Grammar Moses: You can quote me on that!

With apologies to any of you our reporters have interviewed, not everything you say is interesting.

Not everything I say is interesting either, but that's the joy of writing a first-person column and being the editor of the paper.

Nanny nanny foo foo.

We will interview someone at length for a profile story and, from that, use a smattering of quotes and weave in details from other things the subject has told us as "color."

Too often, though, reporters - reporters from a great many newspapers I've read - lean too hard on quotes to tell the story, especially when it's a story that talks about process rather than emotion.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about how jargon slows down our writing. Last week it was how unnecessary words do the same.

Today, it's all about how quotes in news writing should act as punctuation.

Show me a story about a project that will come before the Hooterville Plan Commission, and I'll show you a story that might not need a single quote - unless, of course, you want to put the city's director of planning on notice for saying "This will propel Hooterville into the 22nd century!" or someone in the crowd shakes his fist and screams, "If you allow a septic tank cleaning operation to open next to my perfumerie, it will snuff out my business!"

The planning director's quote raises one's eyebrow. The perfumer's quote distills the potential for conflict and, well, it makes you want to read further.

Without that sort of passion, we likely will not hear anything interesting enough to quote and we should paraphrase what's said in a succinct explanation.

Perfunctory quotes should be shown the door. They waste space. They slow down our writing. Worse, they encourage readers to move on to something that's more interesting.

Unneeded quotes make tight stories looser than Joey Chestnut's bowels on the Fourth of July.

A succinct and meaningful quote after a lengthier description is the cherry on the sundae. It reinforces without repeating. It's additive. It breaks up the cadence of writing, too.

What drives me nuts is a good quote buried in a much longer one. Free it! Allow it to breathe.

There are reporters who record their conversations with interviewees. There are those who take notes on their computers. And there are those who apply chicken scratch to notebook.

I prefer the third, old-school approach.

Why? Because too much can be a bad thing.

Some reporters will transcribe a conversation before starting to write a story. This process takes forever. Having made the effort to type it all out makes it much harder to trim the stuff that's not important.

Some type notes on their computers, but then cut and paste whole passages into a story draft. The process is much quicker than starting with transcription, but the tendency remains to leave in unnecessary quotes and information.

I was a reporter before we had portable computers or cellphones. We also shared computers on wheels. So I didn't have those temptations. When I was in the field, all I had was a ballpoint, a notebook and a pocketful of quarters so I could call a story in on deadline.

I wrote stories based on the most important things I remembered from interviews I'd had or meetings I'd listened in on. I wrote down interesting quotes and not much else.

Only after I'd written the draft would I refer to my notes to fact-check or ensure I got the quote right.

Other advice I offer on the thoughtful use of quotes:

• Don't quote multiple people saying the same thing.

• Don't telegraph quotes. Don't write that Le Perfumerie owner Gros Nez said having a septic cleaning business move in next door will have a negative effect on his business and follow it up with: "It will snuff out my business," he said. The setup steals the quote's thunder, for starters, and it's repetitive.

• Make sure you introduce the person you're quoting if you've already quoted someone else. You don't want readers to picture the wrong person saying something.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/executive editor of the Daily Herald. You can buy Jim's book, "Grammar Moses: A humorous guide to grammar and usage," at

grammarmosesthebook.com. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com

and put "Grammar Moses" in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.