Category Archives: Writing

Getting Aggressive About Passive Voice

by Rosemary Plorin on May 16, 2012 | 2 comments
in Writing

Passive voice. That lofty, abstruse language construct so multifarious it tests even the journeyman writer – and completely eludes the novice.

But take note. Understanding passive voice – and its emasculating impact on otherwise good prose – is crucially important to improving one’s writing. If the goal is to write strong, persuasive, behavior-changing content, the writer must eliminate passive voice in all but the most impactful instances.

While the Internet is replete with examples of poor writing, it provides many good sources to help the student writer (and I hope even the most accomplished novelist, journalist, essayist and scribe would count him/herself in this hungry crowd) learn, detect and destroy passive voice. Such resources can be found here, here and here (and note that I just used passive voice). But as an appetizer to a heartier serving of study in passive voice, I offer a few quick tips to assist the average editor and proofreader in spotting this destructive tendency.

Avoid almost any use of the word “there.”

The glaring “there” is a certainly the most flagrant demonstration of passive voice. Like a bald, fat, shirtless man who has proudly painted the logo of his favorite NFL team on his hairy chest and rounded abdomen, “there” makes no bones about its upbringing. Sentences built on “there is” or “there are” are so weak they can be completed in literally millions of ways. Consider these wildly contrasting examples:

“There is … a quiet beauty in the act of baptism.”

“There is … nothing but depravity and course behavior resting on the limbs of their family tree.”

“There is … a delicious surprise wrapped in the waffle cone of a nutty buddy.”

“There is … a sniper in the state capitol.”

Do you really want to employ a construct that can be so easily manipulated?

Look for subjects hiding at the end of the sentence.

“The trainer was scratched by the lion.”

In this example, the subject of this potentially powerful sentence cowers at the end of the copy, limiting the action of the thought and almost eliminating the possibility of augmentation. (How does one modify “was”?)

Just imagine the possibilities when active voice prevails: “The lion scratched the trainer” is quickly and easily evolved to “The brooding lioness quickened her pace and turned on the unsuspecting trainer, snapping a massive paw against his trousers and tearing fabric, fringe and flesh in the blink of her feline eye.”

Watch out for sentences that rely on “to be.”

In truth, I think most all acts of passive voice can be blamed on this particular flaw (don’t miss that I just used passive voice … again).

While not every sentence with a verb form of “to be” is passive – or necessarily bad – the discerning write will certainly review it carefully. Consider this:

“The cake in the break room has been eaten.”

As passive voice is wont to do, it devours the subject in this sentence. (Go ahead, try to diagram it and see for yourself). We know that eating is (or was) the action here, but who actually did the eating? We don’t know!

As with the example above, this sentence can really come to life when converted to active voice: “The devious data center representatives slipped from their cubicles one by one, surreptitiously devouring the cake in fork-sized bits until the icing read only “Hap … ay” and even the exclamation point was consumed.

As with most of society’s serious woes, the first step to overcoming passive voice is knowing how to identify it. Microsoft Word offers a “grammar check” option that catches most uses of passive voice and can be a helpful tutor as you refine your active voice skills.

What is your favorite trick for avoiding passive voice?

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Five Tips to Help You with Those Pesky Commas

by Robin Embry on May 4, 2012 | no comments
in Copywriting, Punctuation, Writing

I’ve lived in the south my entire life and it’s safe to say my accent quickly distinguishes me from anyone living north of the Mason Dixon line. So, one would think that if I wrote like I talk, my copywriting would be full of commas…hey, why not pause every second during conversation to draw it out? Fact of the matter is I routinely don’t use them enough and I constantly refer to online resources to help me out. Using commas correctly seems elementary, but it is shocking how often this simple punctuation is misused.

Most people are familiar with Grammar Girl (I actually have her book The Grammar Devotional sitting on my desk) but probably don’t visit her as much as they should. Her web site is full of informative and easy to remember tips, and so is GrammarBook.com. In my opinion, here are some of the most useful tips from those sites:

Rule #1: Use a comma when an -ly adjective is used with other adjectives.

Lucy is a lovely, young girl.

Helpful Hint: To test whether an -ly word is an adjective, see if it can be used alone with the noun. If it can, use the comma.

