From transom.org, "a showcase and workshop for new public radio," here are pointers from 25 correspondents, from stars like Susan Stamberg and Bob Edwards to others less well-known. Here's Faith Salie of the Sundance Channel on what not to ask: "In college we would roll our eyes at peers who asked 'flex questions.' Those were the kind of questions that didn’t seek answers but rather sought to demonstrate the insight and acumen of the questioner."
Tricks of the trade
"There's always another great fact out there," writes journalist and shy person Sarah Laskow. In a Scitable post, Laskow explains how her personality helps her reporting: "For me, one trick is to remind myself that, always, inevitably, picking up the phone or going out the door will get me better, more interesting information. Often, I'll get it more quickly than if I tried to find it noodling around the internet. Plus, some of the best information isn't out there yet."
A story by an Indiana University student contains lessons that established writers would do well to remember, Kristen Hare writes for Poynter. Jessica Contrera saw a sign in a Waffle House announcing its imminent closure, and turned it into a story about the lives of some of its longtime customers, its owner, and the community around it: “Those little details that some people would just call color?” Contrera said. “Those are what make people connect with it.”
The GuideStar Blog was recently ranked 15th among the top nonprofit blogs, and its curator, Lindsay J.K. Nichols, explains how she raised it out of its previous obscurity: "As in all things communications-related, you have to know who you’re writing for, speaking to, learning from, etc. We all know that, right? Then why is it so hard to remember that when we’re blogging? Frankly, I think it’s because we (or the powers that be) want to be all things to all people."
"How many emails do you ignore?" Monya Baker asks in an essay on the companion web site to the Science Writers' Handbook. Baker then offers tips for making sure your email isn't ignored when you're after an interview: "I carefully prepare each introductory email for each source, and I decide ahead of time how I'll follow up. I also tend to use more formal language, closer to what would be found in a scientific paper than in a magazine article."
Sarah Kolb-Williams titles her post "10 Ways to Fake a Professional Edit," but it's really more about using professional editing techniques to improve your own copy. For example, she warns to be mindful of the difference between hyphens, en-dashes, and em-dashes: "Some authors use hyphens as a catch-all dash-but as you can see here, the hyphen confounds. There’s no such thing as a 'dash-but,' and it takes a few runs through the previous sentence to catch the syntax."
Do you read the abstract first? If so, you're doing it wrong, Jennifer Raff says in a guide for non-scientists. Raff starts with the introduction, then methods, results, and conclusions: "When I’ve got a collection of papers assembled for deep reading, I always read the abstract last. I do this because abstracts contain a succinct summary of the entire paper, and I’m concerned about inadvertently becoming biased by the authors’ interpretation of the results."
"Cliches are shorthand for more complicated thoughts. And they’re comfortable, like broken-in slippers," Mike Feinsilber writes. They're also a writer's worst enemy — "They proclaim 'written by a tired writer who ain’t trying hard.'" Feinsilber offers some tips for putting a fresh twist on the stalest expression, like this Maureen Dowd line about New York's would-be mayor, the incorrigible Anthony Weiner: “Weiner continues to play the rebel without a pause.”
It's harder than you think, Denise Graveline writes in a guide to making it through without falling apart. For example, printing on both sides of your pages might make you skip part of your speech. And when using a story you know well, don't write it down: "Just insert 'tell vacuum cleaner story here,' rather than try to script something you can tell without effort. This will force you to look at the audience, helping you to connect, and it will sound less stilted."
Would you describe a dying star as "bloated and gouty?" Caleb Scharf did and was called to task by a scientist who objected that stars can't be gouty because they don't produce uric acid. Scharf still defends the use of metaphors in science writing: "The simple truth is that scientists themselves constantly make use of analogies, metaphorical devices, and similes. Sometimes it’s the only way to build an intuition for a problem, by relating it to something else."