try and let me know what you think.
Mysterious, compelling . . . it drew her in, and she was incapable of resisting its force. She gave herself over to the experience, rolling the words over on her tongue like wild blueberries and cream. It was the best lede she'd ever read, and she wanted to savor it.
***
You may ask yourself: "The best WHAT she'd ever read?" Well, let me explain myself. This is a blog about writing good ledes. What's a lede? In some circles, it is spelled "lede" and in others, "lead." I'm going to stick with "lede," so that you don't think I'm talking about the housepaint that kids and pets should avoid, or those balloons that don't go over so well. A lede is the beginning of a piece of writing, usually a feature, news article, or personality profile. It could also be the opening sentence on your Web site or the first paragraph of your departmental brochure. First impressions are everything, and a lede has to be good to keep readers' interest.
What are the elements of a good lede? First and foremost, the lede should pique a reader's interest, draw that reader in and make him or her want to read more. It should set the stage for the story or message in a compelling way. The lede should have the right tone for the piece of writing it represents, too. You want to give the reader a hint of what is to come, much like a book cover sets the tone for what is inside. However, you don't want to be totally predictable. Often an effective lede can set up readers' expectations and then surprise them in the next paragraph with something completely unexpected.
It may seem obvious, but always start the lede (or any sentence, for that matter) with the most interesting information. (In fact, don't start a sentence with the words "It may seem obvious.") You don't want to start with the year something happened, but with what happened followed by the year. For example: "In the year 2000, the drumbeat fears of an apocalyptic millennium began to surge through the country" is a lot less effective than "The drumbeat fears of an apocalyptic millennium began to surge through the country in the year 2000."
Like velvet or sandpaper, mayo or mustard, plant or animal, heavy metal or elevator music, a good lede engages you through the senses. And you know a good lede when you feel, taste, see, or hear it. Allow me to share Exhibit A: a few good ledes I've read recently.
From The New Yorker, a story by Malcolm Gladwell about "the dog whisperer" Cesar Millan:
"In the case of Sugar v. Forman, Cesar Millan knew none of the facts before arriving at the scene of the crime. That is the way Cesar prefers it. His job was to reconcile Forman with Sugar, and since Sugar was a good deal less adept in making her case than Forman, whatever he learned beforehand might bias him in favor of the aggrieved party."
It is the style of this lede that is so effective. Gladwell starts out his story as if it is a Raymond Carver detective novel. The reader's interest is piqued: who is Sugar? Some underworld moll with no self-confidence? And who is Forman? The prizefighter? In the next paragraph, you find out that Sugar is a beagle out of control, and Forman is her owner.
Or this lede, from an article by Paul Cullum in the magazine StopSmiling: The Magazine for High-Minded Lowlifes:
"Werner Herzog, one of the masters of world cinema, was born in the small town of Schrang, near Munich, in 1942, in a section of Bavaria still dotted with storybook castles erected by the mad King Ludwig II."
This is a sentence that sets the stage expertly for the biographical article that follows it. The reader understands immediately what the article is about and is given a great deal of very intriguing context for what is to be learned by reading on.
My final example, from an article by Paul Collins in The Believer magazine, titled "Let Us Now Gaze, Famous Men," about a guide to rare books about death masks:
"Thomas Paine keeps staring at me from this old book, his nose bent to one side like an aged boxer's. He's had a tough life and an even tougher afterlife. I've spent the last few years pursuing his bones: they were stolen in 1819, and since then have reappeared everywhere from a New York sewage ditch to a Paris hotel room, with occasional stopovers inside statues and pieces of furniture. As I pursued the skull and bones of Paine, perhaps it was only a matter of time before I crossed paths with this book by Laurence Hutton, the man who once possessed Paine's face . . . not to mention Franklin's, Lincoln's, and Aaron Burr's faces too."
There is so much compelling, wonderful detail in this lede, and the intriguing macabre hook of a quest for bones draws the reader in and makes you want to read more.
Without a good lede, you will lose your readers. With a good lede, you won't be able to get rid of them, and they'll be disappointed when your writing comes to an end and they must leave the livingroom of your imagination. Writer John Barth says, "A first sentence's job is to draw its reader into the sentence after it--while at the same time, maybe establishing the tale's tone and narrative viewpoint . . . some do that job so well that they remain in our memory long after we've forgotten most of the words that followed."
