Islam: Reporting in Context and With Complexity
This collection of articles explores the challenges journalists encounter in their coverage of Islam in the wake of 9/11. Words and images that follow speak to these difficulties but also address ways in which journalists—and scholars who study Islam—are striving to anchor their work in a knowledgeable context and imbue it with essential layers of complexity.
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"Demonstrating the Craft of Writing"
– Tom Ehrenfeld
"Demonstrating the Craft of Writing"
– Tom Ehrenfeld
| 7. | Fear not the long sentence. Take the reader on a journey of language and meaning. |
| 9. | Let punctuation control pace and space. Learn the rules, but realize you have more options than you think. |
| 13. | Play with words, even in serious stories. Choose words the average reader avoids but the average reader understands. |
| 18. | Set the pace with sentence length. Vary sentences to influence the reader's speed. |
| 22. | Climb up and down the ladder of abstraction. Learn when to show, when to tell, and when to do both. |
| 25. | Learn the difference between reports and stories. Use one to render information, the other to render experience. |
| 28. | Put odd and interesting things next to each other. Help the reader learn from contrast. |
| 39. | Write toward an ending. Help readers close the circle of meaning. |
| 41. | Turn procrastination into rehearsal. Plan and write it first in your head. |
| 44. | Save string. For big projects, save scraps others would toss. |
