Riassunto esame Inglese per la pa, prof. Donati, libro consigliato Essential English. For journalist editors and witers, Evans

The copydesk

They make the judgement, they prepare the written word for conversion into mass reproduction, and they, by they

choice and presentation, fashion the identity of a newspaper

They are skills of editing and revision; titles and procedures change from country to country; standards of judgement

change from newspaper to newspaper; but the skill required are the same

The text editor define the area of craft under discussion and the journalistic roles; the text editor’s work begins

The first task must be to

after stories have been selected for publication; some offices have separate teams editing home and foreign news or

home and business sections.

The copy-taster

He rejects what is not required; their basic job is preliminary selection, and what they select is normally passed to

another executive journalist -> projection editors

projection editors

he plan each story on to each page grid on the screen; they have to decide the headline type, the length of the story, and

the type it will be set in; before the page is complete it has to go to text editors -> they will do:

 

Write the headline Add important background facts

 

Read the story and rewrite when necessary Correct the grammar

 

Shorten the story Check text for errors

 

Combine one story with another Check for house style

Standards in editing

Speed is valued more than polish on some newspaper -> there is a little time for polish; they concentrate on the right

length, the right news point and headline, and then get on to the next story;

Command of the language is, in fact, the second quality required from a text editor; the first is a sense of news; text

editors need not to be writing journalists, they should be a good judge of writing

Qualities of a good text editor:

 

Human interest, qualities of sympathy, insight, judgement



imagination, sense of humour capacity for absorbing fact and expressing

 Well-balanced mind them in an acceptable manner

 

A cool head, ability to work in an atmosphere team spirit

of hurry and excitement

 quickness

2. Good English

English is a battlefield; no professor of linguistic has as much influence on the language as the text editors who edit’s

the day’s news. Every word must be understood by the ordinary reader, every sentence must be clear at one glace

(sguardo) and every story must say something about people; they style reject long sentences, conditional, exclamations

–>

and interjections, allusions, metaphors, latin terminology -> they are specialist in concise writing for instant

comprehension

Sentences

A sentence is more likely to be clear if it is a short sentence communicating one thought (pensiero); the simple sentence

has one subject and one predicate or statement (eight bandits robbed a train yesterday9; the compound sentence has two

simple sentences joined by a conjunction (eight bandits robbed a train yesterday and sole £80.000)

Be active

Passive form: a meeting will be held (tenuta) by directors next week

–

Active form: the directors will hold (tenere) a meeting next week or better still -> the directors will meet next week

Be positive

Sentences should assert: NO YES

 

The project was not successful The project failed

 

The company says it will not now proceed The company says it has abandoned the plan

with the plan

Avoid (evitare) monotony

Setting a limit of around thirty words to the length of sentences does not mean that every sentence must be thirty words;

some can be as short as eight words;

 Loose (libere) sentences: run with fact after fact in natural conversational sequence

 Periodic sentences: retain the climax (apice) to the end -> the sentence is not complete until the full stop;

 Balanced sentences 1