Chapter 7 HOW TO BEGIN

Importance of the Beginning. The value of a good beginning for a news story, a special feature article, or a short story results from the way in which most persons read newspapers and magazines. In glancing through current publications, the average reader is attracted chiefly by headlines or titles, illustrations, and authors' names. If any one of these interests him, he pauses a moment or two over the beginning "to see what it is all about." The first paragraphs usually determine whether or not he goes any further.

A single copy of a newspaper or magazine offers so much reading matter that the casual reader, if disappointed in the introduction to one article or short story, has plenty of others to choose from. But if the opening sentences hold his attention, he reads on. "Well begun is half done" is a saying that applies with peculiar fitness to special feature articles.

Structure of the Beginning. To accomplish its purpose an introduction must be both a unit in itself and an integral part of the article. The beginning, whether a single paragraph in form, or a single paragraph in essence, although actually broken up into two or more short paragraphs, should produce on the mind of the reader a unified impression. The conversation, the incident, the example, or the summary of which it consists, should be complete in itself. Unless, on the other hand, the introduction is an organic part of the article, it fails of its purpose. The beginning must present some vital phase of the subject; it should not be merely something attractive attached to the article to catch the reader's notice. In his effort to make the beginning attractive, an inexperienced writer is inclined to linger over it until it becomes disproportionately long. Its length, however, should be proportionate to the importance of that phase of the subject which it presents. As a vital part of the article, the introduction must be so skillfully connected with what follows that a reader is not conscious of the transition. Close coherence between the beginning and the body of the article is essential.

The four faults, therefore, to be guarded against in writing the beginning are: (1) the inclusion of diverse details not carefully coordinated to produce a single unified impression; (2) the development of the introduction to a disproportionate length; (3) failure to make the beginning a vital part of the article itself; (4) lack of close connection or of skillful transition between the introduction and the body of the article.

Types of Beginnings. Because of the importance of the introduction, the writer should familiarize himself with the different kinds of beginnings, and should study them from the point of view of their suitability for various types of articles. The seven distinct types of beginnings are: (1) summary; (2) narrative; (3) description; (4) striking statement; (5) quotation; (6) question; (7) direct address. Combinations of two or more of these methods are not infrequent.

Summary Beginnings. The general adoption by newspapers of the summary beginning, or "lead," for news stories has accustomed the average reader to finding most of the essential facts of a piece of news grouped together in the first paragraph. The lead, by telling the reader the nature of the event, the persons and things concerned, the time, the place, the cause, and the result, answers his questions, What? Who? When? Where? Why? How? Not only are the important facts summarized in such a beginning, but the most striking detail is usually "played up" in the first group of words of the initial sentence where it catches the eye at once. Thus the reader is given both the main facts and the most significant feature of the subject. Unquestionably this news story lead, when skillfully worked out, has distinct advantages alike for the news report and for the special article.

Summary Beginnings

(1)

(Kansas City Star)

A FRESH AIR PALACE READY

A palace of sunshine, a glass house of fresh air, will be the Christmas offering of Kansas City to the fight against tuberculosis, the "Great White Plague." Ten miles from the business district of the city, overlooking a horizon miles away over valley and hill, stands the finest tuberculosis hospital in the United States. The newly completed institution, although not the largest hospital of the kind, is the best equipped and finest appointed. It is symbolic of sunshine and pure air, the cure for the disease.

(2)

(New York World)

STOPPING THE COST OF LIVING LEAKS

BY MARIE COOLIDGE RASK

After ten weeks' instruction in domestic economy at a New York high school, a girl of thirteen has been the means of reducing the expenditure in a family of seven to the extent of five dollars a week.

The girl is Anna Scheiring, American born, of Austrian ancestry, living with her parents and brothers and sisters in a five-room apartment at No. 769 East One Hundred and Fifty-eighth Street, where her father, Joseph Scheiring is superintendent of the building.

The same economic practices applied by little Anna Scheiring are at the present time being worked out in two thousand other New York homes whose daughters are pupils in the Washington Irving High School.

(3)

(The Outlook)

THE FIGHT FOR CLEAN MILK

BY CONSTANCE D. LEUPP

Two million quarts of milk are shipped into New York every day. One hundred thousand of those who drink it are babies. The milk comes from forty-four thousand dairy farms scattered through New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and even Ohio.

A large proportion of the two million quarts travels thirty-six hours before it lands on the front doorstep of the consumer. The situation in New York is duplicated in a less acute degree in every city in the United States.

Narrative Beginnings. To begin a special feature article in the narrative form is to give it a story-like character that at once arouses interest. It is impossible in many instances to know from the introduction whether what follows is to be a short story or a special article. An element of suspense may even be injected into the narrative introduction to stimulate the reader's curiosity, and descriptive touches may be added to heighten the vividness.

If the whole article is in narrative form, as is the case in a personal experience or confession story, the introduction is only the first part of a continuous story, and as such gives the necessary information about the person involved.

Narrative beginnings that consist of concrete examples and specific instances are popular for expository articles. Sometimes several instances are related in the introduction before the writer proceeds to generalize from them. The advantage of this inductive method of explanation grows out of the fact that, after a general idea has been illustrated by an example or two, most persons can grasp it with much less effort and with much greater interest than when such exemplification follows the generalization.

