David Dillard writes “The BBC News StyleGuide[pdf]. An excellent overview of the BBC News StyleGuide may be found in this
document written by Melvin Block.
The book has an English accent, but it provides pointers that can also
benefit newspeople on this side of the ocean. After all, or before all,
the Brits helped create our language.
David Dillard writes “The BBC News StyleGuide[pdf]. An excellent overview of the BBC News StyleGuide may be found in this
document written by Melvin Block.
The book has an English accent, but it provides pointers that can also
benefit newspeople on this side of the ocean. After all, or before all,
the Brits helped create our language.Why do we need stylebooks? To learn more–about writing, language and
broadcast style. And a stroll through this guide can be a learning
experience. For careful writers, it’s not enough to let your consciousness
be your guide.
“A great deal of news output is written in haste, with one eye on the
script and the other on the clock,” the Beeb’s book says. “Writing under
pressure is what our kind of journalism is all about, but it is no reason
for ungrammatical, inelegant or sloppy use of EnglishWell written English
is easier to understand than poorly written English.”
—————-
Coverage of this Guide Includes
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Active and Passive
Americanisms
Attribution First
Cliches and Journalese
Collective Nouns
Confusables
Cues
Danglers
The Definite Article
Devolution
The European Union
FAQs
Foreign Phrases
Jargon
Numbers and Measures
Names and Titles
Getting It Right
Reported Speech
Sensitivity
Speaking Out Loud
Superlatives
Words
Simple Words
Troublesome Words
Vogue Words
Superfluous Words and Phrases
Finnally
Want More of This Kind of Stuff
Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
Re: Poor URLs in the guide…
A good guide, but I was disappointed to see in the references section very poor use of HTML standards in the URLs. They weren’t consistent either: some are http:// and some are listed as http://www.x.x. I believe the fully qualified URLs are more usable in all browsers and all types of e-mails, and thus support that usage.
I think this section started on p. 85 or so of the guide.
A concerned URLer