Some more Cutler controversy.

[FirstTimer]

You got it.

You're 14? For realz?

 

[bossdrb]

You're 14? For realz?

Lol. Yeah.

 

[FirstTimer]

Lol. Yeah.

What sportswriters do you read?

 

[bossdrb]

What sportswriters do you read?

Michael Wilbon is my favorite, personally. I occassionally look at some stuff online. Zack and Jimmy Mac I followed on Bleacher Report.

Like I said, I know I need to spend more work on my stuff. I usually do, I've just been tryin' to get quick things out. I'm more of an opinion writer for now, 'cause it can be more controversial.

 

[FirstTimer]

Michael Wilbon is my favorite, personally. I occassionally look at some stuff online. Zack and Jimmy Mac I followed on Bleacher Report.

Like I said, I know I need to spend more work on my stuff. I usually do, I've just been tryin' to get quick things out. I'm more of an opinion writer for now, 'cause it can be more controversial.

There's your issue.

Don't start off doing that. Start off as a reporter. Doing game recaps etc. Lots of reasons for that but the main few revolve around it allowing you to really watch the game and learn to understand it up close....rather than being the lawyer equivalent of an ambulance chaser.

Also, going for "opinion" because it can be controversial is basically setting yourself up to be a story whore and turning into Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti, two of the least respected people in the industry. Most times though they stir "controversy" their writing is incredible subpar, non-factual, and borderline immoral.

Basically work on being a reporter first....understand what you are writing about fully before you jump into making "controversial" article because if you don't know your stuff and sport really well your writing will come off as juvenile..no matter how old or young you are. I spent 7 years doing stats and radio play by play and color commentary before I started my talk radio show. Have to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run etc etc.

 

[bossdrb]

There's your issue.

Don't start off doing that. Start off as a reporter. Doing game recaps etc. Lots of reasons for that but the main few revolve around it allowing you to really watch the game and learn to understand it up close....rather than being the lawyer equivalent of an ambulance chaser.

Also, going for "opinion" because it can be controversial is basically setting yourself up to be a story whore and turning into Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti, two of the least respected people in the industry. Most times though they stir "controversy" their writing is incredible subpar, non-factual, and borderline immoral.

Basically work on being a reporter first....understand what you are writing about fully before you jump into making "controversial" article because if you don't know your stuff and sport really well your writing will come off as juvenile..no matter how old or young you are. I spent 7 years doing stats and radio play by play and color commentary before I started my talk radio show. Have to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run etc etc.

I hate Skip Bayless. I see your point, but I voice what I see and my honest opinion...I'm not dumb like him. He loves the opposite of what should be loved. I have a general majority opinion but I have some that don't agree.

On CCS, I'm more of an opinion writer. But on B/R, I'll do some more factual reads.

Thanks.

 

[FirstTimer]

I hate Skip Bayless. I see your point, but I voice what I see and my honest opinion

The problem is that it's not well informed or educated....which is why until you get older and get more experienced I'd stick to straight reporting etc.

 

[TopekaRoy]

Dustin. I'm not picking on you. I offer these comments in the hopes that it will help you become a better writer. I know you aspire to bigger and better things than the blog-o-sphere, and, in order to be taken seriously, your writing has to "sound" professional.

In depth analyses of an opinion artice.

Why is it that the players who have a right to be compared to fellow colleagues aren't?

What do you mean by has "a right to be compared?" Brett Favre has been a quarterback for 20 years. Cutler has been in the NFL for 5. You haven't established the validity of your main premise.

Brett Favre, whom I'm not fond of, is in a vision inside my head that includes him being compared to Jay Cutler.

That doesn't equate to having "a right."

I guess the following is your attempt to establish the validity of your premise. You continue with 5 one sentence paragraphs and the last paragraph isn't even a sentence.

Both gunslingers are NFC North division rivals and under the helm of a former smashmouth squad.

Both quarterbacks have a gunslinging ambition and throw many picks...at points.

Using "gunslingers" and "gunslinging" in back to back sentences sounds too redundant and doesn't "read" well.

Both commanders under center have faced adversity with the media.

