Noun and Verb Styles

The noun and verb styles are still a bit confusing to me, but hopefully I will get the hang of them soon!

I used two articles from the LA Times.
VERB STYLE:
As the anniversary of the Sept. 12 Chatsworth train disaster approaches, officials with Southern California's sprawling commuter rail service are facing a vexing array of technical, financial and potential legal challenges as they struggle to deliver on pledges of trailblazing safety reforms.

A burst of energy to remake the region's Metrolink train operation was unleashed by the deadliest rail collision in modern California history, a watershed event that killed 25, injured 130 and prompted landmark federal mandates to modernize the nation's rail safety systems.

Today, the rush to reform Metrolink -- a thinly staffed hybrid transportation agency once derided as the political stepchild of the five counties that created it -- is becoming increasingly costly, time-consuming and complicated.

Labor leaders are digging in to fight an unprecedented push by agency officials to place locomotive train crews under continuous video surveillance.

Technical and financial challenges loom over an ambitious schedule to a deploy a $200-million collision-avoidance network for all commuter, freight and intercity trains moving across hundreds of miles of track.

Meanwhile, Metrolink officials have reversed course on an effort to assume direct control over hiring, training and supervising rail crews, a move prompted partly by disclosures that in Chatsworth, an engineer employed by a contractor apparently ran a red light while sending a text message on his cellphone just before colliding head-on with a freight train.


link to the full article here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-train-crash8-2009sep08,0,74.story
This article seems to show verb style because almost every sentence begins and ends with a verb. Using verb style for this particular article seems fitting because the article itself is reporting on action being taken by the Metrolink officials, as a result of an accident which occurred on the railroad. Since the article is reporting on reforms happening to the Metrolink crews, verb style is necessary to convey the sense of action that is being taken, in order to let the readers know that these reforms are in fact, taking place. The tone if the article is a bit urgent, indicating that changes to the Metrolink must be made sooner than later, to prevent any more accidents. This is being done by using phrases such as "the rush to reform" and "a burst of energy", all front-loading the sentences with action.


NOUN STYLE:
Eight people were killed, among them women and teenagers. Several more were seriously wounded and remained hospitalized Sunday, said Jose Luis Leyva of the state prosecutor's office in Culiacan, the state capital about 20 miles to the east.

The shooting may have been part of a string of apparent vigilante attacks in which low-level criminals have been killed by armed squads thought to be working with drug traffickers, police -- or both. More than 30 carjackers and robbers have been killed in similar circumstances in Sinaloa in the last few months, according to a count kept here by journalists.

Two of the victims in Saturday's shootings had criminal records for stealing cars, Leyva said in a rushed news conference Sunday. "Anything is possible," he said.

The dead included two boys, 15 and 16, and two women, 18 and 25, Leyva said.

link to full article here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-shooting31-2009aug31,0,1139506.story

This article appears to use noun style, as it's intent is more for reporting facts than action. Although there is action referred to in this article, it is not about what is happening, but more of the aftermath. For example, a specific event described to in the story is referred to as "the shooting", making it an event rather than current action taking place. Also as described in the Noun and Verb Styles, a majority of the sentences begin and end with nouns. The tone of this story seems to be focusing solely on facts and evidence, rather than indicating something, or describe action being taken on the events reported.