| CHAPTER 6 | |
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Sentences |
Ultimately, words and phrases are fashioned into sentences—which, of course, are fashioned into stories. Keep broadcast sentences short, simple and straightforward. the most common grammatical sentence structure in English is subject-verb-object. That’s what we’re used to; that’s the way we generally speak; and that’s going to be the easiest sentence structure for the audience to understand. Use it often.
KEEP IT SHORT
Broadcast writers are frequently told to keep sentences short. There are two overriding principles.
First, there’s only so much information that the audience can absorb into the brain through the ear at one time. That’s not a reflection of the intelligence of the audience but a reflection of our ability to assimilate information orally. There is nothing so lengthy or complicated that it cannot be understood orally. What’s involved is breaking down the material into small, absorbable bits of information. Use more, short sentences rather than fewer, longer ones.
Second, an announcer can read only so many words without gasping for air. And no one reads well, using proper life and emphasis, with lungs starved for oxygen. Generally, announcers can read well no more than about two dozen syllables at a stretch.
One Important Idea
As a general rule, a sentence should contain no more than one important thought or idea. All sentences contain many bits of information, but they still should contain no more than one important thought or idea.
This type of lead also logically takes us to video of the bank, which will, most often, start with the next line.
Put People First
Had a man not been shot, the sentence would be restructured to make the holdup the important idea. Remember that, ultimately, people are more important than things.
| TYPICAL BROADCAST SENTENCE: | TWO people are dead and three hospitalized after a house fire on the west side today. |
| IMPORTANT IDEA: | two dead and three hospitalized |
Note the use of are dead rather than died. It happened recently, it’s technically accurate, and we frequently use this phrasing in broadcast because it’s more current sounding. However, some prefer the present perfect have died, finding that construction more conversational. Note also that it’s not and three others hospitalized. That would be wordy and unnecessary.
| SMALLER IDEAS: | house fire on the west side today |
Put people ahead of things, dead before injured or sick. Information on the fire itself will come in line two—having been set up in line one. Again, that’s also most likely to match available video. Even if no one had been killed or injured in the fire, the lead would not be There was a house fire on the west side today. So what? Lead with people and/or what the story means to people. If appropriate:
| POSSIBLE BROADCAST LEAD SENTENCES: | Firefighters spent most of the afternoon … |
| or | |
| Fire investigators are sifting through … |
Keep It Simple: Subject-Verb-Object
Keep the flow of ideas simple in construction—not simplistic but simple, as in understandable.
| COMPLEX: | The family of a two-year-old local girl killed by a pit bull last year will have to wait to hear from the State Supreme Court before the case can be resolved … |
The contorted sentence construction of this already complicated story makes it impossible to follow. The most common grammatical sentence in English goes subject-verb-object. Not all your sentences have to be constructed that way, but if you deviate too much or too often from that basic form, your copy will be harder to follow. Keep the construction simple, short and straightforward.
| SIMPLER: | Contradictory rulings in the case of a pit bull that killed a two-year-old local girl. Last year … |
Note that the lead includes new information, resisting the mistaken temptation to start the complicated story with old news.
Use Some Variety for interest
The risk in writing short and simple is that the story sounds choppy and tedious. You avoid that by varying sentence length and structure just enough to ride that line between easy to understand and interesting to hear. Note the sentence variety in the following:
About 24-thousand people here will find themselves homeless - -for at least a while - - this year. That’s two thousand more than last year … which was two thousand more than the year before. Next year, it’ll be worse, still.
(nat sound bridge)
The wind chill is 15 degrees, but it feels colder when it comes off the river. It’s a tough place to call home.
This is not the economic fringe of society. This is beyond it.
The basic form is simple, and most sentences are short, but the variety of phrasing and sentence length helps to keep the story moving and gives the audience a feel for the subject.
See Chapter 8, “Stories,” on the use of conjunctions to smooth out writing and improve story flow.
Split Up Complex Sentences
Simplify complex sentences and information by dividing the material into more short sentences.
MAKE IT CLEAN, CLEAR AND CONCISE
Make all your statements clean, clear and concise.
| WEAK/WORDY: | Adverse weather conditions have caused quite a bit of school closings. … |
That’s what thousands of people heard a top station in a top 10 market say not so long ago. Make it tighter and more direct:
| BETTER: | Bad weather has closed lots of area schools. … |
| UNCLEAR: | People who woke up this morning … saw the ice … heard all the school closings … and wished you were back in school with the day off. |
That sentence, which actually went on the air on a large-market TV station, must have left the audience wondering—wondering about the people who didn’t wake up this morning and wondering exactly who wished to be back in school (which wasn’t being held) with the day off.
