Comments on: Quotes

By: Sue Russell

Sue Russell — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 23:27:02 +0000

I agree, Michael. I do make a faithful effort to retain not only the meaning of the quotes, but the spirit in which things were said (when cutting), etc. But I do clean up, judiciously. It benefits the piece and it’s not unusual for an interviewee to request it and say, “You’ll clean that up a bit won’t you!” They don’t want to read their tortured syntax. Having been on the other side of the fence and interviewed myself, I feel the same way. Where it can get tricky is when accents or regionalisms come in. Do you keep them, or clean up? A simplistic grammatical example would be a double negative. But I love accents and would hate to erase them. I often talk to editors about this, case by case.

By: Brooke Edwards

Brooke Edwards — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:41:26 +0000

I agree with Mr. Fitzgerald. I, too, was adhering to this strict practice of transcribing every word my subjects said during a Q&A, only to watch the final product appear online completely cleaned up. Not only no umms, but no likes, no I thinks, no there’s (replaced with “there are”)…

I now clean up my own Q&As in this way before submitting them, though sometimes it still feels a bit naughty. I would love to hear more discussion on this topic, and what should ethically be allowed.

By: Michael Fitzgerald

Michael Fitzgerald — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:22:47 +0000

I find this is not true when the person is the subject of a Q&A format piece. I used to file these with the tortured syntax or some transitional phrase intact. That all gets cut by editors (who actually expect I will cut it first, and organize or rearrange sentences to the greatest effect).

It’s also routine, in my experience, for phrases like “I think” to be cut from direct quotes, which then start with the thought, which to me are on the fringe of being extraneous, but arguably are important qualifying statements.