To ignore a couple of time-honored writerly rules of thumb - write what you know; show, don't tell - takes nerve.

In the course of these interviews, Woodward breaks his own time-honored rules of access journalism.

The author, Ivan Menchell, follows the time-honored rules of his chosen genre: he gives his middle-class senior citizens as many toilet, sexual and anatomical one-liners as he can.

Nothing like a threatened pregnancy, Mary Pat told herself, as she broke yet another time-honored rule in the spy business: Don't say anything.

Even in a profession where the time-honored rule says that an agent does not publicize himself at the expense of his client, Ovitz's preoccupation with secrecy is unusual.

The commission lifted two time-honored rules in the process.

Kerry's early lead in the exit polls should have been widening as daytime turned to night; according to the time-honored rules of politics, Republicans vote in the morning, while Democrats vote late.

Experts in the field said some time-honored rules still hold.

In so doing, it relied on a time-honored rule of thumb: that an epidemic has ended if no new cases occur in a time span double the longest incubation period.

In the case of this year's Japan trip, the Mayor and the business community followed a time-honored rule of commerce: Support a customer encountering a difficult period.