Writing and Media Relations

Even on the slimmest budget, your newsletter can be a useful, reliable document of record that tracks the events, accomplishments, membership, and goals of your group.

Skillfully blending the passive voice into your prose lends it variety and spice.

Your lead paragraph can be a grabber, your quotes pithy and your prose perfect. But if you allow errors--even little ones--to creep into your copy, they'll damage your credibility.

The best-written text in the world will fail to serve its purpose if the reading level is too high for the intended readers.

Make your county newsletters more appealing to readers by writing better headlines.

A suggested checklist of tasks that not only will identify and solve common writing problems, but could reduce the amount of time you spend rereading, tinkering, rewriting, and re-editing.

The explosion of information systems seems to be speeding up the rate at which misuse of words is overtaking proper use.

"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do". -- Thomas Jefferson. If you want to be quoted as often as Thomas Jefferson, a good way to start is to tighten your writing.

Adverbs are misused so often, it's hard to know how to use them correctly.

Journalism professors like to extol the virtues of a punchy, lean, and clear writing style because it keeps readers interested.