Favre with his on-and-off retirement, Cutler with his "uncoachable" ego.

Both parasentencegraphs should be combined to make one sentence by repalcing the period after "media" with a semicolon. Everything from "Both gunslingers", to "ego" can be combined into one paragraph as they continue a single thought. the first two paragraphs could be combined into one sentence, reducing wordiness, clarifying your thought, and making the entire passage easier to read.

eg: "Both are NFC North division rival gunslingers who have a tendency to throw many picks ... at times." Everyone knows they are quarterbacks, and "under the helm of a former smashmouth squad" compares the teams they play for and not the qbs themselves so it's superflouous.

LeBron can be compared to Jordan, who which nobody will ever be as good as, but these couple aren't compared?

Proofread. "These couple" should be "this couple" or "these two."

It Seems a little weird to me.(space)Usually the media would pounce all over this, since, y'know; Brett Favre is a God in their eyes.

I apologize for being a bit sour towards Brett Favre. He does have monster stats and is a future Hall of Famer, I'll give him that.

The thing I don't like about him is he knows that the team he plays for rides of dies off him.

Again proofread. I had to read that 3 times before I figured out your spell checker replaced "lives or dies."

I'm going to stop here as I'm sure I'm boring the hell out of our other forum members. Feel free to send me a pm if you would like more of my input and I'll be glad to help.

Lefty and Firstimer have given you some excellent advice. Writing is hard work and that's why columnists are paid well to do it. Keep working on perfecting your craft and I'm sure you will continue to get better at it.

 

[Lefty]

Not to pile on to you Dustin, but here, take a look at the 643 Sports archives on Bleacher Report: Article Archives - Bleacher Report

You don't have to read ALL of the articles, just start at the bottom (the first ones written for the account) and work your way up, scanning or reading intently at your leisure. I think you will find a definite progression in my writing style from the academic-esque "cover everything and every possible angle" to a simpler version of "thesis-support-conclusion", yet IMO the simpler, shorter pieces are more decisive and thought provoking than the earlier essays.

And just a clarification, the pieces to read are the ones signed "JP", as FedEx also writes for the account but has had training and sufficient practice in the writing field, so there is no real progression to see, he already is where he needs to be in terms of writing style.

 

[bossdrb]

Thanks, all of you, for the advice. It won't go unnoticed.

 

[FedEx227]

Not to pile on to you Dustin, but here, take a look at the 643 Sports archives on Bleacher Report: Article Archives - Bleacher Report

You don't have to read ALL of the articles, just start at the bottom (the first ones written for the account) and work your way up, scanning or reading intently at your leisure. I think you will find a definite progression in my writing style from the academic-esque "cover everything and every possible angle" to a simpler version of "thesis-support-conclusion", yet IMO the simpler, shorter pieces are more decisive and thought provoking than the earlier essays.

And just a clarification, the pieces to read are the ones signed "JP", as FedEx also writes for the account but has had training and sufficient practice in the writing field, so there is no real progression to see, he already is where he needs to be in terms of writing style.

I don't think that's necessarily true. You're just as good of a writer as me, if not better. We're both guilty I think of spending TOO much time trying to get a point across and writing 9,000 word epics which get tremendously boring and bland.

 

[Lefty]

I don't think that's necessarily true. You're just as good of a writer as me, if not better. We're both guilty I think of spending TOO much time trying to get a point across and writing 9,000 word epics which get tremendously boring and bland.

Yeah we do do that a lot, but if that comes to be the biggest knock on our writing (second to "dah youz guyz are teh nerdzzzz!!!"), I'll accept it. And here's how I view our respective writing styles:

Lefty--heavy on complex composition and higher-order prose, light on "nuts and bolts" of writing in the current format

FedEx--perhaps a little lighter on the complex composition (relative to me, because you know who I've learned to write from my whole life, etc) but heavy on the "nuts and bolts" of writing for format.

Put us together and we could perhaps do the job of one normal writer.....

 

[bossdrb]

I don't think that's necessarily true. You're just as good of a writer as me, if not better. We're both guilty I think of spending TOO much time trying to get a point across and writing 9,000 word epics which get tremendously boring and bland.

