Keeping your sentences light, tight and bright

The importance of language and style means....:

Gaston de ROSAYRO

Be aware that your main task as a journalist is to help people understand what is happening around them - in their village, town, in their country and in the world. Most readers or listeners will not have your knowledge of language, so you must simplify it for them. You should be able to examine the most complicated issues and events then translate them into language which your audience can understand. If you fail in this, people will stop buying your newspaper or tuning in to your radio or television station. You will be failing in your job.

For many journalists in the region and globally today, English is the main language used for newspapers or magazines, radio, television or the Internet. It is worth remembering, however, that even a language as common as English is not exactly the same all over the world. There are differences between, for example,United Kingdom (UK) English and American English. There are often also differences in the way English is written or spoken within individual countries. It may sometimes be difficult to decide what is correct in the English used in your country.

In Sri Lanka most newspapers have for generations been using the British style in both writing and broadcasting. Language is developing all the time, and the newer journals and radio and TV stations may not yet have a well-established set of in-house style-rules for English. If this is so, you should use the form which is accepted as correct by the most literate educated people in your country. Above all, use words and grammar which are most easily understood by your readers or listeners.

Although you are reading this in English, you may do a lot of writing in other languages. Many of the general points we make about writing style will apply to these other languages. Learn the general points and try to apply them to your own language or languages.

You may get some guidance on such things as sentence length, punctuation or word usage from your organisation's style books. These are books which lay down rules for language you must follow in your particular paper or broadcasting station. You should ask your editor or chief of staff for a copy of your organisation's style book. Unfortunately, many small or new organisations do not have their own style book.

This is quite evident when reading or listening to even some of the more established newspapers or broadcasters. Their untrained executives know nothing about conforming to style guides and as a result the reader is subjected to running a gauntlet of confusing gobbledegook. Here we try to give you some general guidelines for language use and writing style. All newspaper heads should use this advice to create their own style guide.

Think of setting your sights on a target with a gun. Aim delibrately with the surety of hitting your target consistently with a flurry of crack shots. In similarity to making sure of making every bullet count, always use short, sharp, clear sentences.

Whether you write for newspapers, broadcasting or the Internet, you should always aim for words and sentences which provide the maximum amount of understanding with the minimum risk of confusion. This generally means keeping words and sentences short and simple. You can use long words, but you must be sure they are doing their job properly. Remember in writing the intro I usually explain that that many words are like fat and lazy people sitting back without paddles in a canoe. Remember, there is no room in your sentences for fat and lazy words. If words do not add to understanding, throw them overboard.

There is no single rule about the length of sentences in news writing, but you should set yourself a target for the maximum number of words you use. We suggest that you never use more than 20 words in any sentence, except in special circumstances. If you follow this rule, your sentences will be simpler, there will be less room for error and you will make a more efficient use of words.

An alternative way of judging the best length for your sentences is to count the number of ideas or concepts you expect your reader or listener to understand. Compare these two examples of the same story. Notice how version A tries to pack all the ideas into one sentence, whereas version B splits them into three separate sentences.

Story A: ‘Four aircraft passengers, the pilot and three people travelling in a car were killed when a twin-engined Piper Navajo aircraft hit an electric power line and crashed near Ratmalana airport this week.’ Story B: ‘Eight people died when an aircraft crashed near Ratmalana airport this week. The pilot and four passengers died when their twin-engined Piper Navajo hit a power line. The plane then crashed into a car on a road near the airport, killing three more people.’

Notice that, although Story B is 12 words longer than Story A, it is split into three sentences. None of the sentences in Story B is longer than 20 words. Get someone to read both stories out loud to you, and you will quickly see that Story B is easier to understand.

The reason is simple. Story A contains six separate ideas for the reader or listener to understand at one time: 1. the people in the plane. 2. the people in the car. 3. the type of plane. 4 the cause of the crash. 5. the location of the crash. 6. the time of the crash.

Story B, by comparison, has fewer ideas in each sentence. The first sentence has just four simple ideas: 1. the total number of dead. 2. a simple description of the type of plane. 3. where it crashed 4. when it crashed. The second sentence tells us: 1. how many died in the plane. 2. the exact type of plane. 3 the exact cause of the crash.

The third sentence tells us: 1. how the people in the car died. 2. where the car was. 3. how many died in the car.

You may argue that Story B, as well as being longer, gives a total of ten ideas to understand. However, many of those ideas are not separate. They relate to details in the preceding sentence. Linking ideas and repeating details often helps understanding. More important, those ten ideas are not thrown at our audience in one breath.

The full stop at the end of each sentence (which comes as a pause on radio and television) allows the reader or listener time to digest one set of facts before moving on to new details.

We recommend that you try to limit each sentence to no more than three separate ideas. You can occasionally use four ideas per sentence, as long as those ideas are not complicated. We fitted four ideas into the intro of Story B above because two of the ideas - the time and place - are very simple and easy for the reader to understand. In other words keep it light, tight and bright!

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