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This week on Inside PR, David and Terry discuss the importance of good writing in the PR profession. Also, they welcome an audio comment from Doug Haslam. Finally, Terry does his segment of Inside PRoper English.
Show Notes
00:30 David introduces the show.
01:20 David mentions that this will be the last time they mention the open slot for a new student/young PR contributor.
02:00 Terry mentions that he’ll be at Podcasters Across Borders in two weeks. He will sit on a panel called Taking Your Initiatives to the Next Level. David will unfortunately not be able to make it to the conference.
04:10 Audio comment from Doug Haslam.
12:00 Listener Matthew Tarnowski asks: Which dictionaries would he/she recommend when trying to make a case against misuse of words like utilize and leverage?17:40 This week’s major topic of discussion: are good writers made or born?
35:20 Inside PRoper English: apostrophe roundup
36:20 Fans of Inside PR group on Facebook. Click here to join the group on Facebook. Inside PR are in the finals of the Most Valuable Podcasts (MVP) contest. Click here to vote as Inside PR goes against American Copywriter.
Music: our theme music is Streetwalker by CJacks, and is from the Podsafe Music Network; Roger Dey is our announcer.
Great show, guys. I tend to agree on the “made or born” question, though perhaps for some of us it’s a case of being made so early that it seems we were just born writing. I started reading before I was 3 years old, and started writing at four, so I got a lot more practice than many people do. I really couldn’t tell you whether I was born with a talent, or just a passion. I do know that unless I’m mastering a new style (switching from fiction to academic writing to business writing required learning new techniques), I don’t think much about *how* to write. I only learned about grammatical structure and literary devices on a conscious level when I started to study Latin and Greek (which are great for your vocabulary, but do tend to lead to writing very long sentences with a lot of participial phrases and subordinate clauses).
I don’t know that you can teach an abysmal writer to be a great writer, but it’s possible to teach a (motivated) bad writer to be a competent-if-not-brilliant writer.
As for apostrophes, they’re a wonderful example of the difference in conventions for American and British English. Consult the style guide of the publication you’re writing for carefully.