Other narrative introductions consist of an anecdote, an incident, or an important event connected with the subject of the article.

Since conversation is an excellent means of enlivening a narrative, dialogue is often used in the introduction to special articles, whether for relating an incident, giving a specific instance, or beginning a personal experience story.

Narrative Beginnings

(1)

(The Outlook)

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

BY EMMETT J. SCOTT AND LYMAN BEECHER STOWE

It came about that in the year 1880, in Macon County, Alabama, a certain ex-Confederate colonel conceived the idea that if he could secure the Negro vote he could beat his rival and win the seat he coveted in the State Legislature. Accordingly the colonel went to the leading Negro in the town of Tuskegee and asked him what he could do to secure the Negro vote, for Negroes then voted in Alabama without restriction. This man, Lewis Adams by name, himself an ex-slave, promptly replied that what his race most wanted was education, and what they most needed was industrial education, and that if he (the colonel) would agree to work for the passage of a bill appropriating money for the maintenance of an industrial school for Negroes, he, Adams, would help to get for him the Negro vote and the election. This bargain between an ex-slaveholder and an ex-slave was made and faithfully observed on both sides, with the result that the following year the Legislature of Alabama appropriated $2,000 a year for the establishment of a normal and industrial school for Negroes in the town of Tuskegee. On the recommendation of General Armstrong, of Hampton Institute, a young colored man, Booker T. Washington, a recent graduate of and teacher at the Institute, was called from there to take charge of this landless, buildingless, teacherless, and studentless institution of learning.

(2)

(Leslie's Weekly)

MILLIONAIRES MADE BY WAR

BY HOMER CROY

A tall, gaunt, barefooted Missouri hill-billy stood beside his rattly, dish-wheeled wagon waiting to see the mighty proprietor of the saw mill who guessed only too well that the hill-billy had something he wanted to swap for lumber.

"What can I do for you?"

The hillman shifted his weight uneasily. "I 'low I got somethun of powerful lot of interest to yuh." Reaching over the side of the wagon he placed his rough hand tenderly on a black lump. "I guess yuh know what it is."

The saw mill proprietor glanced at it depreciatingly and turned toward the mill.

"It's lead, pardner, pure lead, and I know where it come from. I could take you right to the spot-ef I wanted to."

The mill proprietor hooked a row of fingers under the rough stone and tried to lift it. But he could not budge it. "It does seem to have lead in it. What was you calc'lating askin' for showin' me where you found it?"

The farmer from the foothills cut his eyes down to crafty slits. "I was 'lowing just tother day as how a house pattern would come in handy. Ef you'll saw me out one I'll take you to the spot." And so the deal was consummated, the hill-billy gleefully driving away, joyous over having got a fine house pattern worth $40 for merely showing a fellow where you could pick up a few hunks of lead.

That was forty-five years ago and it was thus that the great Joplin lead and zinc district was made known to the world.

(3)

(Munsey's Magazine)

FRANK A. SCOTT, CHAIRMAN OF THE WAR INDUSTRIES BOARD

BY THEODORE TILLER

One day in the year 1885 a twelve-year-old boy, who had to leave school and make his own way in the world on account of his father's death, applied for a job in a railroad freight-office in Cleveland, Ohio.

"I'm afraid you won't do," said the chief. "We need a boy, but you're not tall enough to reach the letter-press."

"Well, couldn't I stand on a box?" suggested the young seeker of employment.

That day a box was added to the equipment of the freight-office and the name of Frank A. Scott to the payroll.

(4)

(New York Times)

NEW YORKER INVENTS NEW EXPLOSIVE AND GIVES IT TO THE UNITED STATES

Nine young men recently rowed to the middle of the Hudson River with a wooden box to which wires were attached, lying in the bottom of the boat. They sank the box in deep water very cautiously, and then rowed slowly back to land, holding one end of the wire. Presently a column of water 40 feet through and 300 feet high shot into the air, followed by a deafening detonation, which tore dead branches from trees.

The nine young men were congratulating one man of the group on the explosion when an irate farmer ran up, yelling that every window in his farmhouse, nearly a mile away, had been shattered. The party of young men didn't apologize then; they gathered about the one who was being congratulated and recongratulated him.

The farmer did not know until later that the force which broke his windows and sent the huge column of water into the air was the War Department's newest, safest, and most powerful explosive; that the young men composed the dynamite squad of the Engineer Corps of the New York National Guard; and that the man they were congratulating was Lieut. Harold Chase Woodward, the inventor of the explosive.

(5)

(System)

WHY THE EMPLOYEES RUN OUR BUSINESS

A business of the workers, by the workers, and for the workers-how it succeeds.

BY EDWARD A. FILENE

"I know I am right. Leave it to any fair-minded person to decide."

"Good enough," I replied; "you name one, I will name another, and let them select a third."

She agreed; we selected the umpires and they decided against the store!

It had come about in this way. The store rule had been that cashiers paid for shortages in their accounts as-in our view-a penalty for carelessness; we did not care about the money. This girl had been short in an account; the amount had been deducted from her pay, and, not being afraid to speak out, she complained:

"If I am over in my accounts, it is a mistake; but if I am short, am I a thief? Why should I pay back the money? Why can't a mistake be made in either direction?"

