When a theme is returned to you, number each correction, and draw a heavy circle about the number. Then take another sheet of paper, and using the numbers that correspond to those on your theme, state in each case the error you made; then correct it, and give your reason for making this correction: for instance, if the mistake is marked W, i.e. a word misused, state whether the word to which the critic objected is not in good usage, or is too often repeated, or does not give the idea intended. Next, supply the proper word and show that it fits the place. Answer any questions asked by the critic and follow out any suggestion given. Put the sheet of corrections in proper form for a M.S. Fasten the sheet to your original theme and hand both to the teacher in charge of the laboratory. No credit will be given for any written theme until the mistakes are corrected.

The following signs are used to indicate mistakes in a theme:

• C—Capital needed.
• lc—No capital needed.
• A—Mistake in use of the apostrophe.
• S—Word misspelled.
• P—Mistake in punctuation.
• G—Mistake in grammar.
• W—Wrong word used.
• Cons—The construction of the sentence is poor.
• D—The statement is ambiguous.
• O—Order. This may refer to arrangement of words in a sentence, of sentences in a paragraph, or of paragraphs in a theme.
• U—The sentence or paragraph lacks unity.
• X—Discover the mistake for yourself.

BY
EDWIN L. MILLER, A.M.
PRINCIPAL OF THE NORTHWESTERN HIGH SCHOOL
DETROIT, MICHIGAN

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY EDWIN L. MILLER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
U · S · A

This volume is the second in a series of four, each of which has been planned to cover one stage in the composition work of the secondary-school course. These books have been designed to supply material adapted as exactly as possible to the capacity of the pupils. Most of the exercises which they contain have been devised with the idea of reproducing in an elementary form the methods of self-instruction which have been employed by successful writers from Homer to Kipling. Nearly all of them have been subjected to the test of actual classroom use on a large scale. They may be used independently or as supplementary to a more formal textbook. Each volume contains rather more work than an ordinary class can do in one hundred recitations.

In each volume will be found exercises that involve each of the four forms of discourse; but emphasis is placed in Book I on description, in Book II on narration, in Book III on exposition, and in Book IV on argumentation. Similarly, while stress is laid in Book I on letter-writing, in Book II on journalism, in Book III on literary effect, and in Book IV on the civic aspects of composition, all of these phases of the subject receive attention in each volume.

In every lesson of each book provision is made for oral work: first, because it is an end valuable in itself; second, because it is of incalculable use in preparing the ground for written work; third, because it can be made to give the pupil a proper and powerful motive for writing with care; and, fourth, because, when employed with discretion, it lightens the teacher’s burden without impairing his efficiency.

Composition is not writing. Writing is only one step in composition. The gathering of material, the organization of material, criticism, revision, publication, and the reaction that follows publication are therefore in these volumes given due recognition.

The specific subject of this volume is newspaper writing. The author has himself had enough experience in practical newspaper work to appreciate the difficulties and to respect the achievements of the journalist. He knows that editors must print what people will buy. It seems probable, therefore, that instruction in the elementary principles of newspaper writing, in addition to producing good academic results, may lead pupils to read the papers critically, to discriminate between the good and the bad, and to demand a better quality of journalism than it is now possible for editors to offer. If this happens, the papers will improve. The aim of this book is therefore social as well as academic. It is also vocational. Some of the boys and girls who study it will learn from its pages the elements of the arts of proof-reading and reporting well enough to begin, by virtue of the skill thus acquired, to earn their bread and butter.

For the chapters on advertising I am indebted to Mr. Karl Murchey, of the Cass Technical High School of Detroit, Michigan. Mr. John V. Brennan, Miss Grace Albert, and Miss Eva Kinney, of the Detroit Northwestern High School, have rendered me invaluable help by suggestions, by proof-reading, and by trying out the exercises in their classes. Mr. C. C. Certain, of Birmingham, Alabama, and Mr. E. H. Kemper McComb, of the Technical High School, Indianapolis, by hints based on their own wide experience and ripe scholarship, have enabled me to avoid numerous pitfalls. My thanks are due also to Mr. Francis W. Daire, of the Newark News, and Mr. C. B. Nicolson, of the Detroit Free Press, who have given me the benefit of their experience as practical newspaper men. Above all, I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Henry P. Hetherington, of the Detroit Journal, whose untimely death in June, 1914, deprived me of a never-failing source of wisdom and a critic to whose ripe judgment I owe more than I know how to describe.

