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I’ve always used a variant of my name for professional purposes, but when I was assisting in intern hiring (for a non-writing field) a couple years back, the level of professionality of people’s email addresses was definitely something we considered. And mocked.

I’m very much in agreement - except maybe when your business name is “The Write Stuff” or “Write For You.” I think a lot of it depends on what kind of writing you’re doing. I do know a creative writer whose company is The Write Stuff and her email reflects that. As well, when I first started my business, I thought I would be doing more corporate and ad company work, thus the formal name that’s still on my website - although in magazine and newspaper writing, I never use the business name. I am glad I never changed my email to “writeforyou,” or “write4u” though!

Great advice. I interview folks in the music industry on a semi-regular basis for an online music magazine, and in the time I’ve written for them (over a year), I’ve (luckily) never been asked for notes, transcripts, etc. I agree with you very much - sometimes the interview takes a completely different turn and a story you didn’t know about arises.

Diana, I just want to tell you, on the record, that your answers to our questions are priceless. I wondered if it would ever be required protocol to send along an audio file of my interview (now that I have this awesome digital voice recorder and it is actually possible). After reading this, I’ll have some courage and conviction if that bridge ever arises in front of me.

Thank you!

I never, ever allow my sources to see quotes. This is a big no-no in journalism and for newspaper editors, will get a story killed, if a source insists on seeing the story. I know its a little different in the magazine world and sometimes much different for trade publications. As a matter of policy, I don’t do any journalism work for editors who insist on a source seeing a story first.

I’m actually with you on this, Kerri. I’d excuse myself from a journalism assignment if an editor ever asked me to get quote approval from my sources. With corporate writing, this is probably not a big deal — but I can’t imagine a bona fide editor at a newspaper/magazine insisting upon this.

I have had sources ask for quote approval. When I explain my process, they usually calm down and proceed. Only once has a source insisted, and at that point, I told them I’d have to find another source. And I did.

Karen, you bring up another good point — turning over tapes. That I would absolutely NEVER do. Don’t know about you guys, but sometimes to warm up a reluctant interview, I’ll chit-chat about this and that or we’ll go off on a different tangent. Do I really want my editor to hear that stuff?

Checking quotes really depends on the publication. It’s not uncommon in science writing, usually for explanations of something technical (as opposed to controversial–it’s GOOD to have the source correct an explanation of a complex concept, which you might have written down wrong or they might have phrased sloppily the first time around).

And the alumni magazine I write for regularly requires running the entire article by the sources before publication. Our sources are our audience, and so we want them to feel fairly represented and our articles to be accurate. I don’t think this is unethical. I have yet to have a source do anything besides make minor corrections like “Actually, I meant to say this different word that’s more accurate” or “So-and-so ended up leaving the project, so you probably shouldn’t mention her.” Maybe I’ve just had really good luck with sources, but I’ve only had articles improved (made more accurate) this way. This article, for example, would have been embarrassingly inaccurate if I hadn’t gone back and forth with the quotes and my explanation paragraphs with the subjects several times–GVHD and bone marrow research are not *my* area of expertise.

(I have a journalism professor in college who told us a story about a time when he quoted a politician as supporting the Klan–this was emphatically not what the source said–and inadequate fact-checking let that slip through to publication. Frankly, I think the risks of running into a difficult source are much lower than the risks of publishing inaccurate or even slanderous articles because I didn’t check quotes.)

So in my niche, I’m all for checking quotes, provided the publication doesn’t have a policy against it. A lot of scientists are already used to being misquoted, and I don’t want to increase the journalist distrust level. If I accidentally quote a scientist as saying something inaccurate, the only person who loses is me–both a source and my own credibility. I have science training, but I don’t have a PhD (yet) and I don’t have training in every field I write about, so I may very well *not* understand the source correctly the first time around, much less catch when a source uses an unintendedly inaccurate term. The point of science writing is to convey information about research and interesting people, not to catch scientists slipping up and saying “convex” when they meant “concave”.

And that’s part of why I never wanted to be a newspaper journalist….

I often experience sources asking to see the article before it’s published. In fact, it’s very common. I used to think this was a weird moment in our conversation, but now I just say that that decision is left up to my editor. I’ve only ever had one source ask to review their quotes. I sent him the quotes I was using but not what I’d written “around” the quotes. It was kind of pointless because he’d done an email interview and I’d used his answers word for word. But it made him feel better since the topic was pretty technical. But in general, I don’t want to take the time to bother with double checking quotes unless there’s a real question in my mind.

