Tricks of the trade

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Have you ever planned a 15-minute presentation that you wound up delivering in five? That's a sure sign you're speaking too fast, Denise Graveline writes. She offers some advice on slowing things down: "I've shared practical tips on how to hit the brakes when you're speaking too fast. But you'll do even better at pacing yourself if you take the time to analyze your speaking speed, understand why it is so fast, and plan your speech or presentation so you set the pace."

Poynter's Roy Peter Clark is a strong advocate of keeping things short, but in this post he writes that it's all right to break that rule on occasion and take the reader on a short journey of discovery: "Care must be taken with the long sentence of course, the care of craft, because mastery of the long sentence is an arrow in the quiver of almost every writer I admire. As always, the exercise of craft begins not with technique but a sense of mission and purpose."

When you're speaking in public, do you let your body sway back and forth behind the podium? Do your words send one message while your face sends another? Those are some of the things you should look for when watching a video of your public speaking, Denise Graveline writes: "If you're lucky enough to be recorded when you speak, you have an opportunity to learn things you might never otherwise realize. If a video is available to you, watch it. Or make your own."

Amina Gautier writes short stories, but in the "Joy of Revision" she offers some thoughts that may resonate for non-fiction writers as well: "Revising encourages and liberates the writer to 'make mistakes,'" Gautier writes. "It rewards mistakes; each 'mistake' teaches one something about the story one is writing and gets one that much closer to the story one is meant to write. Revision reconciles the competing versions of the story that the writer carries in his head."

Are your sentences too long? Do you overuse adverbs? Do you use "that" to refer to a person? Betsy Mikel lists 25 tips for finding and fixing those flaws and others in your writing. An example: "In about 5 percent of your sentences (total guess from the grammar police), 'that' makes your idea easier to understand. In the other 95 percent, get rid of it. 'I decided that journalism was a good career for me,' reads better as, 'I decided journalism was a good career for me.'"

For Paris Review, Katie Roiphe coaxes some thoughts on reporting from a reluctant Janet Malcolm, author of The Journalist and the Murderer: "I learned the same truth about subjects that the analyst learns about patients: they will tell their story to anyone who will listen to it, and the story will not be affected by the behavior or personality of the listener; just as ('good enough') analysts are interchangeable, so are journalists."

Coaxing a reluctant subject into cooperating when you're writing a profile can take more time than the reporting, Lisa DePaulo writes, before offering some of her own tips for turning a no or maybe into a yes: "I always tell profile subjects: The more time you give me, the less time I’ll spend calling everyone you ever knew. When a subject cooperates, the piece is more empathetic. I have never totally trashed someone who cooperated. That is something publicists don’t get."

Most journalists are at ease interviewing a news source, but at least some tremble when the tables are turned. Michele C. Hollow has some tips for working the other side of the notebook, microphone, or camera: "Many of us work alone or in an isolated space, and we are rarely the subject of the stories that we write. However, for writers and journalists who have built a platform or are promoting a book or other piece of work, becoming the interviewee is a possibility."

Ben Yagoda lists seven tricks of the trade from stand-up comedy and explains how writers can apply them: "For a comic, a punchline is the funny part. For writers, it's a word, phrase, or detail with impact: could be funny, could be dramatic, could be shocking, or it could merely have an emphatic sound. Because of the impact, the temptation is to put it at the front. Comedians teach us to wait." Also, what writers can learn from Goodnight Moon.

From the recent Investigative Reporters & Editors conference in San Francisco, Matt Apuzzo offers a tipsheet for reporting on institutions: "You have your starting list of people. Now think broadly about others who have information that can help you. If you’re covering a company, for instance, you don’t just want the usual suspects – the flacks and the executives. You need to think about the organization as a network of people who have some stake in the company."