• The fact quote
• The "referring to" or "said of" quote
• The bracket crazy quote
• Jargon quote
• Fragmentary quote
• Echo quote
• Explanation quote
• Predictable, pedestrian and cliche quote
• Q tips
   

By Don Gibb

I had 15 minutes with Conservative leader Robert Stanfield in the newspaper cafeteria and the same length of time to write my story.

So I borrowed a tape recorder, thinking the only sensible strategy was to pepper him with questions in the hope of getting something worth writing.

I fired away. I didn’t have enough time to write down one answer before I fired the next question … but then, it was on tape and I could fill in the blanks as I was writing the story later.

Back at my desk, I turned on the tape recorder and listened as it repeated Stanfield’s words in an incomprehensible slow motion. The battery had died and along with it, the words of Robert Stanfield.

With only 15 minutes, I did all I could. Part of the story read something like this:

Conservative leader Robert Stanfield said if he becomes the next prime minister he will “look into” Canada’s health care system. He said it is important to “fix things” before they get worse. Stanfield said he saw it as his “duty” to tell Canadians his plans for “their future.”

Although this story is as much about the hazards of a tape recorder as about lousy quotes, you get the idea. The fragmentations above need no quotation marks. In fact, the words look silly with the added frills. They are only a disguise – a way to try to fool readers and editors and to avoid having to admit that I didn’t have a complete quote to use.

Quotes are an essential and effective writing tool when they are used properly. They lend authenticity to a story, they breathe life into it, they add credibility. And they allow readers to hear another voice. A story that lacks quotes is usually a pedestrian piece of passive writing.

But just as brilliant quotes bring a story to life, quotes used poorly or in heaping quantities can smother it. Quotes that do nothing more than introduce factual, routine information – easily paraphrased – drag down a story.

Here are some of the pitfalls:

THE FACT QUOTE

“We looking for a 2002 or 2003 blue Toyota,” the police inspector told reporters at the scene.

We have a reason for using such feeble quotes – we haven’t got anything else. And we know that’s a poor excuse.

Having been a victim of the find-a-quote-at-any-cost, I eventually turned finding good quotes into a game. I told myself that every interviewee had to earn a quote. It made me more alert to finding good ones and forced me to work harder in an interview when I wasn’t getting good quotes.

THE “REFERRING TO” OR “SAID OF” QUOTE

Here’s a quote from a story about Colorado Avalanche coach Bob Hartley taking the Stanley Cup to PPG automotive glass plant in his home town of Hawkesbury, Ont.

 “First thing I told him was you’re crazy,” Gerry Lemieux, an operator at the plant for the last 28 years, said of the day Hartley left PPG to coach the Hawkesbury Hawks of the Central Junior Hockey League in 1987.

 “Said of” and “referring to” quotes often need lengthy explanation. Often, the solution is to provide the background first as a lead-in to the quote. In this case:  Hartley left PPG in 1987 to coach the Hawkesbury Hawks of the Central Junior Hockey League. “First thing I told him was you’re crazy,” said Gerry Lemieux, an operator at the plant for the last 28 years.

THE BRACKET CRAZY QUOTE

In this quote, Darcy Tucker, of the Toronto Maple Leafs, is commenting on an incident where he was hurt in a playoff game:

 “If that’s (Detroit Red Wings centre) Steve Yzerman getting hit like that, (the NHL would review the play),” Tucker said, his left arm in a sling. “The other night (Yzerman) goes under and hits (Chris) Pronger (of the St. Louis Blues) like what happened with me and (Mike) Peca (in the first round of the playoffs). I get abused for it. I’m called a dirty player. But (Yzerman) does the exact same thing and he’s just trying to protest himself.”

This is subjecting readers to unnecessary pain and suffering. The need for so much bracketed material means you must paraphrase. By doing so, you also highlight –and keep -- the best part of the quote:  “I’m called a dirty player. But (Yzerman) does the exact  same thing and he’s just trying to protect himself.”

This bracket crazy quote, by the way, has all the signs of a tape recorder quote. It tends to be bloated and comes in a string of sentences.

JARGON QUOTE

Rather than explain a complex issue to readers by paraphrasing what a speaker said, we sometimes subject them to a speaker’s written words:

“Municipal legislation, ethical codes and policies are vague with respect to both the definition of conflict of interest and the responsibilities of the elected members of municipal councils who are in, or who encounter, conflicts of interest,” said the councillor. “This vagueness creates an increasingly untenable state of uncertainty and vulnerability for the elected members of municipal councils as well as undermining the legitimacy of those elected to council in the eyes of members of the public.”