Wow, thanks Diana! Yes, I’ll not do this in the future. I had a doubt, and I am glad I got it cleared.

Folders were my old way of sorting emails. Problems: first, it only works if you do it religiously. Second, you have to put each email in one folder, so that emails that span more than one story/topic/etc have to be put in one place only, and you have to remember where it is when you need it for another topic. This gets harder and harder the more articles you write.

My solution: I find gmail and its labeling tool to be a fantastic antidote to the unwieldy one-to-one folder problem. I can tag incoming emails/conversations with more than one label, so that whenever I search on a label, that email will come up. So I have labels for topics (Food writing, travel writing, etc.) as well as for the magazine or mag section. The tags preclude a clunky folder system and allow multiple access points into an email conversation. There’s a bit of a mental shift if you’re used to thinking of stuff as being in a certain place rather than being tagged, but I overcame this pretty quickly.

I also use a simple table at the bottom of my Word doc to keep track of source info, including name, phone, email, website, assistants, etc… useful for fact-checking and to get copies of the article back to the sources.

I guess I’m kind of old-fashioned. I keep a Word document for each assignment (I suppose I might have more than one for a huge assignment) and just paste any email interviews or other relevant correspondence in (with names, phone numbers, etc.) as I get it. The same file holds transcripts of phone or in-person interviews for the assignment, as well as other notes.

My email inbox is ridiculously unwieldy these days, so I don’t think simply labeling interviews in my email would be a good option for me. Also, I tend to prefer phone and in-person interviews whenever possible.

I do the same thing. I’ll collect all of my research in one place, so that it’s all immediately accessible while working on a project. As for the e-mails themselves, I assign each source a folder, tagged with the specifics. This lets me keep everything straight by name, but still allows me to group things by topic.

You never cease to amaze me with your ideas and organization … thanks for the tips, again. I am just beginning to be busy enough that these ideas are coming to me like lightbulbs!

I completely agree! I always send out an email to let sources know when a story will appear. If a “civilian” (not a PR person, politician, etc) is in the story I’ll often send a copy to them, especially if they live outside the coverage area and have no way to get a copy.

Many many PR people have told me how rare this is. I agree with you that I think it’s simply polite but at the same time it is also self-serving. Those same PR people who appreicate that heads up on a pub date will flip over backwards for me the next time I need something ASAP.

This is a great tip. Thanks. I am horrible … I almost feel like I’ve entered freelancing backwards. I’m only writing for a local company — thinking it would be easy, now and again work, until I get out of Mommyland. But, the truth is I’m swamped and love it. I should probably start taking the whole thing more seriously. This is a tip I will use. Thanks.

A follow up card / letter / even a copy of the article would be nice and also builds a great referal list for those blank mind times, that are sure to come. Thanks for the Tips.

Dan Hanosh

“compare that to how much you’re making from the article you interviewed the source for” –I’m glad you made this point. Some writers seem to ignore the fact that without the sources, they would have no publishable article. A separate “thank you” after the interview is the least they can do.

*blush* I am so uneven about this. Sometimes I do it, sometimes I forget. This one goes up on the wall over the computer. Thanks.

that’s a shame, I think there still is a need for it, but perhaps it needs to be a dedicated site that’s run by people (perhaps paid!) with few other commitments and the time to publicise and really build it up.

I think the main problem with lack of hits is that it was hidden beneath a generic “Links” label. It definitely needs a dedicated blog/site, and I really hope our favorite Renegades resurrect it. Sourcery seems like a site that could actually put contextual advertising to good use, since people looking for sources on particular subjects would actually *want* to see products and other sites dealing with those subjects.

It was a great idea - too bad it didn’t take off the way you expected. Thanks for thinking of it and other ways to make your site useful to your readers.

There’s definitely a need for it, agreed Diane. And the problem we have with WordPress, the blog interface we use, is that we can’t manipulate the code to do exactly what we want — well, we *could* if only we were software engineers.

Linda and I have talked about adding a bulletin board to the site — maybe that’s where we could resurrect Sourcery. At the moment, though, we’ve got a million other things on our lists, so the bulletin board will have to wait.

well your site is still a wonderful resource anyway and I know what you mean about Wordpress - I spent an hour or 2 cursing it yesterday, trying to create a Resume section for myself, which only partially worked!! x

Umm…I know how to play with WordPress code I can’t swear I won’t have to stare at the code for a bit to see what you have going on, but…just a thought.