Wise Advice Pin This Up Somewhere You'Ll See It !!

  • When you've finished writing, check your article for logic, facts, syntax, grammar, flow, word usage, punctuation and spelling. One mistake . . . and your editor may cross you off his list of contributors.
  • Be sceptical, but don't fall into being cynical.
  • Get published. Without a fancy university degree you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way: get published.
  • And keep reminding yourselves of the universal, immutable, everlasting rules of good writing.
  • Your opinion may be welcome but your sermon isn't.
  • Redraft, rewrite, edit and re-edit. Then edit again.
  • Don't state the bleedin' obvious.
  • You are not required to write a Walkley Award winner.
  • Show, don't tell.
  • Don't generalise but use specific images.
  • Forget self-expression and communicate.
  • Distrust adjectives and adverbs.
  • Love strong verbs.
  • Graze your dictionary and thesaurus just because you love words.
  • Your loving mum and sister's opinion will never help you professionally.
  • Write in the active voice, not passive.
  • It's Elle Macpherson, not MacPherson. It is a terrible sin to mis-spell a famous person's name.
  • This is a hyphen - and this is a dash -.
  • Use as few words as possible, not as many as pop into your head.
  • Don't tell stories in chronological order.
  • Use effect and affect correctly. Also alternate and alternative, and brought and bought.
  • And there, their and they're. It's "lay" sometimes and "lie" other times.
  • People don't pass over or go to their reward . . . they die.
  • Write about PEOPLE not just topics.
  • Your emails should be as neatly well-written as your articles.
  • It's Esky with a capital E and Coca-Cola with a hyphen.
  • The slightly childish exclamation mark should be used maybe three times in your entire career.
  • Use a 12-digit calculator and avoid the unquestioning reporting of PM Hawke's vow to plant a billion trees in five years. It took days for journalists to realise that was an impossible 547,645 plantings a day.
  • It's "its" sometimes and it's "it's" other times, but get it right.
  • Getting letters to the editor published is not journalism.
  • Feel constantly starved for information and suck it up from radio, TV, publications and the internet.
  • Online, read one article a day from each Times in London, LA and New York.
  • On the back of your hand write the motto of Nike Just do it.
  • Put the word only in the right place in a sentence (putting it in the wrong place is journalism's and advertising's most consistent error).
  • Researching is merely researching, it's not writing.
  • Manage your fear of rejection: it never goes away.
  • Sewerage is not sewage but some journalism is.
  • It's easy to avoid sexist writing.
  • Don't lie to editors.
  • Don't be vague. What's an "expensive" meal and is it still expensive if James Packer pays?
  • You must love accuracy and that starts with 100% perfect spelling.
  • Finally, develop a winning phone manner because on the phone is where you'll be spending a great part of your career.

-- Simon Townsend