Virtual Expert: Dave Mowitz,

Senior Machinery Editor, Successful Farming

Dave was raised on the plains of Nebraska tending to chores in his father's irrigated corn and grain sorghum fields near Hampton. The family operation also included a purebred Angus herd. A graduate from Wayne State College (Nebraska), he landed his first job as beef editor for Nebraska Farmer magazine. He helped establish and then managed Husker Harvest Days, a working farm show held each year near Grand Island, Nebraska.

In 1984 he left the show and came to Successful Farming, eventually becoming senior machinery editor. Besides overseeing machinery editorial, he also edits Successful Farming's Ageless Iron, which is an editorial package featuring agricultural collectibles.

Dave and his wife, Brooke, live with their two daughters, Alyssa and Sarah, and son, Benjamin, in Des Moines, Iowa, in a 130-year-old home currently (and slowly) being restored. When not working on the house and a growing fleet of antique tractors, Dave spends time on his farming operation in central Nebraska.

Dave's phone: 515-284-3287

E-mail: dave.mowitz@meredith.com

Dave won First Place in two categories of the AAEA 2003 Writing Awards Program: On-Farm Production with his "Combine Sweet Spot" story; and Human Interest with his "The Unvarnished West" story. He was named the 2003 AAEA Writer of the Year.

Q&A with Dave Mowitz about the "Combine Sweet Spot" story:

The planning stage: Please give some background on why you chose the story topic that won your award. What gave you the idea for that topic? Why now? What were your goals when you began to plan the story?

Dave: Combine operation and adjustment always enjoys a rapt audience whenever the topic is discussed at producer meetings and Internet discussion groups. This was my first indication that this topic would make a "good" story. What made it a "great" subject was the fact that most producers misunderstand combines based on comments made by producers. The root cause of this misunderstanding is a lack of knowledge of how all the components of a combine work together. Armed with that knowledge I set out to write an introductory coarse on combine operation . . . a kind of Combine 101. The timing of the story couldn't have been better as producers were eagerly seeking ways to make incremental improvements in their operations to milk more profit from depressed commodity prices.

The fact gathering stage: How did you choose the people to interview for your story? What were your primary sources of information? Did you use the Web? How and where did you conduct interviews? Did you do the interviews face-to-face, phone, or email, and which is best? How did you get good information and good quotes from your sources? How did you determine who to interview, and when did you know you'd done enough interviews?

Dave: First, I wiped my own knowledge slate clean and sought out tutors in the form of agricultural engineers and manufacturer product managers to teach me how to operate a combine. In the meantime I canvassed farmers to discover their harvesting misconceptions. Internet discussion groups proved invaluable concerning the latter effort. The final stages of research consisted of person-to-person interviews with producers who excel at adjusting and operating a combine. This provided the story with proof that any farmer could make improvements.

I realized I had accumulated enough information for the article when the pile of notes and documents related to the effort had grown over one foot tall. Then, too, I was late meeting the copy deadline, so it was certainly time to stop researching and start writing.

The writing stage: Why or how did you choose the story lead? Did you outline the story or organize the general flow ahead of time, before you began to write? What writing style did you choose, and why? How many re-writes did you do? How did you choose sidebar stories? Did you have an editor or a colleague review your story, offer suggestions, look for "holes" in your reporting? How do you check facts?

Dave: You can't beat utilizing producer experience in any lead. I was fortunate to have interviewed a farmer who not only embodied the essence of the story, but who also had an endearing tale to tell of how he learned to operate a combine from his grandfather. Although experts warn that no lead writes itself, the introduction for this article required a little crafting, but almost no creation.

The body of the article, however, was an entirely different situation. I had to boil down a mountain of information into a seven-page discourse covering a very technical topic. Employing my journalism instructor's favorite admonishment to "keep it simple, stupid," I divided the general topic into miniature chapters related to the major components of a combine (gathering, threshing, separating and cleaning). Next I threw out those bits of information that did not relate to our entire audience, such as how to set a combine for harvesting popcorn. Finally, I boiled the remaining text down to its "how to" essence to create the final copy.

I utilize a rather time-consuming approach to writing technical articles in that I write a general draft which includes all major story points. Next, that text is cut in half. Finally, I condense the text down even further to fit the space allotted for the article. Only then will I add farmer experiences to the article. Any essential technical points that get cut from an article's general copy are often resurrected in sidebar articles written in super-condensed bullet points.

How did you begin your career? What advice do you have for those graduating? What does it mean to be a member of AAEA? How do you maintain a high standard of ethics in your writing and your career?

Dave: After graduating with a degree of broadcasting and pre-law, I stumbled into a career that didn't involve either major. Still, I was able to employ many of the techniques I learned in broadcast journalism in my new profession. From that first job until now, I have maintained memberships in a wide variety of professional organizations besides AAEA, including the National Agricultural Marketing Association, American Society of Agricultural Engineers and the American Agronomy Society. Such groups are important not only in that they keep you abreast of current developments in agriculture, but also inspire you to do a better job serving your publication's reader. And if you strive to be true to readers and serve their needs, then the job of maintaining editorial ethics takes care of itself.