Steps Into Journalism: Helps and Hints for Young Writers

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Correspondence School of Journalism, 1894 - Journalism - 229 pages
 

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Page 223 - A being breathing thoughtful breath, A traveller betwixt life and death. The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill, A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command ; And yet a spirit still, and bright With something of an angel light.
Page 175 - ... Pronoun; but these distinctions are too nice to be of any real use. The rule is this: that nouns of multitude may take either the singular, or the plural, Pronoun; but not both in the same sentence. This will never do; it is far too indefinite. The pronoun standing for a noun of multitude is used in the singular if the idea of unity is to be conveyed, and in the plural if the idea of plurality is to be conveyed.
Page 123 - In spite of the fact that editors come to grief once in a while by its use, this trick of drawing upon the imagination for the non-essential parts of an article is certainly one of the most valuable secrets of the profession at its present stage of development.
Page 178 - Erected to the memory of John Phillips, accidentally shot, as a mark of affection by his brother.
Page 206 - Endeavor to be dramatic. 7. A great element of dramatic skill is selection. 8. Avoid the sin of writing about a character. 9. Never attempt to describe any kind of life except that with which you are familiar. 10. Learn as much as you can about men and women. 1 1. For the sake of forming a good natural style, and acquiring command of language, write poetry.
Page 66 - ... These exploits are worth recording ; but in the reporter of to-day they arouse no surprise, for he has often in the course of his duty to go through more exciting experiences than ever fell to the lot of the author of Pickwick, and never thinks he has performed any feat at all. The reporter of to-day has to be courageous, sharp as a hawk, mentally untiring, physically enduring. He comes in contact with everybody, from monarchs to beggars, from noblemen to nobodies. He sees the tragedy and comedy...
Page 205 - ... the same time, it sometimes seems, when one reads the slipshod, careless English which is often thought good enough for story-telling, that it is almost impossible to overrate the value of style. There is comfort in the thought that no reputation worth having can be made without attending to style, and that there is no style, however rugged, which cannot be made beautiful by attention and pains.
Page 66 - ... performed any feat at all. The reporter of to-day has to be courageous, sharp as a hawk, mentally untiring, physically enduring. He comes in contact with everybody, from monarchs to beggars, from noblemen to nobodies. He sees the tragedy and comedy of human life, its cynicism and toadyism, its patient, struggling, and feverish ambition, its sham and subterfuge, its lavish wealth and deepest poverty, its joy and sorrow, its good deeds and most hideous crimes. His is a strange career, with its...
Page 205 - ... upon the fact that fiction is an art ; that, although a novel by Meredith may not be so great and wonderful as is a cartoon by Raphael or as is a sonata by Beethoven, yet fiction being one art, and painting and music other and sister arts, those who attain the highest possible place in each are equal. But even if fiction be an art, the rules of which are teachable, it by no means follows that success can be secured without the inborn genius which every true novelist possesses. The...
Page 164 - ... their best, the chief foe that women have to contend with in journalism is their own conventionality, and the fantastic notion that a lady cannot be expected to do this, that or the other disagreeable bit of work. That such and such a duty is not the thing to ask from a lady, that a lady must not be scolded when she does wrong, or that a lady ought not to stay up late or go about late — all that is fiddlesticks and nonsense, as our good old nurses used to say. Ladies with such notions had better...

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