Page 67 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

Rules for Readability

Symbols
Don’t use symbols. They require translation and, in the case of the
dollar sign ($), appear in a different place than when they’re read
out loud.

Acronyms and Initials
An acronym involves letters to be read as a word, such as OPEC.In
that case, use all caps with no dashes. Initials are to be read as a series
of individual letters, such as I-R-S. In that case, use all caps with dashes
in between the letters. Note that in the case of most acronyms and
initials, you should use the full name of the organization on the first
reference and the initials or the acronym for subsequent references.

Sentence Length
Keep sentences short. Go back to those two keys points that sepa-
rate broadcast from print: Read out loud and understand by being
heard. Keep the sentence length short because an announcer can only
read so many words at one time without pausing to breathe. We write 57
short sentences to build breathing into the process. An unnatural pause
(breathing) in a sentence could make the copy difficult to understand.

Sound
Radio and television journalists are in the sound business, so we must
think about sound. That’s a dimension that isn’t available in print.
Because we say things out loud, the sound those syllables and words
make helps convey meaning. For that matter, we can convey meaning
simply by how we say something. If you’re not using those aspects of
writing, then you’re not fully utilizing the strengths of the medium.
Where possible, choose words that sound like what they mean: buzz,
snap, tap, and so on. Try to choose hard-sounding words to express
hard messages. Kill, with its hard k sound, emphasizes the message of
the meaning.
At the same time, there are sounds that are awkward or harder to
pronounce. The soft h sound of words that begin with h may be a bit
awkward for some people to pronounce. You have to pause to reshape
your mouth to pronounce the soft h sound properly. That doesn’t mean
you have to avoid those words. It does mean that a word beginning with
a soft h must clearly be the best choice for the sentence. Watch out for
difficult sound combinations, like sks. The word desks, for example,