Lesson learned: More words are so totally definitely not better

Upon joining the Bleacher Report Sports Media Internship, I had little experience in the sportswriting world. Sure, I wrote for my school paper, but nothing like what Bleacher Report has required of me.

The experience has been great, and I couldn’t ask for anything more out of the wonderful crew of people I have had the opportunity to work with during these last two months.

It’s funny how much I thought I knew and how good writer I thought I was before I began this program. The main thing I’ve learned writing for Bleacher Report is concision. I still get carried away with wordiness at times, but it’s all part of the learning process.

Now I am conscientiously thinking about it as I write, rather than verbally running amuck, putting down anything that comes to mind.

Counting the words of every sentence as I write is not the easiest thing, but I have noticed my writing sounding more concise and clear now that sentence length has become a focus of mine.

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Zachary Krueger is in the Spring class. Follow him on Twitter @ZacharyKrueger.

One Thing You Need to Know is a series in which we ask our interns to write about just that: One thing they’ve learned in the B/R Sports Media Internship that they would pass along to other aspiring writers.