Lead re-writes.

Swing Your Sweetheart

For Kaitlyn LaCourse, swing dancing is all about new experiences.

"It's a challenge that forces you out of your comfort zone," said LaCourse, president of the UNH Hep Cats, "but also it's fun to be in a new environment."

The UNH Hep Cats, the university's swing dancing club, provides this opportunity for all students, no matter their age, gender, or skill level. "We keep everyone up to date," said LaCourse, "even with zero experience."

Freshman Isabelle Molle, an admitted klutz, praises the group's inclusiveness. "Here it doesn't matter," said Molle. "The people are nice and the music is fun!"

The Hep Cats are inviting all students to join them for their first event of the year, the Swing Your Sweetheart Dance taking place in the Strafford Room on Feb. 15. "Anyone looking to expand their cultural values, learn something new, or just a fun night with friends should stop by," said LaCourse.

The Hep Cats have been on the UNH campus since the early 2000s, and offer students the chance to take a blast to the past through various styles of swing dancing from the 1920s to the 1950s. The group's favorite is the Lindy Hop, a popular partner dance. "Basically picture the prom scene from the movie Grease," said LaCourse.


UNH VOX

UNH student Hannah Dooling has always been inspired by her female role models. "My parents divorced when I was really young," she said, "and I lived with my mom who was a strong independent woman." It shocked her to find out that UNH had no organization in which students could discuss contemporary feminist issues.

Comparing leads.

I chose to compare the various leads of the story on 20-year-old Ali Syed, who shot three people before killing himself in Orange County, California, early Tuesday night. Here are the different leads I found:

Seacoast Online:

"A young man shot a woman to death in a home early Tuesday then went on a spree of carjackings and random shootings across Orange County that left two more people dead and three others wounded before the gunman killed himself, authorities said." 

http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20130219-NEWS-130219728?cid=sitesearch

The Boston Herald:

"A violent rampage that left four dead in suburban Orange County began in the pre-dawn hours Tuesday when a 20-year-old killed a woman in his home and sped away in his parents' car, authorities said."

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/national/west/2013/02/shooting_spree_across_calif_county_leaves_4_dead

The Boston Globe:

"The violence stretched across 25 miles in Orange County and was as brutal as it was fast-moving."

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/02/19/shooting-spree-across-calif-county-leaves-dead/Wak2b1Ze6QToOreAO9K5EI/story.html

New York Times:

"A 20-year-old part-time college student was responsible for an hourlong early-morning shooting and carjacking rampage in Orange County on Tuesday that left four dead, including the gunman, the police said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/us/shooting-spree-in-california.html?_r=0

CNN:

"In the middle of a shooting spree that killed three people and unleashed terror on Southern California motorists Tuesday morning, Ali Syed told one of his carjacking victims to walk away, police say."

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/19/justice/california-orange-county-shootings/index.html

Most of the leads seem to be summary leads, like the ones from Seacoast, the Boston Herald and the New York Times. They give the basic information and the pertinent details of the story: the who, what, where, and when. However, the ones that stuck out the most to me, are the ones from the Boston Globe and CNN.

The Boston Globe opted for a delayed lead with this story, only saying that "The violence stretched across 25 miles in Orange County and was as brutal as it was fast-moving," in a sort of scene-setting opening. I think this lead sets the Boston Globe apart from its competitors for this story because it sets a certain tone for the story and sends shills down the reader's spine. While summary leads are still well-written, they start to sound like a broken record after reading multiple summary-style leads for the same story; they simply don't have as much of an impact when you find yourself reading the same information over and over again. With a story as shocking as this, you don't want the reader to not care.

CNN's lead is a little different as well. It seems as if it's going to be a summary lead, highlighting some main facts of the story (the incident, the perpetrator's name, the location, and the time), it does something that the other leads do not. In this lead, we learn that "Syed told one of his carjacking victims to walk away." I think this one small difference makes a huge impact on the rest of the story, and how it compares to its competitors. It gives the reader motivation to keep reading because of the interest in this one detail that the other stories don't mention. Why did Syed give this carjacking victim the option to walk away after he had already killed three people? What does the victim have to say about it? With a lead like this, the reader feels compelled to keep reading in hopes of finding answers to these questions. With a summary lead, I personally don't feel like this level of interest is aroused. Summary leads gives you the basic information with little perspective, which is why it's important to create a lead that sets you apart from all the other reporters.

Leads are important because it's in this paragraph that many readers decide whether they want to keep reading--I know it's that way for myself, at least. Leads need to have a point of interest. With the summary leads in this particular story, leads that read the same way are going to lead to stories that read the same way. But, the Boston Globe and CNN provide a different perspective. While the stories may share the same content as the other stories on this incident, they present the information in such a way that the reader is kept interested in the story, and is more likely to use that same source for other stories on the same topic. Presentation is key with stories like this, which are heavily covered by multiple sources. You want yours to stand out, and there's no place better to do so than in the lead.

