Help me on an article

I have to submit an article on the site. From what I hear, my editor is not happy with my work. I want to know what you think. Am I doing everything right? If I am doing something wrong, would you tell me what I can do to improve and get better. This is very important for me. I am in danger of being fired from the site and I have been very stressed about it. Please help me:

Here is an article that I did in covering FDU vs. Sacred Heart. I was at the Rothman Center at Hackensack covering the game:

I wrote the article in the second post of this thread.

 

Hackensack, NJ – February 13, 2007 - The Sacred Heart Pioneers played well and as a result, they were rewarded with a 69-50 win on Monday night against the Fairleigh Dickinson University Knights, who are now 8-15 overall and 5-8 in the NEC with this loss. This win moved them up to second place over Robert Morris in the Northeast Conference standings. They are two games behind first place, Long Island University (Brooklyn). They improved to 16-9 overall and 11-3 in conference play. They are clicking at the right time with the NEC Tournament just few weeks away.

They did a great job of scoring for the entire game. They shot 49 percent overall. What really won them the game was the way they defended against the Knights in the second half. They did a great job of forcing the home team to make mistakes in the second half. This resulted to the Knights turning the ball over, missing shots, and throwing passes that were nowhere close. This also got the Pioneers in a position to get nice, wide-open space to score thanks to several baseball passes in the end.

They got great performance from Amanda Pape, Jasmine Walker, and Kaitlin Sowinski.

Pape was stroking it well from the beginning to the end. She was also a force on the defensive end. She led the team in scoring and rebounds. She had 26 points and 11 rebounds, which was good enough for a double-double.

Walker was fantastic. She did a great job of completing her layups and making the most of her second chances in scoring thanks to her three offensive rebounds. Overall, she got a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Sowinski got it going in the second half. She scored 13 points and 9 rebounds. She was one shy of a double-double.

They also got great work from Lisa Moray and Kerri Burke. Moray scored 12 points to join Pape, Walker, and Sowinski in scoring double digits. Burke did a great job setting up passes for the team's scorers. She led the team with 7 assists.

The Knights were led by Jordan Sykes with 12 points. She had 4 rebounds to go with it.

Christy Altamirano had 10 points and 4 rebounds.

Jennifer Walking had 10 points and 13 rebounds. Walking's effort was her eleventh double-double of the season.

The Pioneers had a 36-31 lead as they went to the locker room at halftime.

As well as they played, the Knights were within striking distance.

The Pioneers started the second half with a 11-2 run. This run propelled them to lead 47-35.

This run started when Sowinski hit a jumper on a pass by Moray. This gave them a 38-33 lead. Burke was able to steal off Sykes and then scored on a layup by Pape's assist. It was a 40-33 lead. Sowinski does it again by scoring a layupto make it 42-33. Pape got into the free throw line thanks to a foul by Altamirano. Pape made one of two free throws. It was 43-33. Altramirano finally got the Knights on the board as she shot a jumper to end the Pioneers run. Knights cut the deficit to 43-35. Sowinski answered Altramirano's jumper by making a layup to get it back to a 10-point Pioneers lead at 45-35. Pape made a layup to complete the Pioneers run. It was now 47-35.

This game was basically over Pape shot the ball in to give them a 51-37 lead. By then, the Knights looked like a tired team thanks to the work of the Pioneers.

Their largest lead of the night game came at 5:09 of regulation. Moray shot a three to give them a 65-42 lead.

The only time the Knights were ever in this game was in the first half. After the Pioneers got off to a 15-3 run to start the game, the Knights went on a 8-3 run to get back into the game. It was16-12, Sacred Heart. Pape's shot made it 18-12. Walkling's layup made it 18-14. Pape was again stroking it to extend the lead to 20-14. FDU's Megan Kirkland's three pointer put her team within striking distance of the Pioneers. It was 20-17.

The Pioneers got an eleven point lead thanks to Moray shooting a three. Her three gave her team a 34-23 lead. FDU finished the first half with an 8-2 run to cut the deficit to 36-31. Walking hit a shot to make it 34-25. Mercedez Walker was in the free throw line, but she made only one of two. It
was now 34-26. Nikki Lockhart made two free throws to make it 34-28. Walker answered that with a layup to extend the lead to 36-28. Kirkland shot another three pointer to complete an 8-2 run. Her shot ended the first half. This gave FDU hope that they can play with Sacred Heart. Unfortunately for them, the Knights could not get anything going after Jordan's shot made it a three-point game at 36-33.