Rule #2: Use commas to set off expressions that interrupt sentence flow.

She is, as everyone expected, very excited about the promotion.

Rule #3: When starting a sentence with a weak clause, use a comma after it. Conversely, do not use a comma when the sentence starts with a strong clause followed by a weak clause.

If these comma examples are not helpful, please let me know.
Let me know if these comma examples are not helpful.

Rule #4: A comma splice is caused when two strong clauses, which could be independent sentences, are separated with a comma without using a conjunction, a semicolon, or a period.

Incorrect:
Kristen wrote an award-winning press release, Steven created an impressive web site.

Correct:
Kristen wrote an award-winning press release, and Steven created an impressive web site.

Rule #5: Sentences that include “if clauses” are called conditional sentences. When this type of clause is at the beginning of a sentence you need a comma, and when it’s at the end you can leave it out.

If I don’t get enough sleep, I am worthless the next day.

I am worthless the next day if I don’t get enough sleep.

And, don’t forget the simple ones like use commas to separate words and word groups with a series of three or more; and use a comma to separate two adjectives.

Here is a recent article in The New Yorker about commas: it’s a funny read.

Do you have a common comma quandary? And, how did I handle my commas?

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Before turning to a thesaurus, consider this

by Erin Lawley on April 26, 2012 | no comments
in Writing

Ever find yourself sitting at your desk, simultaneously staring at a draft of a writing project and an online thesaurus? You toggle back and forth between the two, looking for words that can substitute for those two or three terms that seem to appear in every sentence.

Well, before you start plopping synonyms on the page, consider how differences in meaning and connotation can dramatically affect the tone of your writing.

Tone, as you’ll recall from high school English courses, is the mood of a particular piece of writing. And word choice is one factor that determines mood.

For example, in writing for some of our healthcare clients, I’m frequently tasked with describing services provided by hospitals or physicians. Instead of describing cardiology is a “critical service” for the hospital, I’m better off calling it a “vital service,” given the positive connotations of the word vital (life, energy, etc.) and the more negative connotations of the word critical (crisis, criticism, etc.). Similarly, it’s preferable to describe how a client has “reduced costs,” which has positive implications of strategy and planning, than say it has “cut” or “slashed” its costs.

In addition, word choice determines whether the tone of your writing is casual or formal. Did you “talk about” or “debate” a topic? Did the researchers “look into” or “examine” a subject? Were you “mad” or “angry”?

The next time you’re putting the finishing touches on a piece of writing – or getting ready to reference a thesaurus – take a moment to consider the word choices you’ve made and how they impact the message you’re trying to deliver. A short editing session can mean the difference between a positive and professional piece of writing and a passage that unintentionally frowns at its reader.

For more tips, check out our previous posts on writing and copywriting.

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Refresher Course in Event Reporting

by Erin Lawley on March 29, 2012 | no comments
in Media Relations, Writing

Earlier this month, I attended Leadership Health Care’s 10-Year Anniversary Delegation to Washington, D.C. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, Leadership Health Care is an initiative of the Nashville Health Care Council aimed at fostering the next generation of Nashville’s healthcare leaders. Every year LHC organizes a trip to our nation’s capital to hear from lawmakers, Congressional staff, and leaders of key trade associations, among others.

During the two-day event, I served as a scribe for LHC – creating blog posts and tweets, coordinating with the photographer and shooting short videos with a Flip camera. The experience was a flashback to working as a reporter. (In fact, one nervous-looking Congressional staffer asked me, “You aren’t with the press, are you?” before participating in a panel discussion on healthcare policy.) And it gave me a two-day refresher course in some of the reporting and writing skills that are important to my job today.

Knowing your audience: Especially in a conference environment, when there are many topics and quotes that could form the basis of a story, it’s critical to know who you’re writing to and what those readers care about. Writing to Nashville’s healthcare professionals meant – despite personal interest in certain storylines or colorful quotes – I stuck to the information that seemed most important to inform readers about the content and themes of the delegation.

Taking good notes: There’s nothing worse than sitting down to write and being unable to remember the facts or quotes you need to tell the story. I tend to scrawl or type as much I can, verbatim. It helps me focus on what I’m hearing and increases my chances of having full quotes and thoughts to choose from when I start writing.