Grammar wars.

The quality of this picture is pretty terrible, which I suppose is what I get for taking a picture of my laptop screen with my phone, but it's still so hilarious.

"It's news to me."

An interesting thing just happened in my apartment (for anyone that knows me, I'm aware that's not saying a lot, but bear with me). We were discussing the endangered species list, and we were all pleasantly surprised to find out that the eagle has finally been taken off the list, so we got very excited decided we should throw a party celebrating this exciting news.
Then, we realized it was taken off the list in June 2007.
This resulted in the discussion of a party celebrating news that isn't new, to which my roommate Courtney replied, "It's news to me."
I think that the phrase, "it's news to me," is an interesting idea. After all, isn't it called "news" because, well, it's new? After this whole bald eagle debacle, my roommate Liz tweeted, "Speaking of news, in recent news, I just realized why the news is called news."
If something's new to you, can you call it news? Or are you stuck with simply calling it "new information"? The more that I think about it, the more that I realize that lots of things I consider news aren't really news, they're just new to me
To be honest, I'm not sure where I'm going with this. It's just something to think about during those times of the day when you find yourself exploring the deep crevasses of your mind. Like when you're waiting for food. Those are dark times, soldier. Stay strong.

Nit-picking.

This week's copy editing assignment is proving to be difficult. Extremely difficult.

It's flat-out making me crazy.

There are just so many mistakes, and a lot of the writing is so convoluted and poorly written that I can't even begin to describe how to fix it, other than simply saying, "Please rewrite this whole damn thing." I'm finding it difficult to make the sentences flow together, let alone make them into a coherent story. A couple of times, I've edited an entire paragraph, then reached the end and had to write, "Is any of this relevant or necessary?"

It's hard to resist the urge to completely rewrite this story, but I suppose that's ultimately the job of an editor--not to replace the writer's words but to improve them.

Tight writing.

To start, let me say that I'm enjoying this class so much more than I thought I would. I knew I liked editing my friends' essays and adding commas where they should be, but I honestly didn't expect to enjoy reading the textbook for this class. I'm not one to get all mushy over the wonders of learning, but I'm really appreciating all the new tips and essential skills that I've read in Think Like an Editor. Whenever I read something I've never heard before, I can think of when to use it in my writing, and that's a really exciting idea to me.

So this chapter about tight writing and trimming to make it all more concise really struck me. Really, I just found it pretty amusing and this is why: throughout my years at UNH, I've had to write some pretty long English/History/Art papers; I know that in the big leagues of graduate school, a 10-page paper sounds like a joke, but the first time I ever wrote one, it was pretty difficult. Or maybe the subject matter was just atrocious, I don't know. Either way, I feel like I've been trained over the years to write these elaborate, flowery papers. Then this editing class comes along and just destroys that.

Last semester, I wrote a paper about Beckett's painting View of Pleasant Mountain House, and while it wasn't the longest paper I had to write for my American Lit class, it certainly called for some flowery language--after all, I was discussing art. Long story short, I used the phrase "paradoxical desecration," and I felt ridiculous then but definitely not as ridiculous as I feel now after reading all about tight writing.

This is my apology to the editing world.

The pet peeve that will send me to an early grave.

I have to say, I think one of my biggest grammatical pet peeves, the pet peeve to end all pet peeves, the one tiny thing that drives me absolutely certifiably insane, is when people write sentences like these:

• I wish I could of bought a unicorn.
• I could of gone to Narnia, but I decided against it.
• I guess I could of used proper grammar, but I decided that writing this abomination was a better idea.
• Here, let me write 'could of'' instead of  'could have' because YOLO grammar get outta my way.

Every single time I see people write "could of" instead of "could have," I swear that a small part of me shrivels up and dies. I honestly don't understand how this error occurs as often as it does. I suppose it stems from the contraction "could've" which I guess sounds like "could of," but if you write it down, isn't it obviously which two words are supposed to be used together? I mean seriously, "could of" doesn't make the least bit of sense. Maybe it's just me, but I actually can't think of any situation in which those two words appear like that, and in writing this sentence I have officially committed my life to finding an exception because that's what I do. I fixate on little things like this when I can't find reason, which also explains my obsession with Nicolas Cage. The things he does are just so completely ridiculous, I can't help but get wrapped up in the appreciation of his entire being.

The point of this whole post is that I think this is one reason why I want to be an editor. I can't help but want to tell these people about this one very small but very horrendous mistake that they are making when they write "could of" instead of "could have." 

This is why I exist.