Don't let these phrases suck the life out of your writing - or your readers!

In a world where you only get a minute - or more realistically, less than 5 seconds - to grab your readers' attention, learn to be succinct. While some of us appreciate flowery prose, poetry and literature, when you're talking about newsworthiness, promotion and public relations, get the extra words out of the way.

Ragan's PR Daily shares "8 terms that suck the life out fo your writing" - read the rules now!

Watch Your Wordiness

Regardless of your specialty in the public relations realm - social media, event planning, media relations, writing for publications, etc. - great communication skills are key. If you're trying to get the attention of the media, you need to be precise and succinct, and you have to, above all else, keep their interest. One way of doing that is packing a punch with your words.

This short article, "Seven Examples of Passive Voice (and How to Fix Them)," emphasizes the need to scrutinize your text before sending, rethink the construction of your sentences and eliminate unneeded words. In even the most informal communication, these tips can help you engage your reader - which is what we all want, right?

Remember, you are one press release among many

Although there are a million different ways to distribute information about your organization, you probably still write press releases in a traditional format as well. Here's one journalist's views about receiving them and an example of one that caught her eye. Read article

Don't forget: our chapter has a Delicious account to share and bookmark great articles.

Learning analytics

ROI is something we all try to gauge, and even experts will tell you that analytics aren't fail-proof. But with all of the different ways to communicate and ways to disperse your time and energy, it is important to try to understand this growing and evolving area.

This post deals specifically with web traffic, but it's worth a read to learn a little more about analytics. It may also help you in your writing, as it addresses keywords, SEO, etc.

Read the article

AP Stylebook Adds 42 New Guidelines for Social Media

Check out these new changes - reported on Mashable today:

The AP Stylebook has released its new social media guidelines, including the official change from “Web site” to “website” (a move first reported back in April) and 41 other definitions, use cases and rules that journalists should follow.


Among the more interesting changes –- at least from a grammar and style standpoint –- are separating out “smart phone” as two words, hyphenating “e-reader,” and allowing fan, friend and follow to be used both as nouns and verbs.

Click here to read the rest of the article

Share the errors

Since copy editing is part of what we do on a regular basis, I find myself noticing errors in publications as well as websites I read. When I stumbled across these two sites, I found them fascinating:

• mediabugs.org - a site to report errors in the news (specifically in the California area)
• goosegrade.com - a site to start a dialogue between website readers and website content providers

This just in!

Friday, the Associated Press announced a notable change to it's Stylebook. "Web site" is officially changing to "website," based on user input and more common practice.

What do you think about the change?

The Poynter Institution commented on the "cheers" and "jeers" in their post.

It's interesting to note the AP announced the change via Twitter:

New stylebook coming this summer

I, for one, wouldn't be caught at work without my "AP Stylebook." But, a post on today's "PR Daily Newsfeed" from Ragan.com caught my attention.

Yahoo is publishing a styleguide for online writing in July. Here's the link to The Business Insider story. Amazon.com has it available for pre-order.

It's not ALL about the razzle dazzle

There is a constant struggle in all of our jobs to remain relevant, provide good information and stay updated with technology (social media, etc.). This article, "Memo To News Sites: There Is No Future In Digital Razzle Dazzle," tells us that journalists (as well as PR professionals providing news and information) need to not only think of the flashy new technology, but to remember your audience and your duty to provide solid information.

What we’re learning is that the key to building and keeping traffic is far more prosaic than multimedia and sharing buttons. It rests on overcoming a huge cultural barrier: evolving a serious, experienced, thoughtful newsroom into an audience-first organization. I use the term “evolving” because this is all about the present tense. Trying to understand our current and future audience is a work in progress that will continue for as long as we publish on the web.

Read the article here

Clear Your Mind to Fill the Page

Writing well is a basic skill for those in the public relations profession, and everyone has their own style, voice and technique. I found this article today and thought it had some insight into breaking down writer's block and writing with more impact.

Anderson: The Best Writing Advice of the Best Writing Advice


Few things are more addictive to writers than reading tips about writing. Anyone who spends several hours a day wrestling with the blank page approaches the enormous canon of writing advice (Brande’s Becoming a Writer, Gardner’s The Art of Fiction, Dillard’s The Writing Life, Lamott’s Bird by Bird, The Paris Review interviews, etc.) as a kind of never-ending existential thriller. Over the weekend, the Guardian added to the genre, publishing a two-part survey of advice from 29 well-known contemporary writers, each of whom was asked to produce ten rules. The resulting 200-odd tips cover, pretty thoroughly, all the basic clichés of the form: write every day, read all the time, revise mercilessly, and so on. Some of them explore territory beyond that, with advice ranging from the incredibly specific (Helen Dunmore: "Read Keats’s letters") to the vague (Anne Enright: "Try to be accurate about stuff"), and from the practical (Joyce Carol Oates: "be alert for possibilities of paragraphing") to the evasive (Philip Pullman: "My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work").

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