What the reporter wanted to say was something like this:
| BETTER: | The crystal landscape left from last night’s storm … reminded me of carefree days as a kid when we were lucky enough to have school canceled. |
But you’re still better off resisting the temptation to romanticize a bad weather day. For most people, it’s just a bad day.
Make Every Sentence Count
A sentence that doesn’t contain critical information about the story is a waste of words and the listener’s or viewer’s time. Change it or drop it.
Robbers shot a man this morning during a holdup at the First National Bank. The First National Bank is located at the intersection of Main and Green Streets.
The lead is okay, but the second sentence has no meat to it. Even if the specific location of the bank is needed, that’s not the way to do it. Not only does it interrupt the logical flow of the story, but it contains no critical information. Work the general location (e.g., the part of town) or cross streets (if that much detail is needed) into a sentence that contains other, more important material.
| BETTER: | Robbers shot a man this morning during a holdup at the First National Bank. It’s the third robbery this month at First National’s branch at Main and Green. |
Avoid Repetition
Construct sentences so you don’t have to immediately repeat the same names or information.
| REPETITIVE: | Both Hudson’s and the United Auto Workers Union are declaring victory … after a weekend of U-A-W pickets at Hudson’s Department Stores. |
| TIGHTER: | Both sides are declaring victory after a weekend of picketing at Hudson’s Department Stores by the United Auto Workers Union. |
Stay positive
Don’t introduce material in a negative way. The issue isn’t good news versus bad news. Positive statements are always simpler, shorter and easier to understand.
| NEGATIVE: | The governor today denied charges that he has no effective drug program. The criticism came from a special legislative panel that released its findings this morning. |
The problem in this kind of story is that you want to lead with the newest information (the governor’s denial), but it just won’t work unless the audience is aware of what is being denied. That’s seldom the case, and in broadcast, denials cannot precede audience awareness of what the denial is about. It’s simply too hard to follow and digest the information that way.
| BETTER: | The governor is defending his drug program today. … |
That makes the statement positive, and the writer can then go on to explain why the governor is defending the program.
Make Sense
Make sure you make sense. The audience can judge only what it hears, not what you know or meant to say.
| PUZZLING: | Accidents all over the city as the storm slams into Columbus. If you haven’t been outside yet, don’t bother looking. The weather has turned Columbus into one big mess. |
Don’t bother looking? A line like that not only sounds foolish—it’s absolutely guaranteed to send people away from their television sets and straight to the window.
| PUZZLING: | Well, we’ve got a warning here for you that you may not like. Breathing Ohio air may be hazardous to your health. |
Why would the writer suppose that the audience might not like that? Who do we suppose would like it? And how many good news warnings do we give?
Provide the audience with information they can understand and use—unlike this:
| UNCLEAR: | Right now, Steubenville residents are paying two dollars more per one thousand gallons [of water]. … |
But how much is that? Sometimes being correct isn’t enough. No one knows how often they use a thousand gallons of water, so they won’t have any idea how much extra this is in terms of dollars and cents. As with tax stories, you have to convert this number into something that people can understand—like the average extra amount a typical family might have to pay per month.
This next example went on the air as the last line of a story about a defendant who pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity:
| PUZZLING: | Smith claimed he was on a mission from God. Apparently the jury agreed. |
The jury may well have agreed that the defendant was insane, but it’s unlikely they agreed that the defendant was on a mission from God.
End Strong
End sentences strongly. There’s a natural break at the end of every sentence, and that means the audience gets just a moment to digest what has just been said. Use the end of the sentence to bring home an important point. Wherever possible, avoid ending sentences with weak words or phrases. Watch out, especially, for weak prepositional phrases at the end of sentences.
| WEAK: | Several homes and businesses had to be evacuated this afternoon when a natural gas line was ruptured by a construction worker. |
| STRONGER: | Several homes and businesses had to be evacuated this afternoon when a construction worker ruptured a natural gas line. |
In this example, restructuring to end on gas line creates a stronger ending, as well as making that part of the sentence active.