E. L. M.

“Children learn to speak by watching the lips and catching the words of those who know how already; and poets learn in the same way from their elders.”

James Russell Lowell. Essay on Chaucer.

“Grammars of rhetoric and grammars of logic are among the most useless furniture of a shelf. Give a boy Robinson Crusoe. That is worth all the grammars of rhetoric and logic in the world.... Who ever reasoned better for having been taught the difference between a syllogism and an enthymeme? Who ever composed with greater spirit and elegance because he could define an oxymoron or an aposiopesis?”

Thomas Babington Macaulay.
Trevelyan’s Life of Lord Macaulay. Chapter VI.

“Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.”

Chaucer.

I. Introduction

The object of this book is to teach high-school boys and girls how to write plain newspaper English. Next to letter-writing, this is at once the simplest and the most practical form of composition. The pupil who does preëminently well the work outlined in this volume may become a proof-reader, a reporter, an editor, or even a journalist. In other words, the student of this book is working on a practical bread-and-butter proposition. He must remember, however, that the lessons it contains are elementary. They are only a beginning. And even this beginning can be made only by the most strenuous and persistent exertions. English is not an easy subject. It is the hardest subject in the curriculum. To succeed in English three things are required: (1) Work; (2) Work; (3) WORK.

II. The Newspaper

The modern city newspaper is a complicated machine. At its head is usually a general manager, who may be one of its owners. Directly responsible to him are the business manager, the superintendent of the mechanical department, and the managing editor.

The superintendent of the mechanical department has three subordinates. These are the foreman of the composing-room, the foreman of the pressroom, and the foreman of the stereotyping-room. Each, of course, always has several assistants and often many.

The managing editor has charge of the collection and distribution of news. He has no routine duties, but is responsible for the conduct of his subordinates, for the character of the paper, and for its success as a business enterprise. The relation of the paper to the public is in his keeping. Not infrequently he has serious differences of opinion with the business manager, especially when he publishes news which does not please important advertisers. Among his chief occupations are devising methods of getting news and avoiding libel suits. The subordinates who report directly to him are the writers of special columns, the cartoonists, the editorial writers, the editor of the Sunday paper, and the assistant managing editor, or news editor. It is with the latter and his staff that we are at present chiefly concerned.

This last functionary is frequently the most important man on the paper. He is responsible for gathering nearly all of the original news that goes into its columns. To be able to do this he must have a wide and exact knowledge of the people and the history of the city. He works like a slave; and the reporters, who are under his direct control, find in him a stern but appreciative taskmaster.

These reporters, or news-gatherers, lead a strenuous but not unhappy life. It is somewhat like that of the huntsman, their business being to stalk news, which is perhaps the biggest and certainly the most elusive game which the world produces. Their lives are sometimes, their liberty oftener, and their jobs always, in danger. If one of them permits a rival paper to get a “scoop,” he is apt to find himself in the situation of the warrior described in Shakespeare’s sonnet:

Some reporters hunt everywhere; others are assigned to special “beats.” Of the latter the city hall is the most important, but the central police station yields the largest number of good stories, because it is there that tales of human folly, crime, and tragedy are most promptly known. On most papers the law courts, politics, sport, drama, religion, education, marine affairs, and society provide other “beats.”

One other newspaper functionary remains to be noticed, the writer of editorials. News items are confined to facts. Editorials contain expressions of opinion. Everybody reads news, because it speaks for itself. Editorials are designed to mould public opinion. Unless they are characterized by extreme good sense or brilliancy, nobody heeds them, though, if he makes a mistake in one, the writer of editorials is apt to conclude that everybody reads them. The writer of editorials must therefore be a person of exceptional qualifications.

III. Class Organization

For the present the teacher of the class studying this book may act as city editor and the pupils as reporters. Later, perhaps, a more formal organization may be effected, with pupils as managing editor, assistant managing editor, city editor, etc.

IV. Newspaper Coöperation

The editor of the local paper will probably be willing to print any really good material that the class produces. If possible, an arrangement for this purpose should be made with him. It is also possible that he may be willing to supplement this chapter by talking to the class.

