There are more instances of "scare quotes" than I had realized. And, maybe worse, I think they were used in three different senses: (1) to suggest a phrase has a technical meaning, e.g., "tire track", "furtive fallacy"; (2) to be facetious, e.g., 'expert'; (3) to quote another party literally, e.g., "scientific debate", "shocking truth".
This overuse probably added to the impression that I was mixing news reporting and editorial styles. On the other hand, it makes me wonder whether writing a _satirical_ news item necessarily means introducing an editorial-like flavor, since the satire implies a subjective opinion.
At any rate, looking back, I think the quoted fallacy types should have been first-letter-capitalized, and "expert" was already qualified by "putative" so the scare quotes were redundant.
My lesson this week is that constructive feedback is always helpful and worth asking for. When it highlights a distracting personsal 'tick' (D'oh!) that the writer himself has been blind to, it might be all the more valuable.
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There are more instances of "scare quotes" than I had realized. And, maybe worse, I think they were used in three different senses: (1) to suggest a phrase has a technical meaning, e.g., "tire track", "furtive fallacy"; (2) to be facetious, e.g., 'expert'; (3) to quote another party literally, e.g., "scientific debate", "shocking truth".
This overuse probably added to the impression that I was mixing news reporting and editorial styles. On the other hand, it makes me wonder whether writing a _satirical_ news item necessarily means introducing an editorial-like flavor, since the satire implies a subjective opinion.
At any rate, looking back, I think the quoted fallacy types should have been first-letter-capitalized, and "expert" was already qualified by "putative" so the scare quotes were redundant.
My lesson this week is that constructive feedback is always helpful and worth asking for. When it highlights a distracting personsal 'tick' (D'oh!) that the writer himself has been blind to, it might be all the more valuable.
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