FUNDAMENTALS

On Attribution

David McHam told his feature writing class at the University of Houston on Tuesday that handling attribution well is one sign of a good writer.

The 20 students enrolled in the class this semester have written several stories in which attribution was important.

“I still wish I could have convinced them to use more quotes,” McHam said. “I’ve tried to get the point across but with limited success.”

McHam said he has had some success in explaining how to use attribution.

“Often beginning writers are reluctant just to use the word ‘said,’” he said, “and sometimes they are hesitant about using the past tense.

“I’ve tried to stress the importance of setting a story in time and place. When you do that, the attribution ties into a specific time.”

McHam said he had not yet described how to handle continuing quotes, as in the two paragraphs above. Perhaps, he said, he should have talked about this much earlier. The second paragraph doesn’t need attribution because it is a continuing quote, he said.

“Another thing I should have talked about earlier is how when only one person is talking in the story you may get to the point at which you won’t need the ‘he said,’ as in this paragraph.”

The problem of course, he said, is when you have two people talking in the story. For instance, Mike Blackman and McHam.

Blackman’s name would have to come first in either a paragraph or a quote if you were switching to him, McHam said. And notice how in a sentence like this you still need the attribution although you could get by without it in the quote above, he said.

“And why is that?,” McHam asked. “And notice how I used McHam here instead of ‘he’ to avoid any confusion with Blackman.”

Blackman emphasized when he was in class on Thursday how sacred quotes are. He said that writers shouldn’t change quotes – even a word. Blackman was passionate about the subject.

McHam said, “I would quote him directly about that but unfortunately I didn’t get the direct quote. I can only paraphrase what he said. Which is what you do when you don’t have the exact quote.”

But notice, he said, how he used the attribution at the beginning in the paragraph above to avoid confusion. Without doing that, he said, the reader would have assumed that Blackman was being quoted.

McHam said to note how the paragraph above doesn’t begin with a quote because it isn’t a direct continuation of the previous paragraph. To open it with a quote would give the impression that it was, he said.

“Again, notice how the sentence right above this one requires attribution,” he said, “the same way that this sentence does. And notice the placement of attribution in this paragraph. You wouldn’t want to wait until the end of the paragraph for the attribution here.”

McHam said that sometimes you can write about a person without using attribution. But that can be tricky, he said, because without attribution the writer ends up making the statement and not the speaker.

Here’s an example, he said: But that can be tricky because without attribution the writer ends up making the statement and not the speaker.

A particular hazard for beginner, he said, is introducing the paraphrase. The example he gave was: Turning to another problem, McHam said …

But, he said, he didn’t like to introduce a sentence that way – turning to another problem. First of all, he said, it’s the writer who’s turning to another problem and not the speaker. Also, that’s inexact attribution, he said. Too many things can go wrong in such a structure, he said, “and besides writing like that can become a crutch.”

In using “turning to another problem,” McHam said, “the writer just picked something out of what I was saying and arbitrarily said I was the one who did it.

“But it’s more complicated than that. In theory, turning must modify the first noun that it comes to. But as it is used, the participle modifies ‘McHam said.’ That’s what I mean by inexact attribution.”

Attribution is related to other aspects of good writing, he said. Among those other aspects he listed style, punctuation and the language in general.

McHam said his concern over attribution was based on two factors.

First, the writer needs to be able to handle attribution so that it doesn’t stand out. This is a good story to check that on, he said.

“Go back over the story and see if the attribution gets in the way at any time,” he said. “That’s the test.”

Second is satisfying the need for attribution. Again, he said, the students in the class can study this story to see if it has attribution when it needs it and doesn’t when it doesn’t need it.

“For some reason,” he said, “young writers think that repeating the word ‘said’ can be distracting in some way. Actually, the opposite is true. Using different words of attribution such as declared, emphasized, asserted, opined, etc. can be distracting.”

He urged the students not to use think, feel and believe as words of attribution. But, he said they might use “said he thought” or “said he believed.” But not “said he felt.” Just take the felt out, he said, and have the person say what they said.

Don’t direct the reader, he said, with words like added, continued, went on to say and so forth. And, he said, avoid when asked, talked about and similar approaches, he said. He said to use according to only with official figures such as census data. David McHam

BEYOND THE BASICS