I try to make mine short, but not just really short. Y'know? More people would wanna read something shorter.

Plus, the 1-2 sentence paragraphs seem more appealing...but maybe that's me. And the editors do that sometimes.

 

[Sunbiz1]

Media Adversity: Why Isn't Jay Cutler Compared To Brett Favre? | Bleacher Report

I know Lefty and FirstTimer will criticize me for this, as well others, but I felt it was appropriate. Enjoy.

Cutler with his "uncoachable" ego.

You missed on this one, Jay has been very "coachable" under Martz.

Outside of that, I enjoyed your article.

Biz

 

[bossdrb]

Cutler with his "uncoachable" ego.

You missed on this one, Jay has been very "coachable" under Martz.

Outside of that, I enjoyed your article.

Biz

Thank you...finally some positive feedback. Lol. And I put quotes around it 'cause the media said his ego was uncoachable.

 

[Lefty]

I try to make mine short, but not just really short. Y'know? More people would wanna read something shorter.

Well, that's one of the problems with media consumers at-large: many of them are only amused/intrigued by short quips accompanying a picture, and more still have the attention span of a gnat.

This is why you will find that on a site like Bleacher Report, the "slide show" type of articles are WAY more likely to get pushed to the front page and make their daily email to members, while traditional pieces are usually buried in their respective team/sport section.

For instance, the Bad Paper piece that I put up on BR was my first foray into the slide show gauntlet, and while it did take some time to compile and write, there wasn't really much thought put into it, if you know what I mean; it wasn't really thought provoking, it was more or less just a funny little list.

The result? That piece was immediately pasted on the BR front page and sent out in the daily email to all BR members, and still holds the highest read and comment numbers on any of our other articles (these totals aren't much relative to other pieces on the site, but relative to our history both at the time and now, the jump was huge).

Now, I'm not knocking my own stuff, but there is no way that piece was more thought provoking or informative or well composed as any of the other stuff we have written, but because it was relatively short, had color pictures and actually engaged the reader (in that they had to click multiple times to read through it), it's seen as one of the best stories written for the account.

Plus, the 1-2 sentence paragraphs seem more appealing...but maybe that's me. And the editors do that sometimes.

I'd be weary of the BR editors. They tend to be journalism majors in college and those fresh out of school with a journalism degree, and while it's nice that they take the time to fix minor flaws, some of them will change entire paragraphs and sentence structures just because more complex writing styles confuse them.

I can't tell you on how many of my articles that I've had to go back through and re-edit their edits just to keep the somewhat complex (but grammatically correct more often than not) prose I shoot for.

 

[USCChiFan]

Bleacher Report is nothing but biased writers w/ terrible articles and assumptions.

 

[CODE_BLUE56]

^i agree

tho some stuff is ok

but you cant take bleacher report like an article written by an actual sports journalist

 

[TopekaRoy]

I try to make mine short, but not just really short. Y'know? More people would wanna read something shorter.

Plus, the 1-2 sentence paragraphs seem more appealing...but maybe that's me. And the editors do that sometimes.

I agree with you here to a large extent. There are big differences between writing a novel, writing a newspaper column, blogging on he internet, posting in a forum, and text messaging. Each is a step down from the previous with declining standards of what's acceptable.

It is also true that "white space" is the web designer's friend. People have shorter attention spans now, busier lives, and are bombarded with so much information. They want to find what's relevant to them, absorb the info quickly, and move on.

The best way to achieve this when writing for the net (IMHO) is not by dividing paragraphs into mini-paragraphs, but by writing succinctly. Your first draft should include everything you want to say. Then whittle it down by seeing what is not essential to your thesis and can be eliminated, and seeing what can be said with fewer words.

The most important thing is quality content. If your writing is good, it doesn't matter how long it is. It will get read. Some of the ESPN page 2 columnists write very long articles, but they're a great read.

On the other hand if the writing is poor, even short articles probably won't get read all the way through.

Good luck to you. I'm looking forward to your next "article."

 

[TopekaRoy]

Oops! I see Lefty posted a lot of what I wanted to say (and said it better) while I was writing my last post. Sorry if any of it was repetitive.