Aimed at those pursuing careers in creating public prose, this is the definitive handbook for aspiring journalists. Offering budding writers suggestions on how to improve their skills—even when faced with a tight deadline—this guide also reviews many elements essential to the occupation such as utilizing strong nouns and verbs, paring down adjectives and adverbs, describing with concrete detail, and avoiding clichés and the passive voice. Going beyond a standard presentation of information, this reference encourages students to put its methods into practice, making each and every word count and maintaining the appropriate energy level in their content. With expert analyses of real-world articles, this book also provides advice on avoiding poor sentence structure that can kill reader interest and includes perspectives on diversity sensitivity. Accessible, humorous, and engaging, this revised edition offers a practical approach for those seeking to improve their communication skills.

Robert M. Knight has written for nearly 40 publications and news services, chief among them the Chicago Tribune and its Sunday magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, Reuters and the Washington Post. He is a former senior editor and broadcast editor of the City News Bureau of Chicago, and is a past president of the Chicago Headline Club chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. A veteran journalist, he began his career with United Press International in Denver and Albuquerque and spent several years as a print and broadcast reporter in New Mexico. A graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Knight earned his master’s degree at DePaul University in Chicago.