Bad habits are easy to fall into but very hard to break. That's certainly true of journalism. Aspiring reporters need to establish good work habits at the very start of their training, or they risk developing bad ones that will follow them for the rest of their careers. I see this every semester in the journalism courses I teach.

With this in mind, here are six habits journalism students should develop and incorporate into their routines as they train to become reporters.

1. Over-report: If your professor tells you to interview a half-dozen people for a story, interview a dozen. If the student newspaper editor assigns you to interview the coach of the soccer team, do that - and then interview the players as well.

The point? Always do more reporting than you think is necessary, because in the end, it's reporting - not writing - that really determines how good a news story is. After all, an editor can clean up a sloppily written story, but she can't compensate for one that's thinly reported. So over-report every story you do.

2. Check, check and check again: There's an old saying in the news business: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. In other words, get into the habit of checking out all the information you gather for every story you do, from the spellings of names to the correct percentage of property tax increases, and so on. Only by being an anal-retentive fact-checker will you avoid having mistakes or inaccuracies find their way into your stories.

And as any seasoned reporter can tell you, there's nothing worse than getting your facts wrong in an article that's read by tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people.

3. Use your AP Stylebook: Okay, learning AP Style isn't the most exciting or glamorous part of the news business. But it's necessary, because AP Style is the gold standard for 99.999 percent of news outlets in the U.S. And if you get into the habit of writing stories filled with AP Style errors, chances are you'll find yourself covering the sewage treatment commission beat pretty quickly, sent there by the disgruntled editor who's been fixing your stories.

4. Work hard: Be the first one in the newsroom in the morning, and the last to leave at night. Take every assignment given you. Write two, three, four or more stories a day if that's what's needed.

Hard work is a must in any field, but in the news business it's especially important, since many newsrooms have been downsized in recent years and are understaffed. Every reporter needs to pull his or her weight, and then some. So work hard.

5. Don't complain: Journalists are legendary for their ability to whine about anything and everything, but as a young reporter coming up through the ranks you should never complain about the work. As noted in the previous paragraph, work hard, accept every assignment you receive - and do it with a smile. This will endear you to editors more than you know.

6. Whatever you do, don't plagiarize: Nothing torpedoes a career in journalism more quickly than an act of plagiarism. Yet in this digital age the temptation to lift material from someone else's story - and the ability to do so - is greater than ever.

But don't do it. It's not worth it. If a reporter at another news outlet scoops you on a story, do everything you can to get the story yourself, through your own reporting. But if you develop a penchant for plagiarizing the work of other journalists, you won't be working in journalism for very long.

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