by Richard E. Rotman –PR Writer Extraordinaire

All one has to do to find notable examples of poor news release writing is go to Canada Newsire on any day. Organizations pay good money to release this news but they don’t bother to. Here are originals and suggested corrections: why do these organizations bother?

I. Xpertdoc Technologies Inc. Appoints President – Ms Varsha Bhat

or:

Xpertdoc Technologies Inc. Appoints Varsha Bhat President

PRW Comment:

• Don’t need the Ms.
• More active to put her name first

Released version: MONTREAL, Oct. 9 /CNW Telbec/ – Xpertdoc Technologies Inc. – a Montreal based technology firm providing document output products and solutions – continues to ‘wow’ the local community with its recent new appointment. Xpertdoc welcomes Ms Varsha Bhat as the incoming President, effective immediately.

PRW Revision: MONTREAL, Oct. 9 /CNW Telbec/ – Xpertdoc Technologies Inc. – a Montreal-based technology firm providing document output products and solutions ‘wowed’ the industry by apppointing Varsha Bhat as its President.

Comments:

• Need a hyphen between Montreal and based
• If you must use the ‘wow’ idea, who is being wowed? Why the local community—isn’t the industry more important?
• ‘Continues to’ is one of those clauses that almost always be eliminated. Previous examples of ‘wow’ can be expressed in subsequent comments.
• ‘Recent new’ appointment is redundant and unnecessary. The announcement implies ‘new.’ The only way the qualifier would be relevant and ‘effective immediately’ is if the appointment took place in the future.
• Using Mr or Ms is not CP style. If saying that Bhat is female is important, isn’t there a stronger way to underscore it, such as she is the ‘industry’s first female’ or something like that.
• In the rest of the release, the CEO is ‘proud to announce’ the appointment, while an advisory board member is also ‘pleased’ as is an investor who is quoted, repeating the word. “Ms” is also repeated four times and her first and last name is used in the last paragraph, where it should not be necessary.

All that in one release!

Ontario Long Term Care Companies Recognized Nationally for Leadership and Excellence

Original: MARKHAM, ON, Oct. 9 /CNW/ – The Ontario Long Term Care Association (OLTCA) is delighted to congratulate two of its members on being nationally recognized for the levels of excellence they have achieved in developing quality relationships and processes within their organizations.

PRW: MARKHAM, ON, Oct. 9 /CNW/ – Two Ontario Long Term Care Association (OLTCA) members have been being nationally recognized for excellence in developing quality relationships and processes within their organizations as a result of the Mediacorp Canada Inc annual competition.

OMNI Health Care Ltd. was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers for 2010 and in September, Diversicare Canada received the National Quality Institute’s Order of Excellence Award for continuous excellence in quality.

Comments:

• Combines two sentences into one
• Avoids passive voice
• Gets rid of the “delighted to congratulate” idea, which is not news.

Original: “We applaud the owners, management and staff at OMNI Health Care and Diversicare Canada for their leadership and commitment to excellence that resulted in this distinguished recognition,” said Christina Bisanz, OLTCA CEO. “It reflects a desire I see across our membership to be the best that they can be for the benefit of the residents they serve.”

PRW: “We applaud everyone OMNI Health Care and Diversicare Canada for leadership and commitment to excellence resulting in this distinguished recognition,” said Christina Bisanz, OLTCA CEO.  “Our members seek to be the best service providers possible for their residents.”

Comments:

• So many superfluous words. “We applaud…is delighted to congratulate.”
• “It reflects a desire I see—“ can be totally eliminated.
• “For the benefit of the residents they serve?” Or: “the best service providers for their residents.”
• This is a poor excuse for a news release anyway—no news, flabby language, no chance it would mean anything to an editor.

Just incredible–I never understand why they bother, when the writing is so substandard. Until next time…

11. It’s and its.

In the PR Writer blog about poor writing on the Newswire, this mistake was covered extensively. Because of the ease of making a typo rather than a grammatical error, this error appears a great deal. The rule is quite simple: its is the possessive, it’s is a contraction. While contractions are not always recommended in formal writing, they have their place, in dialogue and less rigorous formats:
“It’s a dog. It was its first bath.”

12. Over vs. more than.

This is another one of those formulations that would be perfectly acceptable in everyday speech but in writing should be used correctly. “Therewere more than 20 people in the room” is correct. “There were over 20 people in the room” is not. Over means above something: more than is the comparative and is preferred.

