8. Find in the text the examples of

1) the Present Continuous Passive

2) the Present Indefinite Passive

and explain the usage of these tenses

9. Explain the grammatical structure of the following sentence:

... offer a wide variety of stories and features to satisfy almost any interest, be

it sport, local news, or the daily horoscope.

10. Answer the following questions:

1) What process includes research, planning, communication, and evaluation?

2) What is effective writing based on?

3) Why does emphasis remain on use of a journalistic style?

4) Where is much of public relations writing directed to?

5) What is the primary purpose of gathering, processing and synthesizing information in journalism?

6) What other channels of communication besides the news media does the public relations writer use?

7) Where does a suburban daily newspaper circulate?

8) What interest may the readers of a specialized magazine share?

9) What audiences may the public relations writer work for?

10) What are the traditional mass media?

11) What are the channels for the message of the public relations writer?

12) Can they be combined?

11. Paraphrase the italicized parts of the sentences:

1) From this standpoint, both the public relations writer and the journalist share

a common ground.

2) Emphasis remains on use of a journalistic style in public relations writing.

3) ... people who share a common residential area but have a broad range of backgrounds and interests.

12. Explain the following:

1) It is a mistake for public relations writers to consider themselves simply "journalists in residence".

2) A hallmark of professional reporting is to present information in an objective manner.

3) Effective public relations writing is based on carefully defining the audience and its composition so that you can tailor your information to its interests and concerns.

13. Comment on the following statement:

The writer's purpose is not objectivity but advocacy.

Do you agree with it?

14. Develop the statements:

Public relations writing is different from journalistic writing. It has different

objectives, different audiences, and different channels of communication.

UNIT

TWO

A

Writing Guidelines

Before beginning any writing assignment, take the time to ask yourself some key questions.

• What is the desired communication outcome? In other words, what do we want our audience to do or not to do?

• Who is our target audience? (The more specific the segment, the better.)

• What are our target audience's needs, concerns, and interests?

• What is our message?

• What communication channel is most effective?

• Who is our most believable spokesperson?

Answering these questions goes a long way toward helping you determine the content and structure of your message. You should also keep in mind the following techniques and concepts of effective writing.

Outlining

Before you start writing anything, make an outline of what you are going to include in your message. It may be brief (as for a short press release) or comprehensive (as for a large booklet). You will probably modify it as you gather information, but an outline will help to keep your thinking in order.

In the simplest terms, an outline is a list of topics to be written about in the order in which they will be presented. Usually an outline has major topics, and within each major topic there are minor topics.

□ Words and word-combinations

1. the communication outcome — конечный результат коммуникации

2. target audience — потенциальная аудитория; основная аудитория

3. spokesperson - представитель(ница), выразитель(ница) (чьих-то интере­сов); оратор

4. content — содержание (например, книги); суть, сущность (например, ста­тьи); р/. — оглавление; объем книги

5. structure — структура, устройство

6. techniques — способы, методы

7. outline — набросок, очерк, краткий обзор, конспект, либретто, краткое содержание фильма

8. press-release — пресс-релиз, официальное сообщение, сообщение для печати

B

Sentences and Paragraphs

Sentences should be clear and concise. Longer sentences may often be necessary, but a good test is to go back over the material and see how many sentences can be cut down. Mixing long and short sentences improves the rhythm.

The typical paragraph should normally include only one idea. As a general prac­tice, it ought to be no longer than six or eight lines. If necessary, a longer paragraph may be used, but brevity is preferable. Writing that goes on and on without a pause is hard on the reader.

Word Length

Word length is a good gauge of readability, and every writer should aim to be read. In readable writing, most words are short. A message containing an average of 1,5 syllables per word is considered to be very readable.

Don't try to show off your knowledge by using long, complicated words. Remem­ber that Lincoln's Gettysburg Adress consisted of 267 words, 202 of which had only one syllable.

□ Notes

Gettysburg Address-Геттисбергское послание. Самая известная речь президента Линкольна, которую он произнес 19 ноября 1863 г. Речь заканчивалась словами о том, что демократия представляет собой « власть народа, волей народа, для народа» ( «……government of people, by the people,

fop the people…»)

Эта речь полностью высечена на пьедестале памятника Линкольну в г.

Вашингтоне.

□ Words and word-combinations

1. concise — краткий; выразительный

2. preferable — предпочтительный

3. gauge — мера, критерий

C.

Word choice

Writers who are college-educated often forget that words common to their vocab­ulary are not readily understood by large segments of the general public.

If your target audience is the general public, remember that a short Anglo-Saxon word is more understandable than a longer one derived from French, Greek, or Latin.

The words on the left are better than the words on the right:

buy purchase

home residence

hire employ

try endeavor

total aggregate

improve ameliorate

building edifice

duty, task responsibility

gather, collect accumulate

save economize

enough sufficient

test experiment

able efficient

More complex words, of course, can be used if the target audience is we! I educated-Most readers of the Wall Street Journal, for example, are college graduates, so the writing is more complex than that found in a small-town daily.

Also, if the target audience is professionals in a field such as law, education, sci­ence, or engineering, the standard for word choice is different. Educators, for example, often seem to like elaborate expressions.

Scientific writing, too, is loaded with esoteric words. Newspaper editors often com­plain that they receive news releases from high-technology companies that are so full of jargon that neither they nor their readers can grasp what is being said.

If your audience is engineers, of course, you can use specialized words and phrases.

