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Write, right – is good grammar so important these days?

Guest post by: Georgina Dunkley

Article Overview: A staple requirement of any PR professional is strong writing skills and excellent grammar – but as the lines between traditional media and social media blur, are we both as an industry and nation becoming sloppy with our use of language?

Write, right – is good grammar so important these days?

A staple requirement of any PR professional is strong writing skills and excellent grammar - but as the lines between traditional media and social media blur, are we both as an industry and nation becoming sloppy with our use of language? The next generation is growing up texting and using social media channels, where the use of good English isn't necessary, in fact it is avoided - words are shortened and replaced with abbreviations and numbers, to ensure texts can be sent quickly and tweets adhere to the 140 characters rule.

Blogs are also fast becoming a news channel of choice for people of all ages. Blogs, by their very nature, are short and conversational musings, on a subject matter of the blogger's likening. That means anyone of any writing skill or ability can have a blog. On one hand this is great as it gives everyone a platform for their voice to be heard. On the other hand, however, it means that those consuming news from a blog could continually be exposed to poor construction of sentences, bad use of grammar and misspellings.

When reviewing a newspaper, trade publication or online news portal though, it is clear to see that the proper use of English is still paramount. When approaching a journalist with a story or campaign I still place as much importance, as I did when I first started my career nine years ago, on thoroughly checking all my written material. Any PR consultant knows that sending an email or story littered with mistakes to a journalist, is a recipe for embarrassment and will probably forfeit the use of the story.

As an account director in a leading PR agency I also have the responsibility of scrutinising the written work of my team and colleagues, and when considering the appointment of a new employee, a written test is a must.

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Article Tags: blogger, media, online news, PR, PR agency, social media



Related Forum Posts
Re: Is there a need for correct English? - Yes your writing is important. Not just the grammar but the style. Some people are hung up on the grammar and will refuse to read your work or make judgments on your credibility. Find a good editor, as I should have done for the reply to this post. [quote="bmueller47":jru6md6u]Hi, I am originally of German tongue. By the way, it is not the easiest language to learn. Then I learnt French, which I spoke fluently long time ago. You loose it if you don't use it. For over 30 years I am in England and need only to speak English. I realize, that I have some imperfections. Sometimes it is back to front etc. Does anyone know, who is best qualified to correct my future articles? Or, does anybody care, how it is written today? 'Anything goes' people say. Is Excellence in English writing important? Kindest regards Beat "Unlock People's Potentials!"[/quote:jru6md6u]
Re: Quote of the Day - "Have the courage to follow your heart an - [quote="GT Bulmer":102twzd2]Hi, Evan: I haven't yet managed to capitalize on the longings of my heart as successfully as Jobs did[/quote:102twzd2] Hi GT - I woke up thinking about this post and I have a challenge for you for May if you're up to it. Here it is: Write the blog post / article you were born to write. Write something that you can pour your heart and all your passion into. Write something where you can change the life of the person reading it. Write something where if you look back in 10 years you'll be really proud of what you created. Can you do that? I'd love to read it (and I bet a lot of others will too!)
Re: For all Women Entrepreneurs - Hi tope, when I looked at your sites I did notice quite a few spelling and grammar mistakes, you could do with getting those sorted out, do you know anyone who could do this for you? It will make everything look a lot more professional. You are right about the dating niche though you should do well there, your sites look good and I also noticed you have a few Clickbank products in there. Keep up the good work! Take care, Carol
Re: Do Articles For Businesswomen need to be written differently - I don't think that as a general rule an article [i:11csddi3]needs[/i:11csddi3] to be written "for women." In my opinion, the two important writing rules are: 1) Write for your targeted audience. If it happens to be predominantly women or predominantly men, then write accordingly (if you have the ability to make that distinction in your writing). 2) Write in your own voice. Be natural. If you are a serious writer, your style will become apparent over time and you will develop a following. It may happen that your style is more attractive to one sex or the other. If so, you may be able to advance your writing career by further cultivating your sensitivity within that style. Bottom line: I do believe that certain styles appeal to women, certain styles appeal to men and if you know the distinction, have the ability to write in a particular style and choose to target one sex or the other, then go for it. But I don't think that it is a necessity in today's market. GT :-]
Writing articles - Well...I don't think this is the proper forum to ask this question, but I'll give a shot at answering it. First, we need to know so much more information! How many words does each article have to be? If the main article that you pay for can be a thousand words, and if several topics are covered, then you just take each topic and break it out and reword it/rewrite it more closely for that topic. I'm not sure the younger generation these days would recognized bad grammar, bad spelling, and bad arguments if they saw them... [pause here to prevent myself from going off on a rant about our educational system] but anyone over the age of 30 probably/hopefully would, and would care about it! And always remember you get what you pay for.


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