LAST NOTE
Make your point directly in every sentence. Don’t dance around the idea, spilling words around a page. Just as you should be able to defend every word you use, you should be able to defend every sentence those words form. If you can’t defend it, rework it or drop it.
SUMMARY
Keep sentences short. The audience can only take in so much information at a time, and an announcer can only read so much material between breaths. No more than one important idea per sentence, but make every sentence count. Remember people are your audience, so structure sentences to put people (or what interests them) first. Most sentences should be subject-verb-object, but use some variety (and conjunctions) for interest. Avoid repetition, stay positive, and end strongly.
KEY WORDS & PHRASES
keep sentences short
one important idea
put people first
subject-verb-object
make every sentence count
end strong
EXERCISES
A. The following stories and paragraphs have errors and/or words, phrases, sentences or means of expression not acceptable in writing for broadcast. Do not assume that the sentences are in a logical sequence. Make them acceptable. Note that for the purposes of this assignment, you are in Springfield.
1. People living in neighborhoods that are tired of living right near to homes in foreclosure or which are abandoned or unsafe and are overrun by animals and insects will have something to celebrate on Wednesday when the city opens bids for the demolition of more than 30 of those properties, many of which have been featured on the website of the local organization, CleanUpOurNeighborhood.org.
A variety of animals will be displaced in the clean-up. Sam Smith said that there’s a groundhog den beneath the decaying, rundown house at 2000 East Grant St. A black cat wandered around the dilapidated front porch of 1000 West Carnival Ave. Jane Jones said the dilapidated house at 1500 West Hill St. was a den for opossums.
2. It has been more than 20 years that have gone by since a string of home break-ins and sexual assaults had people who lived here in Spingfield on edge in the summer and early autumn of 1991. Back then, the arrest of John Paul Smith, then 21 years old, after he made the mistake of trying to break in and rob a city police officer’s home not long before Thanksgiving, seemed to bring the crime spree to an end.
After a jury in May 1992 found Smith guilty—but mentally ill—of criminal deviate conduct, Judge Hank Jones imposed a maximum 50-year prison term. That 50-year prison term passed considerably faster than some might have expected because even though Smith, due to violating parole in an earlier case, didn’t officially begin serving the 50-year sentence until 1992, state Department of Correction officials last week confirmed he had recently been released from prison and is currently residing at a relative’s house here in Springfield.
3. Springfield Metal Works President John Smith informed metal workers this morning the company will lay off 130 designers and engineers because work on the next generation of R-2000 engines will be moving from the design and engineering phase to the full production phase.
In a letter that was distributed to all the metal workers today, Smith wrote that while there was going to be a drop in the size of the design staff at the plant, that there was also a corresponding ramping up in the work force that has taken place on the production side of the business where more than 200 jobs have been added over the past year as work to construct the new, state-of-the-art engines has been intensified, Smith wrote. Smith wrote that the 130 announced layoffs will become effective in 3 weeks.
4. People who live in northwest Springfield will have to wait three weeks before finding out more information about a possible settlement proposal that has been offered to the city to stop various litigation over a City Planning Board decision not to grant a variety of permits for a cell phone tower to be built in the Springfield Valley neighborhood. Following the Planning Board’s September 28, decision not to grant a conditional use permit for the company’s proposed 85-foot bi-pole cell phone tower that the company wanted to construct at 100 Gearly St., the applicant, Capitol Cell Phone Tower III, LLC, filed a lawsuit on October 22, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District, and which has set a court date in February.
Thursday, the proposed settlement offer, including camouflaging the tower as a pine tree, was one of four items the members of the City Council would be considering to discuss at the next public hearing at the next City Council meeting scheduled to take place in three weeks, before city council members would decide on placing them on the agenda in order to vote on the matter at the special town meeting scheduled to be held three weeks after that.
5. After extensive discussion of several proposed changes to a proposed property maintenance ordinance Wednesday, the Springfield City Council decided to schedule another workshop on the subject for next week, when members of the city council will again continue examining and combing through the document.
Some members of the city council expressed their frustration that the draft ordinance of the property maintenance ordinance did not more clearly reflect their intent for the whole plan, which was to force properties along the Main Street corridor to become more welcoming to travelers to the region. The proposed ordinance called for the city to be able to fine property owners whose tourist zone properties fall into disrepair, including a list of standards including prohibition of broken glass, peeling or missing paint, unkempt yards or weeds, garbage left outside, and unsightly porches or foundations.