Nov. 12, 2001:
Seven Tips for Writing Briefs
[PRINTABLE VERSION]

By now, in your class work and your regular reading of the papers, you should be acquainted with at least three kinds of briefs. I'll give examples of each in this memo, analyze them and then offer seven tips. My suggestions work not only for writing briefs like these but also almost any short news article, including news summaries.

(There is still another kind of brief - the short or mini-feature -- but that is a subject for another day. This memo is about straight-news briefs.)

The New York Times runs National Briefs and International Briefs. As you will see, they follow the same form.

International brief (91 words) --

RWANDA: CHARGES OF PLUNDER IN CONGO DENIED

The government denied that its army was involved in the organized plunder of resources in Congo after a United Nations report blamed all parties in the civil war there for for looting minerals. A United Nations panel said this week that the plunder of natural resources in Congo was continuing unabated and recommended a ban on exports of gold, copper, diamonds, cobalt, timber, coffee and other commodities from rebel-held areas of the central African nation. Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi have backed rebels who are fighting the government of President Joseph Kabila. (Agence France-Presse)

What do you notice here? First, it contains not a single passive sentence, even though the second one has more than 40 words. The idea is to get information over as quickly and as vigorously as possible.

There are only three information elements to this brief: (1) The government denies a UN report about the plundering of resources. (3) What the U.N. reported and recommended. (3) Background. That's all. No quotes, no excerpts, no statistics. Just three declarative sentences in one paragraph.

Next, note how few modifiers the author used: organized plunder, natural resources, rebel-held areas, central Africa. Adverbs and adjectives take up space.

National brief (76 words) -

TEXAS: RIFLE SHOT AT AIRPORT

A hunter's rifle accidentally went off at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as the owner tried to show that it was not loaded. No one was hurt. The bullet went through a window, hitting a planter. No charges were filed, and the man and his wife were allowed to board a later flight. An airport spokeswoman said the incident happened as the gun owner was checking luggage at a Delta ticket counter for an elk- hunting trip. (AP)

Again there are no passive sentences. Again, there are no quotes, no numbers, Not even a name. See how few modifiers were used.

But note the detail. Gun went off. How gun went off. Nobody hurt. Bullet went through window. Bullet hit planter. No charges filed. Man and wife allowed to board flight. When it happened. Where it happened. Why man had gun (he'd been elk hunting). That, folks, is a ton of information in one 76-word graph.

Now note something else. This is a very funny story. Guy goes up to the counter. He has a gun. Loaded? asks the ticket agent. No m'am, (or sir, whichever). Think I'd take a loaded gun on an airliner? Let me show you. BLAM! But do you see the writer trying to do anything cute? No. This is straight. The facts are all you need.

The San Jose Mercury News runs national, international, state and local news briefs. Here's one about an accident in San Francisco (62 words).

A runaway Muni bus took out six cars, an electric pole and a fire hydrant early Saturday morning.

No one was seriously injured in the incident, but the San Francisco bus was out of control for two blocks on Clay Street before coming to a halt..

The driver apparently lost control of the bus due to wet roads from Saturday's stormy weather.

What do we see here? The Merc paragraphs its briefs, but apart from that difference in form, we're looking at the same thing we saw in the Times's briefs.

Zero passive sentences, no quotes or numerals, good detail - what the bus hit (six cars, electric pole, fire hydrant), wet roads, no severe injuries, how far the bus went out of control. (If you were doing a longer story on this, you'd focus on the wild ride down two blocks of Clay - what the people on the bus felt, what passersby saw and did, the driver's thoughts.) Note the vigorous "took out six cars…"

Again, we see only the few essential modifiers: a runaway Muni bus, early Saturday morning, wet roads, stormy weather.

Just as the Times piece about the gun going off did not attempt to exploit the humor of the situation, the writer of this brief, too, is content just to tell the facts without any effort at capturing the drama. When you're doing briefs, leave your fancy writing at home.

The Wall Street Journal runs news briefs on page one, but it also runs briefs in other sections. This one is from the Marketplace Section (115 words).