13. Compounds with adverbs that don’t end in “ly.”

Don’t use hyphens to form compounds with these words. They may look like adjectives but are actually adverbs and hence stand alone in a sentence. These include:

• Hard
• Fast
• Little
• Well
• Late
• Very
• Almost
• Quite
• Just
• Too

Hard-fought, fast-paced, little-known, well-prepared are technically incorrect even if the spelling and grammar check in Microsoft Word does not identify them as such.

14. Vary sentence structure.

Too many sentences follow the same format. Noun verb object.They have clauses that could be turned around.  In this sentence, recently drafted for a client, the structure could be:

As long as housing prices were jumping higher almost by the hour, subprime mortgage holders pretty much managed their monthly payments.

Or

Subprime mortgage holders pretty much managed their monthly payments as long as housing prices were jumping higher almost by the hour.

Neither is more correct. It just demonstrates the language’s flexibility in that the sentence could be written either way to vary the reader’s perception. Another way to accomplish this is to split sentences into smaller ones and then follow those by a longer phrase.

15. Avoid repeating words.

This is easy. Comb through your sentences and check whether you’ve repeated the same word. Microsoft Word will pick up two words repeated next to each other but not separated but repeated words. In the heat of composition, we often fall into deploying the same words. Make sure you don’t.

16. Who and Whom

These words separate the amateurs from the pros.

In speech, ‘whom’ almost sounds pedantic.  In writing, incorrect usage is out of place. Simple definition: who is a subject, whom is an object. It’s somewhat like “between you and I” in speech, and between you and me in writing. Whom is used following words like to and for—to whom, for whom (the bell tolls). Him or her also substitutes for it not he and she. Example “Whom will you invite?”(Will you invite him?)

17. Whose and Who’s – a possessive pronoun vs. a contraction.

Here we have a clear distinction that is also often messed up. There was a prize-winning play a few years ago called “Whose Life Is This Anyway.” That was correct. “Who’s here?” That’s also correct.

18. Break it up.

Split up paragraphs.

Use bullet points.

Vary the length of paragraphs.

19. Affect and effect

Affect: cause

Effect: result

Think of that and you won’t go wrong.

Also affect is a verb and effect is a noun.

“The net effect was to affect me.”

20. Able to and can

This falls under the category of eliminating unnecessary verbiage. Many sentences read something similar to:

He is able to come tomorrow.

Why not:

He can come tomorrow.

Or: I am going to come tomorrow vs. I am coming tomorrow.

Barring learning all of this, call in an editor—there’s areally good one at rrotman@prwriterextraordinaire.com

On this, the dreaded 40th anniversary of the assassination of the remarkable The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is vitally important to remember what Dr. King stood for and what he accomplished. For me, Dr. King’s passing will always be inextricably linked with the death of my personal hero, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. RFK is the forgotten man of American history. He would have easily beaten Nixon, shortening the Vietnam war and Watergate would only be the name of a hotel and apartment building in Washington. Mostly, RFK stood for the reconciliation of the races, something which since then only Bill Clinton and Barack Obama seem to care about. RFK would have been proud of Obama and I am mightily pleased that Ted and Caroline Kennedy and other family members endorsed Obama, saying that he embodied the spirit of John F. Kennedy. They should have added Bobby, too. This is a column about words and I therefore excerpt RFK’s address to a black crowd on the night Dr. King was killed, citing that he too had had a family member killed. The crowd did not know Dr. King was assassinated. The speech itself is one of the great addresses ever and it was spontaneous. RFK was warned about the dangers of going into the ghetto but he did and tragically he was to meet his own fate at the hands of an assassin in Los Angeles two months later. It’s my way of remembering both RFK and MLK. An audio file of the talk is available at:

Audio mp3 of Address

A good New York Times blog on RFK’s talk is available at:

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/calm-and-hope-in-indianapolis/

Here is Robert Kennedy’s complete address:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I’m only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some — some very sad news for all of you — Could you lower those signs,please? — I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis,Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it’s perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black — considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible — you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization — black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with — be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poem, my — my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King — yeah, it’s true — but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love — a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We’ve had difficult times in the past, but we — and we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it’s not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

And let’s dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

Thank you very much.