This arbitration-although it had caused a decision against us-seemed such a satisfactory way of ending disputes that we continued the practice in an informal way. Out of it grew the present arbitration board, which is the corner-stone of the relation between our store and the employees, because it affords the machinery for getting what employees are above all else interested in-a square deal.

Descriptive Beginnings. Just as description of characters or of scene and setting is one method of beginning short stories and novels, so also it constitutes a form of introduction for an article. In both cases the aim is to create immediate interest by vivid portrayal of definite persons and places. The concrete word picture, like the concrete instance in a narrative beginning, makes a quick and strong appeal. An element of suspense or mystery may be introduced into the description, if a person, a place, or an object is described without being identified by name until the end of the portrayal.

The possibilities of description are not limited to sights alone; sounds, odors and other sense impressions, as well as emotions, may be described. Frequently several different impressions are combined. To stir the reader's feelings by a strong emotional description is obviously a good method of beginning.

A descriptive beginning, to be clear to the rapid reader, should be suggestive rather than detailed. The average person can easily visualize a picture that is sketched in a few suggestive words, whereas he is likely to be confused by a mass of details. Picture-making words and those imitative of sounds, as well as figures of speech, may be used to advantage in descriptive beginnings. For the description of feelings, words with a rich emotional connotation are important.

Descriptive Beginnings

(1)

(Munsey's Magazine)

OUR HIGHEST COURT

BY HORACE TOWNER

"The Honorable the Supreme Court of the United States!"

Nearly every week-day during the winter months, exactly at noon, these warning words, intoned in a resonant and solemn voice, may be heard by the visitor who chances to pass the doors of the Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol of the United States. The visitor sees that others are entering those august portals, and so he, too, makes bold to step softly inside.

If he has not waited too long, he finds himself within the chamber in time to see nine justices of our highest court, clad in long, black robes, file slowly into the room from an antechamber at the left.

Every one within the room has arisen, and all stand respectfully at attention while the justices take their places. Then the voice of the court crier is heard again:

"Oyez, oyez, oyez! All persons having business with the Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the court is now sitting."

Then, after a slight pause:

"God save the United States and this honorable court!"

The justices seat themselves; the attorneys at the bar and visitors do likewise. The Supreme Court of the United States, generally held to be the most powerful tribunal on earth, is in session.

(2)

(Collier's Weekly)

JAMES WHITCOMB BROUGHER, A PREACHER TO THE PROCESSION

BY PETER CLARK MACFARLANE

Imagine the Hippodrome-the largest playhouse of New York and of the New World! Imagine it filled with people from foot-lights to the last row in the topmost gallery-orchestra, dress circle, and balconies-a huge uprising, semicircular bowl, lined with human beings. Imagine it thus, and then strip the stage; take away the Indians and the soldiers, the elephants and the camels; take away the careening stage coaches and the thundering hoofs of horses, and all the strange conglomeration of dramatic activities with which these inventive stage managers are accustomed to panoply their productions. Instead of all this, people the stage with a chorus choir in white smocks, and in front of the choir put a lean, upstanding, shock-headed preacher; but leave the audience-a regular Hippodrome audience on the biggest Saturday night. Imagine all of this, I say, and what you have is not the Hippodrome, not the greatest play in the New World, nor any playhouse at all, but the Temple Baptist Church of Los Angeles, California, with James Whitcomb Brougher, D.D., in the pulpit.

(3)

(The Independent)

THE LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE A "FAKE"

What the Country Schoolhouse Really Is, and Why

BY EDNA M. HILL

The schoolhouse squats dour and silent in its acre of weeds. A little to the rear stand two wretched outbuildings. Upon its gray clapboarded sides, window blinds hang loose and window sashes sag away from their frames. Groaning upon one hinge the vestibule door turns away from lopsided steps, while a broken drain pipe sways perilously from the east corner of the roof.

Within and beyond the vestibule is the schoolroom, a monotony of grimy walls and smoky ceiling. Cross lights from the six windows shine upon rows of desks of varying sizes and in varying stages of destruction. A kitchen table faces the door. Squarely in the middle of the rough pine floor stands a jacketed stove. A much torn dictionary and a dented water pail stand side by side on the shelf below the one blackboard.

And this is the "little red schoolhouse" to which I looked forward so eagerly during the summer-nothing but a tumbledown shack set in the heart of a prosperous farming district.

(4)

(New York Tribune)

THE ONE WOMAN OFFICIAL AT PLATTSBURG

BY ELENE FOSTER

The tramp, tramp of feet on a hard road; long lines of khaki figures moving over the browning grass of the parade ground; rows of faces, keen and alert, with that look in the eyes that one sees in LePage's Jeanne d'Arc; the click, click of bullets from the distant rifle range blended with a chorus of deep voices near at hand singing "Over There"; a clear, blue sky, crisp autumn air and the sparkling waters of Lake Champlain-that's Plattsburg.

(5)

(Good Housekeeping)

NEW ENGLAND MILL SLAVES

BY MARY ALDEN HOPKINS

In the pale light of an early winter morning, while a flat, white moon awaited the dawn and wind-driven clouds flung faint scudding shadows across the snow, two little girls, cloaked, shawled, hooded out of all recognition, plodded heavily along a Vermont mountain road. Each carried a dangling dinner pail.

