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Bounty hunting
Mistakes in professional media students have flagged to earn points as bounty hunters.
8/28/04
"I'm not sure if this would count towards any Bounty Hunter points, but I found the following error in an article from today's Ithaca Journal:
'Numerous attempts to contact Church Friday were unsuccessful On Friday
afternoon, a mattress and other household items could be seen stacked
against the wall on a front porch at the University Avenue house, and two
young men there appeared to be moving things.'
There should be a period (.) between in the first sentence between "unsuccessful" and "On."
The article is titled, "Landlord accused of filming women" and can be
found at: http://www.ithacajournal.com/news/stories/20040828/localnews/1132643.html
From PrfBond: Yes, the period is missing. Also, there should be an "on" between Church and Friday. Also, the line that "two young men appeared to be moving things" is an example of needlessly hedging your bets. If the line read that the men were moving out, then there is an assumption being made and "appeared to be" may be necessary. But we should avoid such assumptions, and the reporter did avoid the assumption. Since the reporter is simply making the observation that they are moving things, and not making any assumptions about why or to where, then the "appeared to be" is unnecessary.
8/30/04
"I'm not sure if AP style errors count, but I found one in this Monday's
issue of the Ithaca Journal. Here is a link to the story: http://www.ithacajournal.com/news/stories/20040830/localnews/1140980.html
The style error is that they capitalize State Route 13, when according to
AP, it should be either state Route 13 or just Route 13.
8/31/04
"Another article I found a grammar article is in the same section and on the
same page, "Glyph Opens Commons tech Store," Roger DuPuis II. It's the beginning of the second sentence, "But Glyph Technologies is admittedly aiming at different audience with their new store on The Commons." Glyph technology is a singular subject and uses a singular verb and then on second reference it receives a plural pronoun.
(http://www.ithacajournal.com/news/stories/20040831/localnews/1146579.html)
9/1/04
"I believe I found another error that could have been caused by transferring articles online. Here is the link.
http://www.cleveland.com/sports/plaindealer/roger_brown/index.ssf?/base/sports/1093858210204330.xml
NBC's coverage of track and field was outstanding. It had solid work from
personalities Lewis Johnson, Marty Liquori, Carol Lewis, Tom Feuer and
Dwight Stones, offered great camera angles and gave equal exposure to
U.S. and foreign competitors.
There seems to be some words or perhaps punctuation missing that
leads to confusion."
From PrfBond: I don't think I see an outright error. But there is a minor case of confusion here. The second sentence simply has a compound verb.
"It had solid ....
offered great camera angles,
and gave equal exposure."
What's confusing is that included in there is a list of the personalities, Lewis Johnson, Marty Liquori, Carol Lewis, Tom Feuer and Dwight Stones.
Having a list of names -- separated by commas -- nested within a list of verbs separated by commas could get confusing. To avoid confusion, a writer could use dashes to separate the lists so the reader does not lose track of what the commas are separating.
So, the line could be improved with:
"It had solid work from personalities -- Lewis Johnson, Marty Liquori, Carol Lewis, Tom Feuer and Dwight Stones -- offered great camera angles and gave equal exposure to U.S. and foreign competitors."
9/3/04
"hip-hip on the last page of the article
http://www.time.com/time/election2004/article/0,18471,686064,00.html"
Here's a suggested catch that did not turn out to be an error, but this discussion could be helpful to some:
8/30/04
"I found a paragraph that I think incorrectly uses 'which' instead of 'that.' The link is
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2767852, it's from the Houston Chronicle (my home paper) on the Supreme Court ruling on a fetus not a person. In the fourth paragraph, it says:
The Texas Legislature in 2003 passed the Prenatal Protection Act, which defines "individual" to include an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization to birth.
I feel like the definition is essential to the story, and according to the Handbook essential clauses should use 'that' and not use a comma. I'm honestly not sure if I'm right about this, but I think the clause is essential to the story; otherwise there is no reason to even mention the Act."
From PrfBond: "The test is to try the sentence without the clause in question:
"The Texas Legislature in 2003 passed the Prenatal Protection Act."
An essential clause would be one that would change the meaning of the sentence if it was omitted. But in this case there is no loss of clarity because we still know which act is being referred to.
The example in my styleboook is:
"Reporters who do not read the stylebook should not criticize their editors."
If we remove the clause, the meaning changes:
"Reporters should not criticize their editors."
The first one limits the kinds of reporters who can't criticize; the second one states that ALL reporters should not criticize their editors.
