When they draft newsletters, writers in international organizations often have overlong sentences and use an academic style. A more journalistic style would help engage the reader.
English sentences can become confusing when they go over 1.5 lines or 25 words. (This text below has an average of 16.5 words per sentence.)
Newspapers are a wonderful way to analyse journalistic style, which will help you if you need to write a newsletter, a blog or website news.
In the excerpt below from the Guardian, note the style used by the journalist (the bold highlighting is mine):
- He switches from short to long sentences and vice versa, usually opening with a short sentence.
- He interjects his opinion “I believe”, “I realise that”, “As I know from bitter experience”.
- He uses a conversational style to interact with the reader. “… many people … will suspect I’ve finally flipped.”, “Where, pray, …”, “What I’m talking about are …”, “Not that you would wish to …”, “in which we are allowed to walk freely”, “… but you wouldn’t want to exercise it.”, “the supreme court ruled that we have a right to wild camp”.
- He uses contrasting techniques to surprise the reader, such as starting a sentence or clause with “But” or “Yet”.
- To extend an idea, he uses “In fact”.
There’s an invader turning huge swathes of Britain into deserts – and these dead zones are spreading
Deserts are spreading across great tracts of Britain, yet few people seem to have noticed, and fewer still appear to care. It is one of those astonishing situations I keep encountering: in which vast, systemic problems – in this case, I believe, covering thousands of square kilometres – hide in plain sight.
I realise that many people, on reading that first sentence, will suspect I’ve finally flipped. Where, pray, are those rolling sand dunes or sere stony wastes? But there are many kinds of desert, and not all of them are dry. In fact, those spreading across Britain are clustered in the wettest places. Yet they harbour fewer species than some dry deserts do, and are just as hostile to humans. Another useful term is terrestrial dead zones.
What I’m talking about are the places now dominated by a single plant species, called Molinia caerulea or purple moor-grass. Over the past 50 years, it has swarmed across vast upland areas: in much of Wales, on Dartmoor, Exmoor, in the Pennines, Peak District, North York Moors, Yorkshire Dales and many parts of Scotland. Molinia wastes are dismal places, grey-brown for much of the year, in which only the wind moves. As I know from bitter experience, you can explore them all day and see scarcely a bird or even an insect.
Not that you would wish to walk there. The grass forms high tussocks through which it is almost impossible to push. As it happens, most of the places that have succumbed to Molinia monoculture are “access land”. Much of the pittance of England and Wales in which we are allowed to walk freely has become inaccessible. In a great victory a fortnight ago, the supreme court ruled that we have a right to wild camp on Dartmoor. But on many parts of the moor, you wouldn’t want to exercise it. As soon as the grass takes hold, all opportunities for enjoyment and employment cease.
Molinia challenges the definition of an invasive species. The term is supposed to refer only to non-native organisms. But while it has always been part of our upland flora, it appears to have spread further and faster than any introduced plant in the UK, and with greater ecological consequences. It is uncontrolled by herbivores, disease or natural successional processes (transitions to other plant communities). In fact, it stops these processes in their tracks.
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Author: Carol Waites
Presentation/editing by Christina O’Shaughnessy
https://worldwidewriting.org/
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Carol Waites (PhD)
Email: carolswritingtips@gmail.com
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