The road was lonely. Once they passed a farmhouse, asleep save for a yellow light in a chamber. Somewhere a cock crowed. A dog barked in the faint distance.

Where the road ascended the mountain-a narrow cut between dark, pointed firs and swaying white-limbed birches-the way was slushy with melting snow. The littler girl, half dozing along the accustomed way, slipped and slid into puddles.

At the top of the mountain the two children shrank back into their mufflers, before the sweep of the wet, chill wind; but the mill was in sight-beyond the slope of bleak pastures outlined with stone walls-sunk deep in the valley beside a rapid mountain stream, a dim bulk already glimmering with points of light. Toward this the two little workwomen slopped along on squashy feet.

They were spinners. One was fifteen. She had worked three years. The other was fourteen. She had worked two years. The terse record of the National Child Labor Committee lies before me, unsentimental, bare of comment:

"They both get up at four fifteen A.M. and after breakfast start for the mill, arriving there in time not to be late, at six. Their home is two and one-half miles from the mill. Each earns three dollars a week-So they cannot afford to ride. The road is rough, and it is over the mountains."

(6)

(Providence Journal)

HOW TO SING THE NATIONAL SONGS

To Interpret the Text Successfully the Singer Must Memorize, Visualize, Rhythmize, and Emphasize

BY JOHN G. ARCHER

The weary eye of the toastmaster looks apologetically down long rows of tables as he says with a sorry-but-it-must-be-done air, "We will now sing 'The Star Spangled Banner'"; the orchestra starts, the diners reach frantically for their menus and each, according to his musical inheritance and patriotic fervor, plunges into the unknown with a resolute determination to be in on the death of the sad rite.

Some are wrecked among the dizzy altitudes, others persevere through uncharted shoals, all make some kind of a noisy noise, and lo, it is accomplished; and intense relief sits enthroned on every dewy brow.

In the crowded church, the minister announces the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," and the organist, armed with plenary powers, crashes into the giddy old tune, dragging the congregation resistingly along at a hurdy gurdy pace till all semblance of text or meaning is irretrievably lost.

Happy are they when the refrain, "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah," provides a temporary respite from the shredded syllables and scrambled periods, and one may light, as it were, and catch up with himself and the organist.

At the close of an outdoor public meeting the chairman, with fatuous ineptitude, shouts that everybody will sing three verses of "America." Granting that the tune is pitched comfortably, the first verse marches with vigor and certitude, but not for long; dismay soon smites the crowd in sections as the individual consciousness backs and fills amid half learned lines.

The trick of catching hopefully at a neighbor's phrase usually serves to defeat itself, as it unmasks the ignorance of said neighbor, and the tune ends in a sort of polyglot mouthing which is not at all flattering to the denizens of an enlightened community.

These glimpses are not a whit over-drawn, and it is safe to say that they mirror practically every corner of our land to-day. Why is it, then, that the people make such a sorry exhibition of themselves when they attempt to sing the patriotic songs of our country? Is it the tunes or the words or we ourselves?

Beginning with a Striking Statement. When the thought expressed in the first sentence of an article is sufficiently unusual, or is presented in a sufficiently striking form, it at once commands attention. By stimulating interest and curiosity, it leads the average person to read on until he is satisfied.

A striking statement of this sort may serve as the first sentence of one of the other types of beginning, such as the narrative or the descriptive introduction, the quotation, the question, or the direct address. But it may also be used entirely alone.

Since great size is impressive, a statement of the magnitude of something is usually striking. Numerical figures are often used in the opening sentences to produce the impression of enormous size. If these figures are so large that the mind cannot grasp them, it is well, by means of comparisons, to translate them into terms of the reader's own experience. There is always danger of overwhelming and confusing a person with statistics that in the mass mean little or nothing to him.

To declare in the first sentence that something is the first or the only one of its kind immediately arrests attention, because of the universal interest in the unique.

An unusual prediction is another form of striking statement. To be told at the beginning of an article of some remarkable thing that the future holds in store for him or for his descendants, fascinates the average person as much as does the fortune-teller's prophecy. There is danger of exaggeration, however, in making predictions. When writers magnify the importance of their subject by assuring us that what they are explaining will "revolutionize" our ideas and practices, we are inclined to discount these exaggerated and trite forms of prophecy.

A striking figure of speech-an unusual metaphor, for example-may often be used in the beginning of an article to arouse curiosity. As the comparison in a metaphor is implied rather than expressed, the points of likeness may not immediately be evident to the reader and thus the figurative statement piques his curiosity. A comparison in the form of a simile, or in that of a parable or allegory, may serve as a striking introduction.

A paradox, as a self-contradictory statement, arrests the attention in the initial sentence of an article. Although not always easy to frame, and hence not so often employed as it might be, a paradoxical expression is an excellent device for a writer to keep in mind when some phase of his theme lends itself to such a striking beginning.

Besides these readily classified forms of unusual statements, any novel, extraordinary expression that is not too bizarre may be employed. The chief danger to guard against is that of making sensational, exaggerated, or false statements, merely to catch the reader's notice.