Writing with a plan: Or an outline. When facing tight deadlines, I try to visualize the structure of the entire story before I dig in. Often, that means writing the opening paragraph then jotting one or two words that indicate the plan for each subsequent paragraph. After that, it’s just filling in the blanks.

Managing your time: Writing with a plan is just one aspect of time management. It also means using every spare minute – the breaks between conference sessions, the time it takes a panel moderator to introduce speakers whose biographies you have in print form – to choose the quotes you want to use, upload videos, email photos and start writing.

Overall, I was glad to have been asked to participate in the LHC delegation as a scribe – not only did I get the benefit of the educational and networking opportunities of the event, but I was able to give myself a deadline reporting refresher course.

Photo credit: © 2012 Bill Burke/Page One

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Study Shows We Want More News!

by Robin Embry on March 22, 2012 | no comments
in Media Relations, The Media, Writing

Is there a glimmer of hope for the rapidly declining news media industry? The ninth edition of the State of the News Media was released this week by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, and the trends and key findings are definitely worthy of note. For the past several years the report has focused on the downward spiral of the news industry and the rise of technology. This year is a little more of the same except, according to the study, news is becoming more important to people. This could be a small silver lining for journalists and newspapers.

Our appetite for news is indeed growing, but there is a continuous shift in how we want to receive it…not necessarily a strike against the industry. More than a quarter of the population now gets news from mobile devices, and this trend is responsible for a nine percent increase in traffic to major newspaper sites last year. Thanks to apps and direct newspaper home page visits on our phones, access to news is easier than ever and it’s having a positive impact on news sites.

Another interesting trend is that, for the first time in almost a decade, the three main broadcast television networks saw an increase (4.5%) in news viewership, and CNN experienced a 16 percent increase. At the local level, the morning and evening news ratings grew for the first time in five years. Again, positive news.

It seems print media is quickly trying to respond to our thirst for easily accessible online information. In fact, the Pew Report projects that in the next several months we will see more than 100 more publications join the existing 150 publications that have moved to a digital subscription.

Our hunger for news is growing, and it seems like the industry is making small steps forward. The questions is: has the industry already fallen so far behind in technology and lack of engagement with its audience that an unpromising future is already decided? An excerpt from the Pew Report overview says, {A year ago we wrote here: “The news industry, late to adapt and culturally more tied to content creation than engineering, finds itself more a follower than leader shaping its business.” In 2012, that phenomenon has grown.”}

Reporters across the country have been writing about this all week in publications like Forbes, The Chicago Tribune and The Washington Times. There are different opinions about the findings, but most agree that the future of the news industry is most certainly uncertain. To learn more about the 2012 State of the News Media results, click here.

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Working with Reporters: What to Expect

by Erin Lawley on November 29, 2011 | 1 comment
in Media Relations, Writing

If there’s one thing I learned about reporters in my time as a journalist, it’s that every single one of them is different. In temperament, in style, in their receptiveness to being pitched by PR pros – every reporter is unique.

That means you may encounter a few surprises from time to time when working with newsroom staffers. (I recall one former colleague who insisted loudly on speaking to the CEO every time she called a company for a comment, no matter how small the story.)

Fortunately, there are some things that vary little from scribe to scribe. Being aware of these general truths can help you prepare for your next reporter encounter.

• Reporters want a live interview. Whether it’s in-person or over the phone, whether it lasts an hour or less than five minutes – reporters want to talk one-on-one with the individuals who are part of their story. An interview assures the reporter he or she will have the highest likelihood of understanding the topic at hand, having the opportunity to ask follow-up questions, and eliciting some quote-worthy material. From the reporter’s perspective, it’s the quickest and easiest way for them to gather the information they want so they can advance their story.

They don’t really want to submit their questions in advance – they find it time consuming and argue that it’s impossible to anticipate what questions will crop up in conversation. And emailed responses to their questions in lieu of an interview are liked least of all. When I was on the other side of the fence, I dreaded the often sterilized language and regurgitated boilerplate that tended to show up in those answers – if I was even lucky enough for the answers to address the heart of the question.

