To gain grace in writing one must either be born with a natural aptitude in the use of words—and such men: Stevenson, Poe, Walter Pater and others, are geniuses—or one must study the writings of these masters of prose and attempt to discover the secret of their success. It is not necessary that a good writer should know rules of grammar, but he must know enough to observe them. A writer may be unable to tell why a dangling participle is faulty English by testing it with a rule, but he may nevertheless avoid such a construction because his ear tells him it is not the best style.
Copies of the best grammars may be found in the office library and should be consulted when reporters and copy readers are in doubt.
SIMPLICITY
In character, in manners, in style and in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.—Longfellow.
NOTES
DICTION
The newspaper writer must beware of two pitfalls in writing: Fine writing and dialect. Stilted English, pompous and high-sounding, is in just as bad taste as garish clothing or pungent perfume. Reporters often give to their stories a wordy and turgid flavor by their refusal to repeat a word, preferring a synonym. One often sees such sentences as this: "The policeman took his pistol away as he was about to shoot at the bluecoat's partner, another officer of the law." This is a quite unnecessary avoidance of the repetition of the word policeman.