Striking Statement Beginnings

(1)

(Illustrated World)

FIRE WRITES A HEART'S RECORD

BY H.G. HUNTING

A human heart, writing its own record with an actual finger of flame, is the startling spectacle that has recently been witnessed by scientists. It sounds fanciful, doesn't it? But it is literally a fact that the automatic recording of the heart's action by means of tracings from the point of a tiny blaze appears to have been made a practicable method of determining the condition of the heart, more reliable than any other test that can be applied.

(2)

(Boston Transcript)

TAKING HOSPITALS TO THE EMERGENCY By F.W. COBURN

Taking the hospital to the emergency instead of the emergency to the hospital is the underlying idea of the Bay State's newest medical unit-one which was installed in three hours on the top of Corey Hill, and which in much less than half that time may tomorrow or the next day be en route post haste for Peru, Plymouth, or Pawtucketville.

(3)

(Kansas City Star)

MUST YOUR HOME BURN?

Autumn is the season of burning homes.

Furnaces and stoves will soon be lighted. They have been unused all summer and rubbish may have been piled near them or the flues may have rusted and slipped out of place unobserved in the long period of disuse. Persons start their fires in a sudden cold snap. They don't take time to investigate. Then the fire department has work to do.

(4)

(New York Times)

ONLY PUBLIC SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN WITH POOR EYES

There was opened down Hester Street way last week the only public school in the world for children with defective eyes. Bad eyesight has been urged for years as a cause of backwardness and incorrigibility in school children. Now the public school authorities plan, for the first time, not only to teach children whose eyes are defective, but to cure them as well.

(5)

(The Outlook)

DISEASED TEETH AND BAD HEALTH BY MATTHIAS NICOLL, JR.

The complete disappearance of teeth from the human mouth is the condition towards which the most highly cultivated classes of humanity are drifting. We have already gone far on a course that leads to the coming of a toothless age in future generations. Only by immediate adoption of the most active and widespread measures of prevention can the human tooth be saved from the fate that has befallen the leg of the whale.

(6)

(Harper's Weekly)

THE SPAN OF LIFE

BY WALTER E. WEYL

You who begin this sentence may not live to read its close. There is a chance, one in three or four billions, that you will die in a second, by the tick of the watch. The chair upon which you sit may collapse, the car in which you ride may collide, your heart may suddenly cease. Or you may survive the sentence and the article, and live twenty, fifty, eighty years longer.

No one knows the span of your life, and yet the insurance man is willing to bet upon it. What is life insurance but the bet of an unknown number of yearly premiums against the payment of the policy? * * * * The length of your individual life is a guess, but the insurance company bets on a sure thing, on the average death rate.

(7)

(The Outlook)

"AMERICANS FIRST"

BY GREGORY MASON

Every third man you meet in Detroit was born in a foreign country. And three out of every four persons there were either born abroad or born here of foreign-born parents. In short, in Detroit, only every fourth person you meet was born in this country of American parents. Such is the make-up of the town which has been called "the most American city in the United States."

(8)

(Kansas City Star)

A KANSAS TOWN FEELS ITS OWN PULSE

Lawrence, Kas., was not ill. Most of its citizens did not even think it was ailing, but there were some anxious souls who wondered if the rosy exterior were not the mockery of an internal fever. They called in physicians, and after seven months spent in making their diagnosis, they have prescribed for Lawrence, and the town is alarmed to the point of taking their medicine.

That is the medical way of saying that Lawrence has just completed the most thorough municipal survey ever undertaken by a town of its size, and in so doing has found out that it is afflicted with a lot of ills that all cities are heir to. Lawrence, however, with Kansas progressiveness, proposes to cure these ills.

Prof. F.W. Blackmar, head of the department of sociology at the University of Kansas, and incidentally a sort of city doctor, was the first "physician" consulted. He called his assistant, Prof. B.W. Burgess, and Rev. William A. Powell in consultation, and about one hundred and fifty club women were taken into the case. Then they got busy. That was April 1. This month they completed the examination, set up an exhibit to illustrate what they had to report, and read the prescription.

(9)

(Popular Science Monthly)

BREAKING THE CHAIN THAT BINDS US TO EARTH

BY CHARLES NEVERS HOLMES

Man is chained to this Earth, his planet home. His chain is invisible, but the ball is always to be seen-the Earth itself. The chain itself is apparently without weight, while the chain's ball weighs about 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons!

(10)

(Associated Sunday Magazine)

IN TUNE WHEN OUT OF TUNE

BY JOHN WARREN

How many persons who own pianos and play them can explain why a piano cannot be said to be in tune unless it is actually out of tune?

(11)

(Railroad Man's Magazine)

MAKING STEEL RAILS

BY CHARLES FREDERICK CARTER

To make steel rails, take 2 pounds of iron ore, 1 pound of coke, ? pound of limestone, and 4? pounds of air for each pound of iron to be produced. Mix and melt, cast in molds, and roll to shape while hot. Serve cold.

Rail-making certainly does seem to be easy when stated in its simplest terms; it also seems attractive from a business standpoint.

