Seven easy things to do for better L&R

By Grant Carson

Tom Pearce, L&R judge, was kind enough to share with me the score sheets and critiques of a district he judged. I noticed that the critiques kept saying the same things, so I made a tally. Here are the repeated items of advice, things most of us know we should do, and easy to do. There were seven bulletins entered.

Put a line drawing of a quartet in the nameplate, five times.
Give the meeting place in the bulletin, three times.
Use an action verb in every headline, seven times.
Use line art to break the monotony of text, four times.
Use special emphasis techniques, such as boxed text, four times.
When using boxed text, don't let the boxes crowd the text, three times.
Put page numbers on all pages but page one, three times.

All but one of these items are included in the L&R score sheet. The score sheets are a guide for what's good, or what PROBE thinks is good, in barbershop journalism. If you don't have all three, they're available from PROBE Secretary Brian Lynch.

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