Interview with Paula LaRocque
Interview by Jenna Glatzer

Paula is a writing coach, newspaper editor, and frequent speaker at workshops and seminars for journalists.  She has served as a writing consultant for the Associated Press Washington Bureau, and writes regular columns about writing for magazines and newspapers.  She has been called a "writer's writer," and it's easy to understand why once you take a peek at her book, Championship Writing: 50 Ways to Improve Your Writing.  Fifty columns that originally appeared in Quill Magazine comprise this book, and it is a terrific resource for all writers who want to learn how to write clearly and effectively.

How did you get started as a writer?

I taught writing in universities for 10 years before joining The Dallas Morning News as, first, writing coach and, later, as assistant managing editor.  I began writing professionally while I was still in academe.  Early in my teaching career, I worked steadily as a "stringer" for the local newspaper, and at one point I didn't teach summer classes so I could accept the newspaper's offer of a fulltime position during the summer.  I wrote features and the religion pages during that summer.  It was an experience that dovetailed nicely with my university work, which at the time was teaching technical communication in Western Michigan University's School of Engineering.

By "dovetailed," I mean that my interest was engaged by what goes into clear, brief, warm and interesting informational writing.  When I moved to Texas A&M University, I thought what I had learned both as a writer and a teacher of writing would be valuable to media professionals.  I resolved to teach journalism at A&M if I could talk the communications school folks into hiring me.  They did.

I love and have taught and done all kinds of writing, but the work I'm best known for focuses on effective informational writing -- including the more creative or "softer" informational writing such as features or profiles.

Some writers like to use big words and convoluted descriptions because  they're afraid that simple language is "dumbing down" their work.  How do you respond to this?

I could write a book about this problem.  (In fact, I did!)

Briefly, the best way to persuade writers that pretentiousness and fuzziness are worthless is to show them someone else's "showy" work rewritten into a readily understood form.  Fact is, simplicity never dumbs anything down; it just makes it readable and accessible.  Making the complex accessible is the business of real communication.  Those who cannot transmit complex ideas clearly are of no more use than those who cannot entertain complex ideas in the first place.

Beyond that, when we see that grandstanding is as transparent and unattractive on the page as it is in life, we lose the desire to impress rather than to communicate.  And we grow up a little professionally.

What are some ways we can get rid of deadwood and redundancies in our  work?

Takes practice.  But with practice, we quickly identify our favorite wordy constructions.  After we've changed "at this point in time" to "now" in our copy three or four times, we'll stop writing it in the first place -- and self-editing will be easier.  We also want to remember that the better we are at conversational writing -- a GOOD thing -- the surer we can be that the work will be wordy.  Speech is notoriously wordy.  We'll remember that the FIRST thing to do is to blow off the chaff.  It's easier to edit tight copy.

Pronouns are a common problem spot for writers. Are there any quick  tricks for remembering which pronouns to use in different situations?

There are plenty of tricks, but nothing takes the place of understanding the grammar of pronouns in the first place.  It's worth the effort: Once learned is always learned.

What's a Fred Zimmerman lead, and how can we tell a good one from a bad  one?

A "Zimmerman" lead is the media writer's most common device for humanizing a story:  Grab someone from the body of the story and plop him or her in the lead.  The good Zimmerman is a real representative for the story's main points who says and does the right (that is, INTERESTING) things, things that illumine or amplify.  A bad Zimmerman is boring, strained or off the point.  The quickest way to tell a bad Zimmerman? When the writer drops the "lead" person right away, perhaps never to return . . .

What are some predictable leads we should avoid?

One-word leads.  Question leads to which the answer is" no," "who cares?" or "beats the hell outta me."  List leads.  Trendy expression leads. There are lots of specific examples of boring and predictable leads in my book.

Many writers try to use a source's exact words, fearing that if they leave out one "really" or "basically," they'll have misquoted. Can and  should we ever paraphrase?

We need fewer direct quotes in stories than we commonly suppose.  Why use a source's exact words if those words are not accurate, clear, brief and bright?  Should we litter a story with dull, inaccurate, fuzzy words -- who wants to read such stuff?  The paraphrase is the intelligent, precise and interesting writer's best friend.  After all, a writer or reporter is a thinking medium, not a tape recorder.  And, used correctly, the paraphrase is also the SOURCE'S best friend.

Okay, let's tackle a common grammar issue.  When does punctuation belong  inside quotes and parentheses, and when does it belong outside?

In American English, periods and commas ALWAYS go within quotation marks.  That's the only quick and easy thing to say about such matters.

Other punctuation varies, depending upon the sentence and intent.  The matter is too voluminous for a brief discussion but, by way of example, the treatments below are correct:

*Are you reading the play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
*Are you reading the play "Three Sisters"?

The question mark is within the quotation marks in the first example because it's part of a proper noun -- the play's title.  A question mark is a terminal point, meaning we use just one.  So in this case, that single question mark has to serve for both proper noun and entire sentence.

*He said he was toying (!) with the notion of quitting his job.
*He said he was toying (can you believe it?) with the notion of quitting his job.
*He said he was toying with the notion of quitting his job (don't know why).
*He said he was toying with the notion of quitting his job.  (Don't ask me why.)

Is it ever appropriate for a writer to express his or her opinion in a  news article?

Not in a news article.  There are places for opinion in the newspaper, but those places are either understood (editorial or op ed pages) or labeled ("Analysis" or "Commentary," or some such).  The readers should be able to expect objective coverage in news stories -- unless otherwise informed.

(By the way, notice how parentheses, quotation marks and punctuation were treated in the above passage.)

Besides your book, what resources do you recommend for budding journalists? 

Strunk and White's Elements of Style.  William Zinsser, William Blundell, James B. Stewart and Jacques Barzun have valuable and various works on writing and editing.  Grammar and usage:  Henry Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage; Wilson Follet's Modern American Usage.

Can writers swipe quotes from other writers' articles?

No swiping.  But borrowing?  Yes, in itsy-bitsy chunks IF we say we are (that is, if we credit writer, source and publication), and even then only if the material is very brief.

Let's say I'm  writing an article about health care, and I want to use a quote from Bill  Clinton that I found in a newspaper article. Can I, and if so, how do I  attribute the quote?

It depends.  Academic writing has a stringent form for documentation that varies from newspaper and magazine style.  For ordinary use, one could write something like:  As Bill Clinton reportedly told Jim Smith of The Daily Beacon on May 30: "The health crisis we see now is exactly the crisis we predicted when I first became president."

Still: If the quote were longer, provocative, or just more substantial, we're better off doing our own work -- conducting our own interviews, gathering our own material.  Then you KNOW that's what was said.

What's one thing you wish you'd learned earlier about journalism?

Hmm.  Good question.  The answer is nothing.  I don't mean that I went into journalism knowing everything there was to know, but that there was nothing I learned as time wore on that would have altered my course had I known it earlier.

Order Championship Writing here, or visit the publisher's website for more information.  You can read an excerpt from this book here.

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