(12)

(Leslie's Weekly)

WHAT ELECTRICITY MEANS TO YOU

ONE CENT'S WORTH OF ELECTRICITY AT TEN CENTS PER KILOWATT-HOUR WILL OPERATE:

Sixteen candle-power Mazda lamp for five hours

Six pound flatiron 15 minutes

Radiant toaster long enough to produce ten slices of toast

Sewing machine for two hours

Fan 12 inches in diameter for two hours

Percolator long enough to make five cups of coffee

Heating pad from two to four hours

Domestic buffer for 1? hours

Chafing dish 12 minutes

Radiant grill for 10 minutes

Curling iron once a day for two weeks

Luminous 500 watt radiator for 12 minutes

Hardly as old as a grown man, the electrical industry-including railways, telephones and telegraphs-has already invested $8,125,000,000 in the business of America. Its utility companies alone pay Uncle Sam $200,000,000 every year for taxes-seven out of every ten use it in some form every day. It is unmistakably the most vital factor to-day in America's prosperity. Its resources are boundless. As Secretary of the Interior Lane expresses it, there is enough hydro-electric energy running to waste to equal the daily labor of 1,800,000,000 men or 30 times our adult population.

Beginning with a Quotation. Words enclosed in quotation marks or set off in some distinctive form such as verse, an advertisement, a letter, a menu, or a sign, immediately catch the eye at the beginning of an article. Every conceivable source may be drawn on for quotations, provided, of course, that what is quoted has close connection with the subject. If the quotation expresses an extraordinary idea, it possesses an additional source of interest.

Verse quotations may be taken from a well-known poem, a popular song, a nursery rhyme, or even doggerel verse. Sometimes a whole poem or song prefaces an article. When the verse is printed in smaller type than the article, it need not be enclosed in quotation marks. In his typewritten manuscript a writer may indicate this difference in size of type by single-spacing the lines of the quotation.

Prose quotations may be taken from a speech or an interview, or from printed material such as a book, report, or bulletin. The more significant the quoted statement, the more effective will be the introduction. When the quotation consists of several sentences or of one long sentence, it may comprise the first paragraph, to be followed in the second paragraph by the necessary explanation.

Popular sayings, slogans, or current phrases are not always enclosed in quotation marks, but are often set off in a separate paragraph as a striking form of beginning.

The most conspicuous quotation beginnings are reproductions of newspaper clippings, advertisements, price lists, menus, telegrams, invitations, or parts of legal documents. These are not infrequently reproduced as nearly as possible in the original form and may be enclosed in a frame, or "box."

Quotation Beginnings

(1)

(New York Evening Post)

"DIGNIFIED AND STATELY"

Being an Account of Some High and Low Jinks Practiced About This Time on College Class Days

BY EVA ELISE VOM BAUR

Our sorrows are forgotten,

And our cares are flown away,

While we go marching through Princeton.

Singing these words, 'round and 'round the campus they marched, drums beating time which no one observed, band clashing with band, in tune with nothing but the dominant note-the joy of reunion. A motley lot of men they are-sailors and traction engineers, Pierrots, soldiers, and even vestal virgins-for the June Commencement is college carnival time.

Then hundreds upon thousands of men, East, West, North and South, drop their work and their worries, and leaving families and creditors at home, slip away to their respective alma maters, "just to be boys again" for a day and a night or two.

(2)

(Harper's Monthly)

THE PARTY OF THE THIRD PART

BY WALTER E. WEYL

"The quarrel," opined Sir Lucius O'Trigger, "is a very pretty quarrel as it stands; we should only spoil it by trying to explain it."

Something like this was once the attitude of the swaggering youth of Britain and Ireland, who quarreled "genteelly" and fought out their bloody duels "in peace and quietness." Something like this, also, after the jump of a century, was the attitude of employers and trade-unions all over the world toward industrial disputes. Words were wasted breath; the time to strike or to lock out your employees was when you were ready and your opponent was not. If you won, so much the better; if you lost-at any rate, it was your own business. Outsiders were not presumed to interfere. "Faith!" exclaimed Sir Lucius, "that same interruption in affairs of this nature shows very great ill-breeding."

(3)

(McClure's Magazine)

RIDING ON BUBBLES

BY WALDEMAR KAEMPFFERT

"And the Prince sped away with his princess in a magic chariot, the wheels of which were four bubbles of air."

Suppose you had read that in an Andersen or a Grimm fairy tale in the days when you firmly believed that Cinderella went to a ball in a state coach which had once been a pumpkin; you would have accepted the magic chariot and its four bubbles of air without question.

What a pity it is that we have lost the credulity and the wonder of childhood! We have our automobiles-over two and a half million of them-but they have ceased to be magic chariots to us. And as for their tires, they are mere "shoes" and "tubes"-anything but the bubbles of air that they are.

In the whole mechanism of modern transportation there is nothing so paradoxical, nothing so daring in conception as these same bubbles of air which we call tires.

(4)

(Good Housekeeping)

GERALDINE FARRAR'S ADVICE TO ASPIRING SINGERS

INTERVIEW BY JOHN CORBIN

"When did I first decide to be an opera singer?" Miss Farrar smiled. "Let me see. At least as early as the age of eight. This is how I remember. At school I used to get good marks in most of my studies, but in arithmetic my mark was about sixty. That made me unhappy. But once when I was eight, I distinctly remember, I reflected that it didn't really matter because I was going to be an opera singer. How long before that I had decided on my career I can't say."