1. What Is a Newspaper?
2. The History of Journalism.
3. Why is a Study of Journalistic Writing Practical?
4. The Organization of a Newspaper.
5. The Managing Editor.
6. The Composing-room.
7. The Business Manager.
8. The Assistant Managing Editor.
9. The Telegraph Editor.
10. The State Editor.
11. The City Editor.
12. The Reporter.
13. “Beats.”
14. “Scoops.”
15. Editorials.
16. The Gospel of Work.

VI. Suggested Reading

Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King and The Light That Failed.

VII. Memorize

“Facts are stubborn things.”

Le Sage.

I. Assignment

Find and report some unusual and interesting thing that has been made or done by boys or girls. Do not get your information from literature. Get it from life. Above all, don’t make it up. It must be fact, not fiction.

When the city editor gives a reporter an assignment, he does not expect to answer questions. The reporter’s business is to give the city editor copy, not to rely on him for information. The reporter who does not promptly learn this fact soon ceases to be a reporter.

II. Getting the Facts

In all writing the gathering of material is more important than any other one thing. In reportorial work it is almost all-important. Almost anybody can tell a story if he has the facts. Energy, persistent politeness, and a pair of stout legs are more essential in reporting than is a large vocabulary. The pursuit of news is always a fascinating and sometimes a dangerous game. If you do not believe this, read Fighting in Flanders, by E. Alexander Powell; or The Events Man, by Richard Barry. Above everything else, remember that the most uncompromising adherence to facts is essential.

III. Writing

In preparing manuscript the typewriter in these days is almost indispensable. The value to a reporter of a course in typewriting is therefore obvious. It is also obvious that copy must be letter-perfect. Before it can be printed, it must be entirely free from mistakes in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and the other essentials of good usage.

IV. Model

The following article is clipped from a New York daily. In what it says and leaves unsaid it is an excellent model.

V. Notes and Queries

1. State the reason for the use of each capital letter and each mark of punctuation in the model.
2. Tell whether each sentence is simple, complex, or compound.
3. Explain the syntax of each adverb in the model.
4. Point out three words or phrases that have color, character, or distinction.
5. What is the subject of each paragraph?
6. Are the “Four W’s” sufficiently indicated? Point them out.
7. Study the heading. The art of writing good headings is almost as difficult as that of writing good poetry, which it resembles in that, as the poet is limited to a certain number of syllables, the writer of headlines is limited to a fixed number of letters.

VI. Suggested Time Schedule

VII. Organization of Material

After you get your story, you must decide on a plan for its discussion. This will depend largely on its nature. Indeed, the plan and the style of any piece of writing are to the material as are the clothes to the body. They must fit the body. The body determines their shape.

The model in Section IV is a bit of exposition composed partly of description and partly of narration. Its framework is as follows:

1. Par. 1. The “Four W’s”:
   • Who = hundreds of people;
   • What = handiwork in snow;
   • When = yesterday;
   • Where = Brook Avenue near One Hundred and Forty-ninth Street.
2. Par. 2. The Exterior of the House.
3. Par. 3. The Interior.
4. Par. 4. The Architects.

VIII. Some Possible Subjects

IX. Suggested Reading

Elbert Hubbard’s A Message to Garcia.

X. Memorize

“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime.”

Longfellow.

I. Assignment

Write a biographical note of about two hundred words concerning a citizen who has just come into public notice.

II. Obtaining the Facts

If the subject of the note is already distinguished, the facts can usually be collected from books and periodicals. Poole’s Index of Periodical Literature will point the way. Most newspapers keep an indexed mass of biographical material, which, of course, is at a reporter’s disposal. When these sources fail, the man himself must be interviewed, which is a task that requires tact, politeness, persistency, a good memory, and a clear idea of the character and quantity of the information needed.

III. Models

II

Alexander Hamilton is one of those great Americans of whose services to the nation no American can afford to be ignorant. As a soldier in the Revolution, no man possessed more of Washington’s confidence. To him as much as to any one man was due the movement that resulted in the formation of the Constitution; he took a leading part in the debates of the Convention; and the ratification of the Constitution was brought about largely by the Federalist, a paper in which he so ably interpreted the provisions of that instrument that it has ever since been regarded as one of the world’s political classics. As Secretary of the Treasury under Washington he performed wonders; Daniel Webster said of his work in this office: “He rent the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet.” He was born in Nevis, one of the West Indies, in 1757, and was mortally wounded by Aaron Burr in a duel, 1804, at Weehawken, New Jersey.