No doubt this comes directly from a motion presented to city council, but it takes more than first-, second- and third-reading to get the point here. Such technical jargon cries out for paraphrasing:

Coun. Joan Jackson said municipal councillors trying to deal with possible conflicts of interest will get little help from vague guidelines in municipal legislation, ethical codes and other policies. Such vagueness creates uncertainty and vulnerability for councillors, she said, and undermines their legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

FRAGMENTARY QUOTE

If the point wasn’t made with the Stanfield partial quotes, here it is again:

The commissioner said his new job will be a “challenge.”

The quote marks add nothing. Challenge speaks for itself. However, if the words are unusual or show a person’s personality, that’s when a fragmentary or partial quote can work: The commission described his new job as “walking barefoot on hot coals every day.”

ECHO QUOTE

Hello … hello … where have I heard that before? Echo quotes result when a reporter paraphrases a person’s statement and repeats virtually the same material in a quote directly following the paraphrase:

The chief administrative officer said no layoffs will result from the loss of the $7-million contract. “There won’t be any layoffs as a result of the loss of this contract,” she said.

The simple solution is to make a decision on one or the other – to paraphrase or to quote.

THE EXPLANATION QUOTE

It’s really lazy reporting to expect the interviewee to do the heavy lifting by explaining – through a quote – how things work. The writer needs to understand how something works, but he doesn’t have to bore readers with the details:

“There are six- to eight-week programs offered in aerobics, dance, clubs and aquatics just to name a few. And the latest program is called step. It is a bench that you step up on to get your heart rate up. However, it is considered more low impact than aerobics and because there is less stress to the knees, the chance of injury is greatly reduced,” he said.

This is all factual information that is best paraphrased because the writer can say it more succinctly.

THE PREDICTABLE, PEDESTRIAN AND CLICHÉ QUOTE

They can be used over and over again:

“It was awesome.”

 “It was fun.”

“Thank God we have closure.”

The only good feature of these quotes is their length. In his book, The Craft of Interviewing, Tom Brady describes quotes as “brief, brilliant bursts of life.”

I once read that writers should try to keep quotes to one sentence. Two is OK, but three is usually one too many. It’s not a bad “rule” to keep in the back of your mind, especially for those who love to quote at length or regularly use a tape recorder.

So what does work? Quotes that give readers a glimpse into personality – that show emotion. Quotes that express a point of view. Quotes that don’t appear to have been rehearsed or taken from a press release.

Here are a few examples:

“I was so afraid of closing my eyes,” she recalled recently. “And it was so odd. There was no pain, no pain at all.” (A woman talking about the day a gunman tried to kill her.)

Apartments are so scarce that even veteran real estate agent Joan Wilson, who has to move in two months, can’t find a place. “I think I should fire myself.”

One final note about quotes – and that is dialogue. Dialogue is often overlooked by writers, but it does a wonderful job of taking readers into the scene. It could be an exchange between a lawyer and witness in court, between politicians in parliament or a reconstruction of a conversation that is vital to telling a story.

I like this dialogue from a Toronto Star story looking into the treatment of the elderly in Ontario’s nursing homes. A woman rushes to the nursing station, concerned about the smell coming from her mother:

“There’s a terrible smell from my mom,” Martina said, slightly embarrassed. “I think she may have soiled herself.”  “Don’t worry about it,” the nurse replied, “we’ll look into it.” Every day for more than two weeks, Martina asked the nurses for the source of that smell and each time  she was told not to worry, they’d look into it.

And this from a Globe story about the work of an ambulance crew:

Mr. Grayson takes over the case and patches the woman on to a portable heart monitor. “Is it a heart attack?” a nervous mother-in-law asks in halting English. “No. No,” Mr. Grayson says, “I wish my heart was this good.” “Thanks God,” the woman says, here hands folded upward in prayer.

So after all of this, what’s the real message?

Just as you double-check your story for accuracy, challenge your quotes to make sure they pass the test of being real, engaging and meaningful. Do not allow yourself to use a quote that doesn’t sound like something someone would say in a conversation.

If you read the quote aloud, you’ll get a better sense of how it sounds. Ask yourself: Does this sound as if the person is standing in front of me (or the reader) saying these words? Remember: a person’s gotta earn that quote.

(Don Gibb teaches reporting at Ryerson’s School of Journalism in Toronto.)  

    Q-TIPS

 1)      Keep them short.

2)      Paraphrase the routine.

3)      Use to capture emotion – joy, frustration, excitement, anger.

4)      Use to provide opinion, offer perspective.

5)      Use to highlight important information or testimony from documents, courts, parliament.

6)      Use to advance the story through narrative.

7)      Use to highlight material where the precise words are important.

8)      Use to support statements made in a story.

9)      Use to add colour.

10)  Use to bring another voice into your story.