First, we should master the basic knowledge of news business skillfully, so that after reading a manuscript carefully, we can understand what should be supplemented and refined.
First, look at the "five elements of news" is incomplete?
The second is to see if the joints that must be explained clearly have been explained clearly.
The third is to see if the refining of ideas has been done. In my opinion, these three items are very important for making up a good news.
Second, editors should practice the skills of cutting "general": you should cut off the "stone" part of the manuscript drastically; Where it is attached to the jade, you must carve it carefully.
In years of editing practice, I think our editing is "rough". What is "Pu"? The annotation of Ci Hai is: There is jade in one stone. The manuscript in our editor's hand, like Pu, is the life of jade. We edited the manuscript and removed its stone part to reveal its jade luster. In this general school, some places are full of stones, so you should cut them drastically, and some places are stuck with jade, so you should carve them carefully.
I think, of course, we have to do that for the manuscripts of correspondents and journalists, and we also need to treat the manuscripts of famous celebrities equally.
Third, we should respect and retain the author's style.
Needless to say, as an editor, we should respect and retain the author's style when dealing with manuscripts.
The so-called author's style, generally speaking, has four points:
First, the vision is clear;
Second, fresh materials;
Third, novel reporting forms and expressions;
The fourth is that the language is bright and fresh.
1during July, 1984, I asked Comrade Dong Youqin (who later became the deputy editor-in-chief of Zhejiang Daily) who was working in the general office of the provincial party committee to write a speech. The topic of the speech is: "Tell me something about' mother-in-law'", with 850 words. At that time, I compared the style requirements of the above-mentioned authors and found that all the articles met the requirements. In particular, the author uses metaphor and discussion to discuss the truth that others have not discussed, which is very simple and distinctive. Obviously, this is the author's style of writing. At that time, I only changed a dozen words, respecting and retaining the author's style. After Zhejiang Daily was published in July of that year 12, People's Daily reprinted it on July 29th. I checked it from beginning to end and found that the People's Daily didn't change a word, not even a punctuation mark. This shows how important it is to respect and preserve the author's style! As you can imagine, if I modified it at will, it would probably bring the consequences of "gilding the lily"!
Editor-in-chief Yang Dajin told us that some of our young friends don't respect and retain the author's style when editing, or delete the author's fresh things and stale things together when abridging a long manuscript, just like splashing baby bath water; Or the author's manuscript likes to be modified according to his own writing habits; Or what a pity it is to delete it without carefully examining the author's hard work and understanding the author's meticulous writing! Therefore, it is conceivable that the author has opinions on these amendments.
I quite agree with this view: try not to change what can or cannot be changed. Especially synonyms, the author uses "classroom", why should it be changed to "classroom"? The author likes to use "more and more fierce", why do we have to change it to "more and more fierce"!
Of course, some of our editors still respect and retain the author's style. For example, this is the case with the editor of "Making the Prime Minister Do Mass Work at Wrong Time" (the first edition of Zhejiang Daily on May 9).
If this is a lead, the word 197 (including punctuation, the same below) accounts for 25.6% of the total number of 77 1 words, which is a bit long, but the editor thinks that this is the author's careful work, with fresh materials, strong sense of scene, strong timeliness and close connection with the full text, so it is kept as it is. Obviously, this is a clever and capable editor.