This is a critique of the Friday edition of USA Today's Life section. This will be my main focus date and section for the rest of the semester.
As with last weeks critique, I did not find much wrong with the section's stories. There were again few typos and grammar mistakes throughout the section.
One of the first mistakes I found wrong was on the the front page in the top sidebar tidbit. There is a hyphen between "Tony Award" and "and,"when there shouldn't be one. Also, in the same tidbit, the writer has capitalized "Main Stem", when it should be lowercased.
The next mistakes/issues I found were in the main article previewing 'The Roosevelts' documentary. The lead is of one sentence, then a new paragraph starts backing up the one sentence. I think there should not be a new paragraph, as it should be with the one sentence. Following this, there is phrases in the third paragraph that aren't needed, I.E. "which in typical Burns fashion..." and "...once again, we and PBS are all the better for it." These two phrases don't add anything to the preview. Next, in the fifth paragraph, it has a sentence: "What makes the Roosevelt's important is that Teddy, FDR and Eleanor didn't just watch that transformation, they drove it." This lead me to ask a question: Is this a quote from the documentary? From the director or writer of the documentary? From the reporter? It reads like a quote, looks like a quote, seems to be a quote. Finally the only other typo/mistake I found was there was no space between a quotation mark and the word "so." The main article read more like book review rather than a TV documentary preview. It lacked quotes from the creator and from the crew/people that made it.
On the second and third pages, I didm;t come across much mistakes or typos. A total of maybe five/six mistakes total. On the second page, in the "Dolphin Tale 2" movie review, they put "Fla." as the abbreviation for Florida, when it should be FL according to AP Style. On the same page, the bottom theatre review story starts off with: "NEW YORK It's morning in America,..."
The correct way should be with a new starting paragraph after NEW YORK:
"NEW YORK
It's morning in America,..."
Next, is the High Heel Museum story. The museum exhibit is listed as being on display through Feb. 15. What year? 2015, 2016? 2031? There should be a year included in the date. Also, an attribution of a quote has the person's title before her name, and they again use "says." According to AP Style, the title should be after the name, and it should be "said," not "says." Finally, at the bottom of the third page, there is a story in regards to Frontier Airlines doing a repaint and redesign. I immediately had the question of "SO WHAT?" No offense, but I do not care whether or not they repainted their logo or not. These were the mistakes/issues I had with Friday's edition of the USA Today's Life section.
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