IV. Organization of Material

V. Exercises

1. Reduce some biography which you have read and enjoyed to a biographical note of two hundred words.
2. Write a biographical note of two hundred words about a living person of national reputation.
3. Write a biographical note of two hundred words about a living person of state or city reputation.
4. Write a biographical note about the school janitor, the school engineer, a member of your own family, your hired man, your maid, or any other interesting person from whom you can extract the desired information.

VI. Suggested Reading

Carl Schurz’s Life of Abraham Lincoln.

VII. Memorize

“The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

I. Assignment

Report an accident which you have seen. The object of this exercise and those which are to follow is threefold:

1. Vocational—to begin to teach the art of reporting, and hence perhaps lay a foundation for students’ earning a living.
2. Ethical—to show all the pupils how a report should be made and thus give them a standard by which to measure newspapers.
3. Artistic—to teach all how to write modern English clearly, simply, and correctly.

II. Model

This is a report of an accident on a city street, witnessed by a reporter, and telephoned to a colleague at the newspaper office.

III. Suggested Time Schedule

IV. Notes, Queries, and Exercises

V. Oral Composition

Prepare a report of some accident which you have yourself seen or which has been described to you by an eye-witness. Be sure to get into the report in the proper order the “Four W’s,” the cause, and the result. Note that a good story usually consists of three parts:

1. The Previous Situation.
2. What Happened = The Climax.
3. The Result = The Dénouement.

These are all in the model, but 2 is put first because it is most important. Observe the order of the model. Each member of the class will have a chance to make his report orally, and it will be subjected to the analysis of the class and teacher, who will blame or praise it according to its deserts. The reporter must defend himself, if attacked. Each pupil will therefore in turn play the rôle of a reporter, telephoning a story to headquarters while the class and teacher enact the part of the city editor.

VI. Written Composition

After the process outlined in Section IV of this chapter has shown the reporter how to go about the job, the report is to be written, proof-read by the teacher, corrected by the reporter, and rewritten until it is letter-perfect.

VII. Suggested Reading

Kipling’s 007 in The Day’s Work.

“The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.”

Lord Byron.

I. Introduction

The worst thing about most news articles is that they tell of destruction, failure, and tragedy instead of construction, success, and happiness. If one were to judge from the papers, one would be forced to conclude that the world is rapidly advancing from civilization to barbarism. To test the truth of this assertion, you have only to examine almost any current newspaper. A man may labor honorably and usefully for a generation without being mentioned; but if he does or says a foolish thing, the reporters flock to him as do cats to a plate of cream. The reason is obvious. Tragedy is more exciting than any other form of literature; it contains thrills; it sells papers. However, aside from the fact that the publication of details concerning human folly and misfortune is often cruel and unjust to the sufferers, its influence upon the public is debasing in the same way, if not in the same degree, as public executions were debasing.

As an exercise tending to produce this result, the student should each day examine the local paper for the purpose of ascertaining how many columns of destruction and how many of construction it contains. The result should be reported to the class and thence to the papers as news.

There are three kinds of items which boys and girls can write and which are constructive. These are:

1. Items dealing with progress.
2. Humorous stories.
3. Items based on contrast.

The work this week will be on the first of these.

II. Models

I

St. Louis, Feb. 22.—L. C. Phillips will plant 1,000 acres of his southeast Missouri land in sunflowers this year as a further demonstration that this plant can be cultivated with profit on land where other crops may not thrive so well. Phillips has been experimenting for several years in the culture of sunflowers, whose seed, when mixed with other seed, makes excellent chicken and hog feed. Last year he planted nearly 100 acres in sunflowers. The cost of planting and harvesting is about $6 an acre, he says, and the returns from $35 to $48.

III

Washington, Dec. 25.—Michigan holds sixth place among the States in the value of its mineral production, with an output in 1912 valued at $180,062,486, according to the United States Geological Survey, its prominence being due to its great wealth in copper and iron. Ranking second only to Minnesota in the production of iron ore, it is third in the production of copper, being exceeded only by Arizona and Montana. It also stands first in the production of salt, bromine, calcium chloride, graphite, and sand lime brick.

In 1911 Michigan’s production of iron ore was 8,945,103 long tons, valued at $23,810,710, and in 1912 it increased to 12,717,468 long tons, valued at $28,003,163.

