Pulled Quotes

The SATs are a frightening part of high school. To sit in a room for four hours while taking a standardized exam sends chills down my spine. In addition to the Math and various English segments, the SATs are now including a writing comprehensive section. That is something I would not have a problem with, writing is easy, it is the multiple choice that gets you.

Studies are showing that the writing portion of this exam predicts a student’s GPA after their freshman year of college. Really? That is very interesting, but how? Many students struggle with standardized exams and do poorly because of the pressure. I would like to know how this can predict one’s grades if he simply does poorly on the SATs, but extremely well his freshman year? I could believe there might be a correlation, but a prediction? I just don’t know about that, it seems a little too in-depth and too extreme to predict for something so unpredictable.

Critical linguistic commentary on story, More than 1,000 flee from Calif. wildfire

This story is remarkably straightforward and solid.  No fluff, no editorializing, no unneeded quotation are on offer.  Word choice is professional, yet still creative at times.  Take, for instance, the phrase “wildfire slowly chewed its way…” in the lead.  Chewed here exemplifies interesting, descriptive word choice.  So does “A fixed-wing water tanker,” which differentiates the plane from the aforementioned helicopters, while sounding brighter than simply “airplane.”  

The one and only quote is worthy of its use.  It comes from the main source in the story–a relevant one, by the way–who tells that the fire is “pretty serious,” and provides needed information that the author now doesn’t have to add: “Some of these areas have not burned in over 40 years.”  That there aren’t other quotes is smart because the story is well-rounded and complete as is.  Interviewing evacuees of homes might have been the next seemingly pertinent option in line, but, since no homes have been damaged yet, their words would have done little to add to the story as it currently reads, for the interviewees likely wouldn’t have had anything important to say. 

To criticize the writer a little (after all, I claimed “critical” linguistic critique), he/she could have clarified a sentence by reordering it or adding a comma. It is written “…a San Gabriel Mountains foothill community of about 11,000 popular with artists.”  This sounds funny.  It should either read “…a foothill community popular with artists of about 11,000″ or “…a foothill community of about 11,000, popular with artists.  I know the author is trying to save space and trying to put the newsworthy population figure ahead of the town’s less dire popularity with artists.  However, if length restraint keeps a “that” or “which” out of this sentence–which would make it sound a whole lot better–, newsworthiness should keep the comment about artist out too.  Besides, such an aside makes me wonder if it artists like to live there, or if it is a great subject for paintings.  

The author ends the story well, noting that another fire is burning outside of San Diego.  This reassures the reader that they now know everything crucial that concerns this fire.  It also establishes a related, important fact, without going into a new story.  

In April 21st USA Today on page 3A there was an article written by Chris Joyner called “Cremation industry awaits tougher controls.” While I thought that this article was very well written, I did encounter a few problems, well issues that I personally thought were some problems. I felt like the writer did more background research more than personal, interview type of research. While there was a good amount of information provided to the reader, it kind of felt like a tease because the writer didn’t supply enough detail on all the information provided.  I also would have liked to see more quotes from more sources. I also had some questions that I felt were left answered in the article. First off, what does Joyner mean by regulating cremation? How do they regulate? What are these regulations in each state? How do they determine between honest and dishonest operators? Or is there nothing to determine this by?  I also wanted to know why do they think people are choosing cremation lately? Why do they think the rate of people choosing cremation has increased? Even though having the writer’s opinion would be bias to the article, it would have been interesting to know; instead the writer could have quoted someone who gathered these statistics.

The last thing about the article was while I thought that lead of the article was great, I did think that it sounded more like a feature lead more than like a straight news lead. Even though there is no problem with feature leads, I felt like the rest of the article didn’t seem to fit into a feature news story.