Reading Journal Three

This week I paid special attention to the use of quotes in articles, since this was an aspect of my second news article I did not do so well! I decided that I do not necessarily like the use of quotes in all articles, and sometimes find it more affective when the writer simply says, ‘so-and-so has said’. Often I found that the direct quotes were a little bit weak and did not necessarily add to the story as a whole, but were added out of necessity –so that it is believed the writer actually spoke with the interviewee at hand.

For example: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/nyregion/24newark.html?ref=mark_e_zuckerberg

In this article the quotes are not very descriptive and they do not offer anything more to the story than what the writer could not have explained himself. They are also included in the same paragraph as the other writing- something that Prof. Chaplin advised me not to do. Probably, placing quotes in their own paragraph is an older form of news writing and not as necessary/ strictly followed in online news.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/nyregion/24newark.html?ref=mark_e_zuckerberg

This article I found to be very informative, and used no quotes at all. It is also much more direct and to the point, perhaps adding more of the writer’s voice than other news pieces on the same story, but I appreciate it and do not find that it detracts from the objective authoritative-ness of the writer either. There is one quote at the bottom of the article that is entirely pointless, and a little bit abrupt since it is the only quote.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-facebooks-founding-face,0,2058473.story

here is another example of quotes used where I did not find the quotes to be so necessary. They are all right, but somehow distract me from the tone the writer has set, and I find that quotes are typically not as article as the rest of the piece, so they have a tendency to throw it all off.

http://atlanticwire.theatlantic.com/opinions/view/opinion/The-Life-and-Philosophy-of-Mark-Zuckerberg-5003

I do like quotes used in this way though! It is not a standard format of a news story, so I feel like the quotes work better. This article is set up with bullet points, and the quotes are placed in their own box on the page. They are completely on their own, and do not even have quotation marks or a she said afterwards. It is implied, and set off by a colon. I think this is my favorite use of quotes in an article, where the quotes actually make up the beef of the story and are a necessary aspect to the story and a part of the writers intention when beginning the article.