(5)

(The Delineator)

HOW TO START A CAFETERIA

BY AGNES ATHOL

"If John could only get a satisfactory lunch for a reasonable amount of money!" sighs the wife of John in every sizable city in the United States, where work and home are far apart.

"He hates sandwiches, anyway, and has no suitable place to eat them; and somehow he doesn't feel that he does good work on a cold box lunch. But those clattery quick-lunch places which are all he has time for, or can afford, don't have appetizing cooking or surroundings, and all my forethought and planning over our good home meals may be counteracted by his miserable lunch. I believe half the explanation of the 'tired business man' lies in the kind of lunches he eats."

Twenty-five cents a day is probably the outside limit of what the great majority of men spend on their luncheons. Some cannot spend over fifteen. What a man needs and so seldom gets for that sum is good, wholesome, appetizing food, quickly served. He wants to eat in a place which is quiet and not too bare and ugly. He wants to buy real food and not table decorations. He is willing to dispense with elaborate service and its accompanying tip, if he can get more food of better quality.

The cafeteria lunch-room provides a solution for the mid-day lunch problem and, when wisely located and well run, the answer to many a competent woman or girl who is asking: "What shall I do to earn a living?"

(6)

(Newspaper Enterprise Association)

AMERICANIZATION OF AMERICA IS PLANNED

BY E.C. RODGERS

Washington, D.C.-America Americanized!

That's the goal of the naturalization bureau of the United States department of labor, as expressed by Raymond P. Crist, deputy commissioner, in charge of the Americanization program.

(7)

(Tractor and Gas Engine Review)

FIRE INSURANCE THAT DOESN'T INSURE

BY A.B. BROWN

"This entire policy, unless otherwise provided by agreement endorsed hereon, or added hereto, shall be void if the interest of the insured be other than unconditional and sole ownership."

If any farmer anywhere in the United States will look up the fire insurance policy on his farm building, and will read it carefully, in nine cases out of ten, he will find tucked away somewhere therein a clause exactly like the one quoted above, or practically in the same words.

Beginning with a Question. Every question is like a riddle; we are never satisfied until we know the answer. So a question put to us at the beginning of an article piques our curiosity, and we are not content until we find out how the writer answers it.

Instead of a single question, several may be asked in succession. These questions may deal with different phases of the subject or may repeat the first question in other words. It is frequently desirable to break up a long question into a number of short ones to enable the rapid reader to grasp the idea more easily. Greater prominence may be gained for each question by giving it a separate paragraph.

Rhetorical questions, although the equivalent of affirmative or negative statements, nevertheless retain enough of their interrogative effect to be used advantageously for the beginning of an article.

That the appeal may be brought home to each reader personally, the pronoun "you," or "yours," is often embodied in the question, and sometimes readers are addressed by some designation such as "Mr. Average Reader," "Mrs. Voter," "you, high school boys and girls."

The indirect question naturally lacks the force of the direct one, but it may be employed when a less striking form of beginning is desired. The direct question, "Do you know why the sky is blue?" loses much of its force when changed into the indirect form, "Few people know why the sky is blue"; still it possesses enough of the riddle element to stimulate thought. Several indirect questions may be included in the initial sentence of an article.

Question Beginnings

(1)

(Kansas City Star)

TRACING THE DROUTH TO ITS LAIR

What becomes of the rainfall in the plains states? This region is the veritable bread basket of our country; but in spite of the fact that we have an average rainfall of about thirty-six inches, lack of moisture, more frequently than any other condition, becomes a limiting factor in crop production. Measured in terms of wheat production, a 36-inch rainfall, if properly distributed through the growing season and utilized only by the crop growing land, is sufficient for the production of ninety bushels of wheat an acre. The question as to what becomes of the rainfall, therefore, is of considerable interest in this great agricultural center of North America, where we do well if we average twenty-five bushels to the acre.

(2)

(New York Evening Sun)

WE WASTE ONE-QUARTER OF OUR FOOD

If a family of five using twenty-five bushels of potatoes a year at $2 a bushel, lose 20 per cent on a bushel by paring, how much has the family thrown into the garbage can during the year? Answer, $10. Applying this conservative estimate of dietitians to other foods, the average family might save at least $100 a year on its table.

(3)

(New York Times)

FARM WIZARD ACHIEVES AGRICULTURAL WONDERS

BY ROBERT G. SKERRETT

Can a farm be operated like a factory? Can fickle nature be offset and crops be brought to maturity upon schedule time?

These are questions that a farmer near Bridgeton, N.J., has answered in the most practical manner imaginable.

(4)

(San Francisco Call)

DOES IT PAY THE STATE TO EDUCATE PRETTY GIRLS FOR TEACHERS?

BY KATHERINE ATKINSON

Does it pay the state to educate its teachers?

Do normal school and university graduates continue teaching long enough to make adequate return for the money invested in their training?

(5)

(Newspaper Feature Service)

HOW HUNGER IS NOW MEASURED AND PHOTOGRAPHED

Just what hunger is, why all living creatures suffer this feeling and what the difference is between hunger and appetite have always been three questions that puzzled scientists. Not until Dr. A.J. Carlson devised a method of ascertaining exactly the nature of hunger by measuring and comparing the degrees of this sensation, have investigators along this line of scientific research been able to reach any definite conclusion.