That’s not to say some emailed Qs and As can’t get the job done. But don’t be surprised if you get some grumbling or push-back if you ask for it.

• There is no guarantee you’ll make it into the story. In fact, there’s no guarantee the story will appear at all. Reporters and editors make decisions about news coverage every day based on a variety of factors that, from time to time, result in the shortening or death of stories both good and bad. In addition, reporters decide which sources they will quote, which sources they will paraphrase, and which ones they will leave out of the story completely based on what makes for the best story.

Of course you can ask the reporter to let you know if you or your client will be in the story and when it will run, but it’s good practice not to expect to see your name in print until you actually see it.

• Reporters don’t share your point of view. As a PR pro representing a client, or as a company handling its own media, you have an agenda – you’re probably looking for positive, prominent coverage. After all, that’s your job. But keep in mind, reporters don’t share your agenda. Their job is to break news and write compelling stories. Sometimes that means, despite what you thought was a stellar interview, your name doesn’t appear until the last paragraph. It can mean that your client, who provides services from A to Z, is quoted only in reference to service A.

• Reporters have questions about press releases. You should expect that a release about any newsworthy topic will elicit additional questions from the media. That’s why contact information (for someone who can be available to the media) is always included on a press release. Be prepared to field those questions, particularly if the release excludes a pertinent piece of information – like the transaction price of an acquisition or the expected completion date of a construction project.

• They’re not going to “run the release.” Please don’t call a reporter and ask them if they’re going to run your release. Even if the media outlet uses your press release as the basis for a two sentence brief, they should be putting those two sentences into their own words and cutting out any language that’s clearly meant for SEO purposes, as well as hyperlinks.

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The Print Versus Online News Debate

by Erin Lawley on August 2, 2011 | 3 comments
in The Media, Writing

Not long ago, when I was standing on the other side of the fence that separates public relations and journalism, my temper nearly got the better of me when a PR friend told me a story about scoring local news coverage for his client.

My friend had coordinated interviews between his client and a reporter at the daily print newspaper, and the story was set to run in, let’s say, Wednesday’s paper. On Tuesday, a reporter from a competing news outlet pinged him, inquiring about the very same story topic. My friend had a good relationship with the second reporter, but he ignored the scribe’s calls, voicemails and emails. The reason for the elusiveness, my friend told me, was his assumption that the second reporter would post the news to his publication’s website immediately, endangering its chances of appearing as planned in the daily print publication’s Wednesday edition.

(For those unfamiliar with the dynamics of local-market breaking news competition, a daily print publication is less likely to run a story after that story has been covered by a competitor. Scooped online, the daily may have opted for online-only coverage, too.)

As a journalist, I was miffed. I wasn’t working for either of these news outlets, but I sided with the second reporter – he’d put in the work to dig up the lead, but was blocked from breaking the news. Just as I was about to berate my friend for his tactics, he insisted he had acted on orders – his client wanted to break the news in print, even if it meant risking lesser or no coverage elsewhere.

I was shocked. Working for a mostly online business news outlet at the time, I didn’t realize some people still think stories in the print daily generally outweigh online coverage.

For one thing, there are the statistics: New numbers from Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism show that at the end of 2010, more people were getting their news online than from print newspapers, and more advertising dollars were funneled to online outlets than their print brethren. In fact, the Pew study reports that “every media sector is losing audience now except online.”

And there seem to be increasing benefits to online coverage – for example, websites largely don’t have to worry about chopping a 1,000-word story to fit into a 700-word space. And online content is becoming increasingly easy for anyone to find and access, thanks to RSS feeds, news alerts and the proliferation of social media and mobile devices.

On the other hand, my friend retorted, a printout or a PDF isn’t the same thing as an actual news clipping.

What do you think? All else being equal, is print or online coverage more desirable? Is this a conversation you’ve had with colleagues or clients? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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A Girl After My Own Heart: Grammar Girl

by Paula Lovell on July 12, 2011 | 3 comments
in Blogs, Writing

I love Grammar Girl. She’s funny and accurate, without being condescending. In an interview on NPR she discussed her new book of 101 words that are commonly misused, wherein she offers handy ways to remember what’s right and what’s wrong.

