Chris Otule had his best game at Marquette Saturday, and Mike Hunt highlights him in his game story
Since I wrote a recap of the Marquette-Notre Dame game for the Marquette Tribune's website on Saturday, I was curious to see how Michael Hunt, the Journal Sentinel beat writer for Marquette basketball, recapped the contest in comparison to my effort.
The main difference I noticed in our stories was that Hunt waited for Marquette coach Buzz Williams, Marquette point guard Junior Cadougan and Notre Dame coach Mike Brey to finish speaking before posting. As a result, he used quotes to color the body of his recap.
In my story, I chose not to use quotes and to instead provide a straightforward recap. As part of our writing style at the Tribune, we like to leave the quotes for our analysis article that appear in the paper on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In the future, I may wait just long enough to work in good quotes from Buzz and other players that discuss relevant statistics and key points of the preceding game.
Hunt also began his story with a strong anecdotal lead, something my story lacked somewhat. Although my story did mention the perfect home record Marquette boasts in 2012-13, I went right to the score in the opener. Hunt weaved in a solid lead, which discussed the game as potentially the "last time for a long time" the two teams would play and then designated the contest as an "experience to remember."
The strength of Hunt's two paragraph lead allowed him to write five consecutive paragraphs without quotes. That kind of lead really enhances a sports article, but also requires a lot of preparation to perfect. I will try to bring an anecdotal lead or two to my online recaps in the future, in order to grab readers and have them read through all of the trends the next few paragraphs highlight.
The main difference I noticed in our stories was that Hunt waited for Marquette coach Buzz Williams, Marquette point guard Junior Cadougan and Notre Dame coach Mike Brey to finish speaking before posting. As a result, he used quotes to color the body of his recap.
In my story, I chose not to use quotes and to instead provide a straightforward recap. As part of our writing style at the Tribune, we like to leave the quotes for our analysis article that appear in the paper on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In the future, I may wait just long enough to work in good quotes from Buzz and other players that discuss relevant statistics and key points of the preceding game.
Hunt also began his story with a strong anecdotal lead, something my story lacked somewhat. Although my story did mention the perfect home record Marquette boasts in 2012-13, I went right to the score in the opener. Hunt weaved in a solid lead, which discussed the game as potentially the "last time for a long time" the two teams would play and then designated the contest as an "experience to remember."
The strength of Hunt's two paragraph lead allowed him to write five consecutive paragraphs without quotes. That kind of lead really enhances a sports article, but also requires a lot of preparation to perfect. I will try to bring an anecdotal lead or two to my online recaps in the future, in order to grab readers and have them read through all of the trends the next few paragraphs highlight.
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