Broadcast News and Writing Stylebook, 5th Edition

CHAPTER 6
	Sentences

Ultimately, words and phrases are fashioned into sentences—which, of course, are fashioned into stories. Keep broadcast sentences short, simple and straightforward. the most common grammatical sentence structure in English is subject-verb-object. That’s what we’re used to; that’s the way we generally speak; and that’s going to be the easiest sentence structure for the audience to understand. Use it often.

KEEP IT SHORT

Broadcast writers are frequently told to keep sentences short. There are two overriding principles.

First, there’s only so much information that the audience can absorb into the brain through the ear ...