Her comment about getting tangled up in other people’s misuse of words particularly resonated with me because I’ve been noticing a fairly pervasive misuse of a certain contraction, and it’s driving me crazy.

Even some of the most educated and intelligent people I know have slipped into the lazy misuse of the word, “there’s,” which, of course, means, “there is.” Not, “there are.” There is no shortcut contraction for the words, “there are.” (Correct me if I am wrong, please.) It is correct to say, “There are horses in the barn.” Not so to say, “There’s horses in the barn” or, more commonly misused, “There’s lots of horses in the barn.” Spell check and grammar check don’t even pick up on “there’s lots of,” which I think is incorrect. Or is it?

Can someone rescue me from this self-imposed entanglement of prose?

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Start Blogging and Share Your Passions

by Sarah Mansouri on June 21, 2011 | 3 comments
in Blogs, Social Media, Writing

Over the course of the past year, I have had a growing interest in the unique and intriguing ways of the blogosphere. I continue to be amazed by how many people can be connected by sharing just one interest or idea over the internet. While many companies use blogs to inform consumers and clients on business happenings, the simple act of being able to create a personal blog and share ideas with virtually anyone is refreshing and exciting.

One of my passions is cooking, and I can distinctly remember the time when I realized that the blogging world is on my side when it comes to this passion. I was surfing the internet for new recipe ideas, when I happened upon foodgawker.com. The distinctive nature of this cooking site is that it pulls recipes from hundreds of blogs all over the world in order to create a one-of-a-kind cooking experience for its readers. Some of my favorite recipes now come from this site, all made possible because individuals had the interest and ability to create a personal blog about something they love, in this instance, cooking.

Starting a blog is fairly simple, and blogging about something that you are passionate about clearly shows through to readers. The same idea applies to industry blogs and social media sites. If your company is passionate about its product, getting the word out through a blog or any other form of social media can be easy and will keep customers actively interested in your product. There are many blog services available for personal or business purposes; WordPress and Tumblr are two great options that give step by step instructions on how to start a blog while including many features to personalize and create the image you wish to portray to readers.

I hope to start my own cooking blog someday, but for now, it is good to know that on a day when I have the urge to try something new, whether it is cooking or researching a new product, all I have to do is enter the blogosphere, and I am set.

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One Space or Two?

by Dana Coleman on February 1, 2011 | no comments
in Copywriting, Punctuation, Writing

A recent article by Farhad Manjoo of Slate.com struck a chord with me and sparked some spirited exchanges between some of my professional acquaintances. I don’t believe I can say it any better than Manjoo did in “Space Invaders: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period,” but the article reflects what I learned long ago in a concentrated course in typography; and never learned in typing, English or journalism.

It makes complete sense that we might now abandon a practice that came about in the age of the mono-spacing manual typewriter. The double space has long been the bane of typographers forced to painstakingly remove the extra spaces from copy for printed publications. Take a close look at published books, magazines and newspapers and note the consistent use of a single space at the end of the sentences. Many publishers’ submission standards, in fact, require the single space in manuscripts.

For many years, we’ve had access to sophisticated programs that adjust kerning and make other typographic improvements for us automatically, invisibly, as part of their user-friendly interface. Throughout my career, however, I’ve worked with several associates married to the “two spaces” practice. It’s amazing how strongly people feel about this debate!

I have, at times, attempted to be a two-space writer to conform to the style of clients or supervisors. If you’ve ever tried to convert from one practice to the other, you know how difficult it can be to change your ways. I’m now proud to confess, however, that I’m a one-space writer at heart, and I’m also a big fan of the art of typography that today’s sophisticated software programs have made it so easy for us to neglect.

Where do you stand on the one-space v. two-space debate? Do you plan to change your ways?

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Category Archives: Writing

Getting Aggressive About Passive Voice

Five Tips to Help You with Those Pesky Commas

Before turning to a thesaurus, consider this

Refresher Course in Event Reporting

Photo credit: © 2012 Bill Burke/Page One

Study Shows We Want More News!

The Print Versus Online News Debate

A Girl After My Own Heart: Grammar Girl

One Space or Two?