Pioneers head coach Ed Swanson liked what he saw out of his team at the Rothman Center.

“Our offense looked good,” said Swanson. “We did a good job of playing up-tempo.”

Coach Swanson raved about his two seniors in Pape and Walker.

“Amanda was outstanding,” said Swanson. “Walker did a great job of rebounding the ball.”

Walker and Pape talked about their team's play

“We played well,” said Walker. “We did a good job of working together.”

“We had a good second half,” said Pape. “We did a good job of pressuring and rebounding the ball.”

Sacred Heart will enjoy this win for a week because they do not play again until Monday. They will be at at home to play Mount St. Mary's.

As for FDU, they will be home to play Central Connecticut State on Saturday afternoon at 4:30 p.m.

 

Well, just three things real quick....
- Don't just cluster the quotes at the bottom. Try to work them in throughout the article, as it pertains to what you're talking about at the time.
- The lede...it doesn't have to be a masterpiece, but write something with a little more punch and can lend you to write a story with a theme, that reads more like a compelling piece of non-fiction than a rundown of stats and observations.
- Parallel structure...you start almost all of your first five or six sentences after the opening with "they". There's a time for parallel structure, like poetry or in the middle of a story where it emphasizes one single point you're trying to make.
- PS...never say "stroking it" in a women's gamer. Or really, any story.

 

Um, if I was a copyeditor and you submitted this...

You have a lot of work to do to improve. Basic tenets of good grammar are being broken here, and I don't have the time or the energy to go through everything.

My first bit of advice, don't put your first quote near the bottom of the story...

 

Thanks a lot, Martin and Christiano.

I appreciate the feedback.

If I can ask you one question, do writers write opinions in a game story? I like to write my opinions that comes with the story to make it interesting, but my editor was furious at me for writing about it which is why I am in the doghouse. I disagree with his thinking because no one wants to read game story. They read it for opinions. I am just wondering if most writers write opinions on game stories.

 

Okay. What I did was this.

I moved the quotes up from the bottom after I described the Pioneer players performance.

I wrote up the quotes after this sentence:

They also got great work from Lisa Moray and Kerri Burke. Moray scored 12 points to join Pape, Walker, and Sowinski in scoring double digits. Burke did a great job setting up passes for the team's scorers. She led the team with 7 assists.

 

People don't read the game story for opinions...they read it for the actual story of what happened that night. The game story incorporates stats, observations, scenes, and quotes all in one tight little package. Save the opinions for a column that you can run a mug shot beside it. Read most major papers, and that's what you'll see - separate gamers and opinions.
There is a difference between outright opinion and observation. Saying something like, "Team A should have played more man defense, because the opposition was springing shooters loose all night long," is the latter. The line does get kinda blurred, but you may just be mistaking a writer's voice or observation for opinion. Be an authority when writing, not necessarily the judge and jury.

 

Whoa! That shows a serious lack of understanding of journalism.
Opinion goes into columns and editorials. It does not go into game stories. Sometimes you see it in gamers, but that's just because the writer has screwed up.
Gamers are factual. They can be featurey gamers, but they are not opinionated.
If you have some opinions you want to express, ask your editor about writing a column. Otherwise, stick to the facts.

 

Standard rule for non-columns is no more than three sentences per paragraph.

 

Completely agree here. You could observe that Team B hit eight three-pointers while Team A refused to come out of its 2-3 zone. That's an observation.
But if you say, "Team A was simply too stubborn and deserved to lose this game because it wouldn't make the necessary adjustments," that had better be in a column and not a game story.

 

On first reference for schools, you don't need the nicknames to follow. Those come on the second reference. And don't try and get so cute with the language. A game story -- especially a free-lanced gamer -- needs to be like a night in a Thai brothel: quick and safe.

 

Well I am so new into this obviously. At the time I wrote my opinions, I figure I would write that since that's what most people want to read rather than the game story. I will admit I got lot of learning to do which is why I decided to log here and ask questions. I definitely appreciate the input.