Friday, December 16 reported speech

 What you have below is Friday's work on paraphrasing and direct quotes.  The previous assignment on leads is for two days (Wednesday and Thursday), but about a third of you already completed it, so you may wish to get ahead, and I will not be able to post this on Friday.

The rules for quotations are direct, but take the time to familiarize yourself with them, before completing the assignment.

Send along as usual.  Thank you.

Enjoy your weekend.

Today's work continues with quotations. This time you are simplifying, paraphrasing, using reported language and correcting 8 leads.  Read carefully. Yours might not look like your neighbor's.

Learning Target: I can recognize and correct weak news leads and add in effective quotations.

Paraphrasing

When paraphrasing information, attribute it to a source at the beginning or end of a sentence.

Example: Several factors could determine how quickly a fire engulfs a resident’s room, Frederick said.

Important rule: It is always said. Don’t use pointed out, claimed or any other verb that could be perceived as biased.

A person’s name or a pronoun always precedes said.

Always attribute information that came from a source and is not general knowledge.

DIRECT QUOTES

If the quote is one sentence, attribution for direct quotes goes at the end of the quote.

Example: “Shouting is not going to help,” McCaskill said.

If the quote is more than one sentence, the attribution goes after the first sentence and before the rest of the quote.

Example: “My job is to represent the people of Missouri,” she said. “Period.”

INSTRUCTIONS: Rewrite the following  eight quotations more simply as paraphrases. Also correct any errors in grammar and  punctuation. Correct for jargon, difficult vocabulary, long sentences and wordiness. Note that Associated Press (AP) style allows for contractions.

1. “To tell you the truth, I would, uh, I’d be disinclined to recommend buying any shares of General Motors at this, uh, present moment in time,” the financial planner said.      
2. “I want to tell you that, like, uh, you know man, what we’re aiming for is to get everybody to realize that, uh, suicide is never an acceptable option for anyone under any circumstances, not even like, uh, the terminally ill,” she said.
3. “My brother was driving down this road and, uh, at first I didn’t know what happened. Like I wasn’t watching the road or nothing and didn’t know what the hell it was.  Then, uh, so I looked out the back window and saw this kid lying all bloody and dead on the road.  Then I knew what we’d hit,” he said.
4. “In the end, there will be winners and losers in any sporting event, but the new rules on taunting are much needed to prevent winners from creating a negative atmosphere in sporting contests. Spiking a football in the end zone or raising one’s arms in triumph is one thing, but it is another, as many people on this panel have pointed out, to stand in front of someone taunting them or throwing the ball at them and cursing at them. Referees and officials need to control the game and these new rules are designed to help them do just that,” the commissioner of the NCAA said.
5. “Although there have been advances in finding a vaccine for HIV, there are still too many cases worldwide and not enough effort by the industrialized nations to fund research to defeat this scourge. It will take the combined efforts of many nations to make the medical breakthroughs necessary to overcome this disease,” the representative of the World Health Organization said.
6. Jeffrey R. Ahsonn said, “Fishing is a great sport enjoyed by millions of people, young and old. Like many people who learned to fish at a young age, my dad got me hooked on fishing—no pun intended. I can remember early mornings when fog still shrouded the lake or warm, lazy summer afternoons when my dad would grab his rod and reel and say, ‘Come on, son, it’s time to see if the fish are biting.’ I have such great memories of those times.”
7. “I will never understand how any responsible legislature would pass, or any state representative or senator in their right mind would vote for, or any governor who would willingly sign legislation that would allow drivers of automobiles to drive without using seatbelts. I never, never in my life, thought that this state would consider repealing the state’s mandatory seatbelt laws. If any law was ever more effective in saving the lives of the state’s motorists, I have not seen it. This is, what can I say, insanity run wild,” the director of Mercy Hospital said today.
8. “There is a greater likelihood that children living in a single-parent household that is headed by a male parent will have medical insurance than a single-parent household headed by a female parent. Research has found that 40 percent of children living with a male single parent have health insurance coverage while only 19% of children living with a female single parent have such coverage”. Said Health and Human Services spokesperson Jenna Olivetti.