Roy Peter Clark
Senior Scholar The Poynter Institute
Roy Peter Clark has taught writing at Poynter to students of all ages since 1979. He has served the Institute as its first full-time faculty member, dean, vice-president, and senior scholar. He contributes regularly to Poynter.org on topics such as writing, reporting, editing, coaching writers, reading, language and politics, American culture, ethics, and the standards and practices of journalism. He is the author or editor of eighteen books. His most recent include Writing Tools, The Glamour of Grammar, Help! For Writers, How to Write Short, and The Art of X-ray Reading.
Why we all read stories twice all the time
I have come to believe that all readers read all stories twice — all the…
How to make hard facts easy to read
A version of this essay was recently published in Research World. My new book “Murder…
Roy Peter Clark: Why everyone needs a reliable language guide
When I delivered the manuscript of the book "Murder Your Darlings" to my publisher, it…
The power of the self-imposed deadline
With lots of activity around the publication of my new book “Murder Your Darlings: And…
A tribute to Ken Fuson: Writer, gambler, friend
Imagine Charlie Brown, all grown up, now an overweight gambling addict who could write like…
Roy Peter Clark settles the possessive apostrophe debate: Follow grammarians’s rules
In my career as a journalist and scholar I have written about sex – a…
Trump’s ‘lynching’ tweet highlights the dark world of false comparisons
When it comes to public language, we live in the era of the false comparison.…
What I learned about writing from reading Greta Thunberg’s speech to the U.N.
One way to learn writing strategies is to study the texts of successful speeches. Over…
The 11 Suggestions: An antique mirror on journalism’s craft and values
The cool thing about the Ten Commandments is that there were 10 of them. That…
‘Lead’ vs. ‘lede’: Roy Peter Clark has the definitive answer, at last
I am writing this essay for two reasons: 1. To help dispel (or should I…
What I’ve learned about writing from reading Toni Morrison
(Author’s note: American author and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison died Aug. 5 at the age…
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