Some common errors in the Fountain Day/Tulip Festival stories we can all learn from

1. Use only two verbs to describe people talking: SAID or SAY. Any other word will be colored by a little nuance you don't want in your story.

Where SAID or SAY is neutral and plain, CLAIM indicates the person speaker is lying or that you think they may be lying. As in "Hillary Clinton claims to have seen snipers in Bosnia."

STATE or AVER means the speaker spoke forcefully or with feelings, and if they just SAID something that is an inaccuracy.

You cannot really "laugh" words, although that is something I see in copy all the time.

2. Leads are not opening paragraphs in an English paper. If you pose a question, use a quote or write more than three lines, I am giving the lead back to you for reworking. Try to summarize or illustrate the main idea of your story in that first SHORT sentence.

3. You as reporter and the reader as audience are not really buddies. Keep some distance. Don't talk about "our school" or "our country" or "the war we are waging." Your interest in reporting is getting at all sides and possibilities of the truth, not, like the reader who is allowed to have a "side" he's pulling for.

4. Please try in writing journalism not to give your editor -- professor -- what you think she wants to hear. The many stories about Fountain Day that came in claiming that it's as much fun now that things are tamed down and "safe" just do not ring true. Sean Bailey scored the best and most real quote from one of his sources who said. "My freshman year things were so much better. They made it so overly obvious it was organized by some geeks and the school. It went from a college party to a corny kiddy festival with a castle bounce."

5. You cannot do journalism without talking to people and using their voices. If you did a lot of research and wrote the most authoritative report in university history, it's still a report and not a STORY. These efforts got an F.