(6)

(The Outlook)

GROW OLD ALONG WITH ME

BY CHARLES HENRY LERRIGO

Are you interested in adding fifteen years to your life?

Perhaps you are one of those sound strong persons absolutely assured of perfect health.

Very well. Two thousand young persons, mostly men, average age thirty, employees of commercial houses and banks in New York City, were given a medical examination in a recent period of six months; 1,898 of them were positive of getting a perfect bill of health.

Here are the findings:

Sixty-three were absolutely sound.

The remaining 1,937 all suffered from some defect, great or small, which was capable of improvement.

(7)

(Country Gentleman)

SIMPLE ACCOUNTS FOR FARM BUSINESS

BY MORTON O. COOPER

Is your farm making money or losing it? What department is showing a profit? What one is piling up a loss? Do you know? Not one farmer in ten does know and it is all because not one in ten has any accounts apart from his bankbook so he can tell at the end of the year whether he has kept the farm or the farm has kept him.

(8)

(The Outlook)

AN ENFORCED VACATION

BY A CITY DWELLER

Have you, my amiable male reader, felt secretly annoyed when your friends-probably your wife and certainly your physician-have suggested that you cut your daily diet of Havanas in two, feeling that your intimate acquaintance with yourself constituted you a better judge of such matters than they? Have you felt that your physician's advice to spend at least three-quarters of an hour at lunch was good advice for somebody else, but that you had neither time nor inclination for it? Have you felt that you would like to take a month's vacation, but with so many "irons in the fire" things would go to smash if you did? Do you know what it is to lie awake at night and plan your campaign for the following day? Then you are getting ready for an enforced vacation.

(9)

(Leslie's Weekly)

TAKING THE STARCH OUT OF THE MARCH

BY GERALD MYGATT

Don't most of us-that is, those of us who are unfamiliar with army life and with things military in general-don't most of us picture marching troops as swinging down a road in perfect step, left arms moving in unison, rifles held smartly at the right shoulder, head and eyes straight to the front (with never so much as a forehead wrinkled to dislodge a mosquito or a fly), and with the band of the fife-and-drum corps playing gaily at the head of the column? Of course we do. Because that's the way we see them on parade.

A march is a far different thing. A march is simply the means of getting so many men from one place to another in the quickest time and in the best possible condition. And it may astonish one to be told that marching is the principal occupation of troops in the field-that it is one of the hardest things for troops to learn to do properly, and that it is one of the chief causes of loss.

Addressing the Reader Directly. A direct personal appeal makes a good opening for an article. The writer seems to be talking to each reader individually instead of merely writing for thousands. This form of address may seem to hark back to the days of the "gentle reader," but its appeal is perennial. To the pronoun "you" may be added the designation of the particular class of readers addressed, such as "You, mothers," or "You, Mr. Salaried Man." The imperative verb is perhaps the strongest form of direct address. There is danger of overdoing the "do-this-and-don't-do-that" style, particularly in articles of practical guidance, but that need not deter a writer from using the imperative beginning occasionally.

Direct Address Beginnings

(1)

(New York Times)

SMALL CHANCE FOR DRAFT DODGERS IF DOCTORS KNOW THEIR BUSINESS

A word with you, Mr. Would-Be-Slacker. If you 're thinking of trying to dodge the selective draft by pretending physical disability when you get before the local exemption board, here's a bit of advice: Don't. Since you are Mr. Would-Be-Slacker there is no use preaching patriotism to you. But here is something that will influence you: If you try to dodge the draft and are caught, there is a heavy penalty, both fine and imprisonment; and you're almost sure to get caught.

(2)

(American Magazine)

THE GENERAL MANAGER OF COWBELL "HOLLER"

BY BRUCE BARTON

You would never in the world find Cowbell "Holler" alone, so I will tell you how to get there. You come over the Big Hill pike until you reach West Pinnacle. It was from the peak of West Pinnacle that Daniel Boone first looked out over the blue grass region of Kentucky. You follow the pike around the base of the Pinnacle, and there you are, right in the heart of Cowbell "Holler," and only two pastures and a creek away from Miss Adelia Fox's rural social settlement-the first of its kind, so far as I know, in America.

(3)

(Chicago Tribune)

THE ROAD TO RETAIL SUCCESS

BY BENJAMIN H. JEFFERSON

You all know the retail druggist who has worked fifteen or sixteen hours a day all his life, and now, as an old man, is forced to discharge his only clerk. You all know the grocer who has changed from one store to another and another, and who finally turns up as a collector for your milkman. You all know the hard working milliner and, perhaps, have followed her career until she was lost to sight amid sickness and distress. You all have friends among stationers and newsdealers. You have seen them labor day in and day out, from early morning until late at night; and have observed with sorrow the small fruits of their many years of toil.

Why did they fail?

(4)

(Illustrated Sunday Magazine)

THE MAN WHO PUT THE "PEP" IN PRINTING

Look at your watch.

How long is a second? Gone as you look at the tiny hand, isn't it? Yet within that one second it is possible to print, cut, fold and stack sixteen and two-thirds newspapers!

Watch the second hand make one revolution-a minute. Within that minute it is possible to print, cut, fold and stack in neat piles one thousand big newspapers! To do that is putting "pep" in printing, and Henry A. Wise Wood is the man who did it.

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