So, one way of thinking of it is that the essential clause can limit or crucially modify the noun. The other term for an essential clause is a RESTRICTIVE clause.
Yes, the definition is essential to the story, but not to the sentence. The sentence you gave me stands fine without the clause.
Sorry, no points on that one, but you're watching copy carefully, so that is great.
"Students in the Newark Valley school district will have more room to
enjoy concerts, a new workout area and more classroom space as part of a $19.6 million buildling project is now under way."
-- "Newark Valley school district eases space crunch."
The Ithaca Journal. 1B. Sept. 21, 2004.
The sentence does not flow right. There should be a "that" between the words "project" and "is."
From PrfBond: Absolutely, that would fix it. It almost reads as if the writer forgot there was already a verb in the sentence. One point.
I found a spelling error on the front page of The Wall Street Journal today. In the fourth column story about busy Spaniards taking siestas anywhere, the word Madrilenos--meaning people from Madrid--was spelled wrong. The word was spelled as I have spelled it here instead of how it should be spelled, which would be with a tilden over the "n." (I don't know why to type that character in an e-mail.
FROM PRFBOND: A-hah! You had trouble creating the tilden -- so did they. When this comes up on the news desk, there simply is no way to create these characters in QuarkXpress. The only thing we can do is write the word without the foreign symbols as best we can. It's not an error. It's just a fact of American typography.
I think I found two errors in an article in today's issue of the Ithaca Journal. The story was headlined, Vietnam veterans watch for missing, and was written by Jennie Daley. It ran on the front page. The first error I found was a missing comma. The sentence as printed read:
Recently the remains of a Chemung County native, Robert H. Schuler Jr. who had been missing in action for almost 30 years, were found. There needs to be another comma after the period in Jr. as that is non-essential information. The second error I found I'm not completely sure of. The phrase in question was, "a rendition of taps are planned." First of all, I think "taps" should be capitalized. According the Web sites I looked at, it is the official name of the song, though thedictionary does not capitalize. Secondly, I think it should be a rendition of Taps IS planned, and not, a rendition of Taps ARE planned.
From PrfBond: You're right about the missing comma. But taps is not capitalized. This came up on our news desk recently, and that was the ruling of our slot person. The best answer is that it is not a song title, but simply a bugle call. Like the bugle call for -- charge, retreat or reveille, played to wake up soldiers in the morning. You are correct that it should take a singular verb. Two points.
Found some more errors in today's Ithaca Journal. In an article headlined "Cornell raptor barn approved," by Roger DuPuis II, there is a capitalization error. It says, professor John E. Parks, but it should be (as we learned from the reading!!) Professor John E. Parks--capitalize the title professor when it precedes a name.
From PrfBond: You are correct. You get the point.
However, they aren't wrong. There is a conflict between our textbook and the AP Stylebook, which reads:
"professor -- Never abbreviate. Lowercase before a name. Do not continue in second reference unless part of a quotation."
Why does it say that? Beats me. I don't agree with that. But the Ithaca Journal is following the AP Style guideline. Good catch by you, though.
Ed Bond
Not sure if this counts as bounty hunter points, but I figured I'd try. On the official site of the Boston Red Sox, in the game wrap-up story, I spotted a spelling inconsistency:
"Pedro Astacio relieved Schilling to start the eighth, but his day proved to be short-lived. His first pitch was behind Lofton. The umpires obviously felt it was retaliation for the Mientkiewicz-Lofton incident earlier in the game, and ejected Astaco. Both sides were warned."
They have Pedro Astacio's name spelled both "Astacio" and "Astaco." I'm 99% sure its the former.
From PrfBond: It doesn't count. The Red Sox Web site is not produced by journalists. It's on the level of a press release. ESPN counts, but not the Red Sox. Sorry.
I've found some more errors, this time in an article on ESPN.com. Again, I'm not sure if you accept journalism from Internet sites, but I thought I'd at least give it a try.
In the article "Flash of Yankee pride," I found two names that were misspelled:
"Johnny Peske's still a presence in the Red Sox's clubhouse, and has been foolishly banned from their bench by Major League Baseball." Johnny's last name is spelled "Pesky."
And also:
"And, although you never hear Dave Roberts say anything negative about anyone -- not even Brad Halsey who threw at him Sunday or Paul DePodesto who traded him from his beloved Dodgers -- Roberts is certainly a Schilling supporter."
Paul's last name is spelled "DePodesta."
Link to the article: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1889714
From PrfBond: OK, that counts for two points. Again, I'll accept it from any professional media. But not fan sites or sites sponsored by the teams.
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