Journalistic Writing

Overview

Clean, crisp, and clear written communication

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 skills—even when faced with a tight deadline—this 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 clichés 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.

Reviews

"An indispensable guide for all writers—journalists, essayists, novelists, playwrights, and poets alike! A thoroughly engaging, canny, entertaining, and wholly informative compendium of how to write clear English. Author Robert M. Knight brings light, depth, and admirable pacing to his work. Every writer should own a personal copy of this remarkable book—and use it daily."  —Kevin Klose, president and CEO, National Public Radio

Author Biography

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 is a former senior editor and broadcast editor of the City News Bureau of Chicago and a past president of the Chicago Headline Club chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the author of A Journalistic Approach to Good Writing: The Craft of Clarity. He lives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.