Journalistic Writing Building the Skills, Honing the Craft

Aimed at those pursuing careers in creating public prose, this is the definitive handbook for aspiring journalists. Offering budding writers suggestions on how to improve their skillseven when faced with a tight deadlinethis guide also reviews many elements essential to the occupation such as utilizing strong nouns and verbs, paring down adjectives and adverbs, describing with concrete detail, and avoiding cliches and the passive voice. Going beyond a standard presentation of information, this reference encourages students to put its methods into practice, making each and every word count and maintaining the appropriate energy level in their content. With expert analyses of real-world articles, this book also provides advice on avoiding poor sentence structure that can kill reader interest and includes perspectives on diversity sensitivity. Accessible, humorous, and engaging, this revised edition offers a practical approach for those seeking to improve their communication skills.

Robert M. Knight has been an adjunct professor of journalism at Gettysburg College and Northwestern University. He has written for the Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, Reuters and The Washington Post. He lives near Gettysburg, Pa.