A - elisA, boathouse sign, by Eva the Weaver
After reviewing all the first news releases in PRCA 3330, I am generally pleased with what I saw, considering it is the first news release you have written. Many of the news releases were spot-on; they were newsworthy and clearly written. You must have remembered what you learned in your Intro to Journalism class!
Here are some common errors I saw:
- Improper use of commas (either too many or not enough)
- Puffery (making statements in the news release that don’t seem newsworthy. Some of these would be okay as part of a quotation, however.)
- Format (forgetting to put an embargo date or For Immediate Release, end sign, page slugs, letterhead with mailing address, etc.)
- Calling women “girls” or “ladies” (even though it’s common in sororities to do this, AP Style calls for the use of the word “women” when you are writing about female adults)
- Abbreviating the word Georgia as GA, rather than Ga. as AP Style calls for
- Using “we” or “our” when it’s not part of a quotation (a news release needs to sound like a story one would read in an impartial newspaper, not in a company newsletter)
- Improper formatting on dates, times, numerals, etc.
Be sure to avoid these errors when writing your Personality Profiles that are due next week.
To learn how to see my specific feedback for you in GeorgiaVIEW, see this short video below.
Questions?
To help you get used to AP Style before we have any “official” quizzes (via GeorgiaVIEW), please try your hand at determining which of the sentences in the PDF below have errors in them. It’s easiest if you print the PDF and work on it as a hardcopy.
Correct all the AP errors you find, then watch the video to see how well you did.
The Quiz
The Answers
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Get out your 2009 AP Stylebook, Post-It notes and a pen and get ready for a short bootcamp by Barbara Nixon. Learn what the five most important things to know about AP Style are, and even get a bonus at the end. Flag your book as you go along, pausing the Prezi below when you need to.
Want a PDF of the 5 Things and their page numbers that I refer to in the video? Here you go:
[Updated from a blog post from April 2009]
In the public relations courses that I’ve taught over the years, it seems as though one of the biggest struggles for the students is writing using Associated Press style.
Why is learning AP style so important? PR practitioner Sandra Hernandez offers this:
PR writers really need to know the things that make them effective. I learned to write in AP in college, because it was necessary to pass the class. I continued to write in AP because I found that what I send to media had a better response rate when written in AP.
To help students learn more about AP style, I sought feedback from a variety of public relations practitioners and faculty members, trying to come up with a list of what PR writers REALLY need to know (cold, without even looking in the AP Stylebook) about AP style.
The most helpful advice came from colleagues on PR OpenMic, a social network for PR students, faculty and practitioners. (See the individual responses I received in the PR OpenMic PR Writing Discussion Forum.) Additional helpful advice came from colleagues on Twitter, including Kristie Aylett and Claire Celsi.
The most important (and sometimes confusing) parts of AP Style for PR writers are:
- dates (especially when to abbreviate)
- addresses (especially when to abbreviate)
- names (when to use titles, etc.)
- numerals (when to spell out, when to use digits)
- datelines (which cities need to be identified with their states)
Now you have choices about how to access the AP Stylebook. You can purchase a hardcopy of the book, buy an online subscription to it, or download the app from iTunes for use in your iPhone or iTouch.
Many PR writers can also benefit from brushing up on standard grammar. My favorite site for general grammar advice is Mignon Fogarty’s Grammar Girl. Consider subscribing to Grammar Girl’s podcast through iTunes.
Additionally, I found several websites that help my students with AP Style see my Delicious bookmarks on AP style and other posts here that I’ve categorized with AP Style Bootcamp.
So, PR pros and journalists, what would you add? What can help PR students understand what they REALLY need to know about AP style?
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In the public relations courses that I’ve taught over the years, it seems as though one of the biggest struggles for the students is writing using Associated Press style.
Why is learning AP style so important? PR practitioner Sandra Hernandez offers this:
PR writers really need to know the things that make them effective. I learned to write in AP in college, because it was necessary to pass the class. I continued to write in AP because I found that what I send to media had a better response rate when written in AP.
To help students learn more about AP style, I sought feedback from a variety of public relations practitioners and faculty members, trying to come up with a list of what PR writers REALLY need to know (cold, without even looking in the AP Stylebook) about AP style.
The most helpful advice came from colleagues on PR OpenMic, a social network for PR students, faculty and practitioners. (See the individual responses I received in the PR OpenMic PR Writing Discussion Forum.) Additional helpful advice came from colleagues on Twitter, including Kristie Aylett and Claire Celsi.
The most important (and sometimes confusing) parts of AP Style for PR writers are:
- dates (especially when to abbreviate)
- addresses (especially when to abbreviate)
- names (when to use titles, etc.)
- numerals (when to spell out, when to use digits)
- datelines (which cities need to be identified with their states)
Many PR writers can also benefit from brushing up on standard grammar. My favorite site for general grammar advice is Mignon Fogarty’s Grammar Girl. Consider subscribing to Grammar Girl’s podcast through iTunes.
Additionally, I found several websites that help my students with AP Style see my Delicious bookmarks on AP style, and I posted a Quick Guide to Associated Press Style.