The production of copper in Michigan, the value of which in the last two years has exceeded that of the output of iron ore, amounted in 1912 to 218,138,408 pounds, valued at $135,992,837, a decrease in quantity, but an increase in value of over $8,000,000.

The mining of copper in Michigan is of prehistoric origin, the metal having been used by the North American Indians before the advent of the white man. The records since 1810, or for a little more than 100 years, show that the total production of copper in Michigan from that date to the close of 1912 has amounted to over 5,200,000,000 pounds, which is about 30 per cent of the total output of the United States.

All three of these items are evidently condensations of longer articles. The writers have boiled down a vast amount of material into the form in which it here appears. The student will find similar material in abundance in The Literary Digest, in The Scientific American, in The National Geographical Magazine, in many government reports, and in almost any daily newspaper. In preparing for this exercise he should observe the following steps:

1. Find his material.
2. Boil it down, to the size desired, which is a most useful exercise of the judgment.
3. Make a careful framework, in doing which the models will be useful.
4. Get the whole so well in mind that he can present it fluently. Hesitation should not be tolerated.

IV. Suggested Time Schedule

V. Notes, Queries, and Exercises.

VI. Written Composition

Remember that you are writing for the compositor. Every letter must be right. If you do a good piece of work it is altogether probable that your composition will get into one of the local papers.

VII. Suggested Reading

Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Pudd’nhead Wilson, or Roughing It.

VIII. Memorize

“To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth.”—Pliny.

I. Introduction

Laughter, when it hurts nobody, is wholesome. It is the handmaid of happiness. It enriches life. Pleasant but not silly humor and wit are therefore altogether desirable in a paper. Few days in anybody’s life are devoid of incidents that tickle the fancy. Material for good humorous stories is abundant everywhere. The faculty of recognizing it when it is seen, and the ability to present it effectively, however, need a little training. To make a beginning in these directions is the object of the exercises that follow.

II. Assignment

Find, but not in a book or a paper, a humorous story, and tell it, first orally, then in writing.

III. Models

II

James M. I. Galloway, veterinary surgeon of Kirkintilloch, Scotland, arrived yesterday from Glasgow with photographs of a cow with a wooden leg on the starboard quarter, which the veterinary says is almost as good to the cow as an ordinary leg of beef and much more effective in knocking out folks who try to milk her on the wrong side.

Other veterinaries laughed at Galloway, who is young and of an experimental temperament, when he decided to save the life of this cow after the leg had been cut off by a locomotive. He insisted, however, on fitting the wooden leg, which he regards as much more useful than wooden heads on Scotch veterinaries.

The only time the wooden leg gets the cow into trouble is when she stands too long in a damp field and the leg sinks in a foot or so.

III

The written orders of Mr. J. W. Brooks, a once celebrated American railroad manager of Michigan, were, it is said, almost beyond deciphering. On a certain occasion, when a double track had been laid on one of his roads, it was reported at headquarters that the barn of an old farmer stood partly upon land which the company had bought, and dangerously near to passing trains. Mr. Brooks, who was just getting ready for a trip down the Mississippi, wrote to the farmer that he must move his barn from the company’s land at once. If he delayed he would be liable to a suit for damages. The old farmer duly received the letter, and was able to make out the manager’s signature, but not another word could he decipher. He took it to the village postmaster, who, equally unable to translate the hieroglyphics, was unwilling to acknowledge it. “Didn’t you sell a strip of land to the railroad?” he asked. “Yes.” “Well, I guess this is a free pass over the road.” And for over a year the farmer used the manager’s letter as a pass, not one of the conductors being able to dispute his translation of the instrument.

1. A good story always has three parts: (1) A Situation; (2) a Climax; (3) a Solution. Do the models possess these elements? If they do, point them out.
2. Point out the “Four W’s” in each.
3. Tell whether each sentence is simple, complex, or compound.
4. Tell why each mark of punctuation is used.
5. Tell why each capital letter is used.
6. Explain the syntax of the adjectives in I, the adverbs in II, the prepositions in III.
7. Explain the etymological signification of the following words: “solution”; “fowl”; “constable”; “photographs”; “veterinary”; “locomotive”; “decipher”; “liable”; “translate”; “hieroglyphics”; “conductors.”
8. Find on the map Uniontown, Arnold City, Kirkintilloch, Michigan, and the Mississippi River.
9. Explain the reference in “Solomonesque.”
10. What are “costs”?
11. Find a metaphor in II.