Smithfield Foods Inc., attempting to snap up its third beef processor this year, said it agreed in principle to acquire closely held American Foods Group Inc. Smithfield, the nation's largest hog farmer and pork processor, is trying to diversify by becoming a major beef processor. With American Foods, which has its headquarters in Green Bay, Wis., Smithfield would become the nation's fourth-biggest beef packer and control 9% of the industry's capacity to slaughter cattle. Smithfield didn't disclose terms of the acquisition. American Foods generates annual sales of about $580 million and has the daily capacity to slaughter 1,900 head of cattle. Smithfield, of Smithfield, Va., said it expects to complete the American Foods acquisition in January.

This one is a little longer, and it's directed at a specialized audience. The ordinary reader may find it harder to get through.

But guess what? It,too, contains not one passive sentence, and again you see no quotes. Yes, this one has some figures in it. There's a percentage figure (9%), a dollar figure ($580 million) and a production figure (capacity to slaughter 1,900 head of cattle a day), but it's also a business story and those are hard to do without them. The thing to notice here is that the principles of brief writing, which we saw from the Times and the Merc, are also evident here.

Closely-held, largest hog farmer, major beef processor, fourth-biggest beef packer -- that's just about it for modifiers. And even in this dry brief, the writer tries for strong verbs. Smithfield is attempting to "snap up" another firm.

So what are those principles and how can you apply them to your work? Here are a few - and note that I call them principles, not unbreakable rules.

One, know what you are doing and what you are not. You are writing 100 words more or less, and in that space you need to convey as much information as possible. Briefs are where deathless prose goes to die. Forget effect. Know before you write anything the answer to this question: What is the story I need to tell? Your brief is a summary lede and nutgraph rolled into one. Think of it that way, and you're almost there.

Two, write in the active voice. Write declarative sentence with transitive verbs. Avoid passive verbs and sentences. Nothing slows a piece down like passive sentences, as it attempts to get quickly from here to there.

Three, avoid adjectives and adverbs. Modifiers take up space. Sometimes, of course, they're needed. Each of the above examples has a few. But they are used sparingly, as seasoning - a little salt, a little pepper.

Four, avoid quotations whenever possible. Few things take up more space and convey less specific information that a quotation. People generally do not speak as efficiently as you can paraphrase them. Often with quotations, you have to provide context, which then eats up more words. .

Four, try to avoid statistics and numbers that either are nonessential or require additional explanation. Example A, following, is preferable to Example B.

A. "In outstate elections, Jones was elected mayor of Nowhereville in a record landslide over the incumbent Smith." (17 words)

B. "Elsewhere in California, in the mayoral election in Nowhereville, the challenger Jones received 75 percent of the vote - the largest majority in the town's history -- while the incumbent Smith tallied only 25 percent." (35 words).

Six, use the word count program under Tools. If you are under the allotted space - say 100 word - first take the opportunity to see what else you can cut out without sacrificing information. See if you can use contractions such as isn't or won't. See if there are adjectives of adverbs that you can cut out. Look for long titles that can be compressed, (Tandem Bicycle head John Smith told analysts . . . " instead of John Smith, chairman and chief executive officer of Tandem Bicycles, told analysts . . . ) If you can take some space out, you'll be left with more room for important information - and still make your limit.

If you already are over the limit, you'll need to cut ruthlessly. This is where you triage words. Those that are precise and serve a load-bearing purpose in the brief get to live. Those that are merely decorative or vague, die. It's the same with facts. Those that are necessary to the story you need to tell can survive. Those that are merely interesting but serve no essential purpose are buried in the graveyard of worthless information.

Seven, reread your story. You're supposed to do this routinely with every story, but it's even more important with briefs. In a 100-word story, every word counts for more than it does in a 1,000-word story. You cannot afford any word that does not mean exactly what you want it to mean. You must look words up in the dictionary. You must be precise. You do not have room to be oblique or vague or merely close to the meaning you want to convey.

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