At the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Center for Editing Excellence at the University of Texas at Austin, a two-week long boot camp for college students selected to be interns at papers such as The Dallas Morning News, The Denver Post, the Houston Chronicle, the San Antonio Express-News and the Colorado Springs Gazette, all of the instructors focus on critical elements of copy editing. Instructors focus on reducing wordiness, checking ac-curacy, following rules of style and improving the quality of every single story, caption and headline in the publication.
Griff Singer, the director of the center, says, “a good newspaper thinks before it publishes.” And he developed a list of what makes a good publication.
- Accuracy
- Fairness
- It’s interesting
- Assumes reader intelligence
- Audits the community
- Loves and respects the community
- It’s diverse in content and approach to the news
- Independent
- Shows energy, hustle, doggedness, wit
- Accepts criticism gracefully
- Has class and good taste
- Can laugh at itself and be outrageous for good cause
- Uses restraint and care
The Local Angle
To help N.C. State University Student Media improve, we’ve developed this stylebook to assist students in improving their consistency and accuracy.
This stylebook is NOT
- A replacement for The Associated Press Stylebook. Some entries in this local style guide are exceptions to AP style.
- A replacement for a good dictionary.
- An excuse to be a lazy reporter.
It is one more resource in the arsenal for reporters and editors. Use it wisely.
Stylebook Editors
1997 – Stephanie Bullock
Technician copy desk chief
2003 – Amy Bissinger
Technician copy desk chief
2005 – Tyler Dukes
Technician news editor
Bradley Wilson
Student media adviser
