100 ways to improve your writing - Gary Provost 2019

Name your sources
Eleven ways to make people like what you write

If your reader works in the downtown area of Austin, Texas, and you write that an earthquake will devastate downtown Austin on February 19, your reader is going to be extremely interested to know where you got your information.

If you mention that you learned of the upcoming earthquake from Ramona Moon Dobbins, a Louisiana swamp witch who saw the whole thing in a vision while she was shuffling her tarot deck, your reader might not be too concerned. But if you mention that your information came from Dr. Winston Ruxbacher, director of the United States Seismographic Study, your reader might decide that February 19 would be a real good day to skip work and visit an aunt in El Paso.

Your reader’s reaction to your information depends on your sources.

Sources are the people you talk to and the material you read while researching your story. You could mention all your sources in your article or paper, but if you do, you risk losing your reader’s attention. Lists of sources can become very boring very quickly.

Decide who or what your most valuable sources are, and name only them. Good sources help build credibility and take on added importance when you are contradicting widely held assumptions, or when a crucial decision depends on your accuracy.

You can note sources informally in the text, or you can include a note on sources at the front or back of your story. Such a note appears below:

Sources

In-depth interviews with Alexander Millis, president, National Wenfronckmonkin Institute, and Randy Freidus, host of the nationally syndicated television show Your Wenfronckmonkin and You.

Zen and the Art of Wenfronckmonkin by Jim Bellarosa

Wenfronckmonkin in the New Age by Gloria Bunker

“Wenfronckmonkin: A Male Perspective,” article in Macho magazine, June 1983

Again, don’t include every book you read and every expert you spoke to, just the major sources of information.

You should also include the source of opinions expressed in your story.

If you’re expressing your own opinion, don’t couch it in the vague “There’s a growing feeling” or “People say.” But neither do you have to precede every sentence with “I think” or “It’s my opinion that.” If you write, “Sturge Thibedeau is the worst director in Hollywood,” it’s clear that that’s your opinion, since it is not a measurable fact.

And what if it’s not just your opinion? Don’t make generalized statements such as “Sturge Thibedeau is widely considered to be the worst director in Hollywood”; back it up with evidence, such as “In a 2018 poll of one hundred top directors and agents, ninety-seven rated Sturge Thibedeau as the worst director in Hollywood.” If you can’t support the opinion with something, then you have to wonder where you got the idea in the first place.

I’m not trying to improve your ethics, only your writing. A phrase like widely regarded means nothing to the reader unless he or she knows what you mean by widely regarded. Does widely regarded mean the writer and his brother? Does it mean three bad actors who got canned from Thibedeau’s films? Does it mean Sturge Thibedeau’s ex-wives? Or does it mean one hundred knowledgeable people in the film industry?