□ Words and word-combinations

1. word choice — отбор слов

2. derived from Latin — латинского происхождения

3. a small-town daily — ежедневная газета, выпускаемая в небольшом городе

4. standard — стандарт, норма, образец, мерило

5. esoteric — тайный, понятный лишь посвященным; особенный

6. news release — сообщение для печати

7. high-technology companies — фирмы (компании) высоких технологий

EXERCISES

1. Look up the pronunciation of the following words:

assignment, techniques, rhythm, gauge, endeavor, ameliorate, esoteric, jargon, pause.

2. Find Russian equivalents:

to keep in mind, major, minor, comprehensive, concise, to be common to, to be derived from, elaborate expressions, to grasp.

Use them in situations of your own.

3. Find English equivalents:

определить содержание и структуру, составить план, сократить (текст), краткость, предпочтительный, быть перегруженным ч.-л., жаловаться на ч.-л., в области ч.-л.

Reproduce them in situations from the text.

4. Translate in writing:

1) Answering these questions goes a long way toward helping you determine the content and structure of your message.

2) You will probably modify it as you gather information, but an outline will help to keep your thinking in order.

3) Word length is a good gauge of readability.

4) Most readers of the Wall Street Journal, for example, are college graduates, so the writing is more complex than that found in a small-town daily.

5. Find in the text the sentences where the Gerund is used.

Translate them and explain the usage of the Gerund.

6. Insert prepositions:

1) Lincoln's Gettysburg Address consisted..........267 words.

2) The words..........the left are better than the words..........the right.

3) (...) the standard..........word choice is different.

4) Scientific writing, too, is loaded..........esoteric words.

5) Make an outline..........what you are going to include..........your message.

7. Give synonyms:

outline, concern, assignment, short, to modify, readily, key (adj.)

8. Give antonyms:

believable, brief, to improve, complicated, desired, in order, necessary.

9. Answer the questions:

1) What should a public relations writer think over before beginning any writing assignment?

2) What should an outline include?

3) What is the structure of the outline?

4) What can improve the rhythm of the material?

5) What is the usual length of the typical paragraph?

6) How many words did Lincoln's Gettysburg Address consist of?

7) What do writers often forget?

8) Which words are more understandable: Anglo-Saxon or derived?

9) When can more complex words be used?

10) Who seems to like elaborate expressions?

10. Paraphrase the italicized parts of the sentences

1) Before beginning any writing assignment, take the time to ask yourself some key questions.

2) In the simplest terms, an outline is a list of topics to be written about in the order in which they will be presented.

3) Writers who are college-educated often forget that words common to their vocabulary are not readily understood by large segments of the general public.

11. From the list of words given in the section WORD CHOICE take 8 or 10 words from the left column and make up a situation with them.

Then replace them with the ones from the right column.

How has the situation changed?

Which variant do you prefer?

Why?

12. Explain the following:

1) Mixing long and short sentences improves the rhythm.

2) Writing that goes on and on without a pause is hard on the reader.

3) Every writer should aim to be read,

4) Scientific writing, too, is loaded with esoteric words.

13. Comment on the following statements. Do you agree with them?

1) Sentences should be clear and concise. Longer sentences may often be necessary, but a good test is to go back over the material and see how many sentences can be cut down.

2) Don't try to show off your knowledge by using long, complicated words.

3) Educators, for example, often seem to like elaborate expressions.

14. Develop the following statements;

1) Your writing must fit your audience.

2) You must watch sentence and paragraph length.

3) Word length and word choice are always important.

4) Simplicity and correct style must be a constant concern.

5) Everything you write should start with an outline.

UNIT

THREE

A

Errors to avoid

Errors in your writing will brand you as careless, unprofessional, and inconsiderate of your audience. Errors also call into question the credibility of the entire message. Professional writing requires attention to detail and repeated review of your draft to catch all potential errors.

Spelling

Credibility is sacrificed when spelling errors appear in public relations materials, For example, one news release for a company that manufactured a spellchecking pro­gram for a word processor included the nonwords "tradmark" and "publishere".

Gobbledygook and Jargon

"Gobbledygook" consists of ponderous words and phrases that obscure simple ideas. For example, to the user of gobbledygook, things don't get "finished", they get "finalized". Events didn't happen "then", they happened "at that point in time". The child isn't "failing" but rather is "motivationally deprived".

"Jargon" consists of words that are known almost exclusively to insiders. Some examples: A "four on the floor" is a four-speed hand-shifted automobile transmission.

A "no show" is a person who fails to use a ticket for an event or a trip.

Gobbledygook and jargon are often seen in news releases about high-tech prod­ucts, giving the uninitiated reader a baffling message.

□ Words and word-combinations

1. error — ошибка

2. credibility — правдоподобие, вероятность

3. draft — набросок, план, проект

4. ponderous — громоздкий, тяжеловесный

5. to obscure — делать неясным

6. insider — член общества или организации; "свой человек"; лицо, имею­щее доступ к конфиденциальной информации

7. a baffing message — сбивающая с толку информация

8. gobbledygook — (si) воляпюк, абракадабра

B

Poor Sentence Structure

The subject and the words that modify it often become separated in a sentence, causing some confusion as to what exactly is being discussed. Here are some examples from actual news releases:

The proposed budget provides salary increases for faculty and staff performing at a satisfactory level of two percent.

The New Mexico Women's Correctional Facility in Grants is scheduling a Christ­mas party for children and grandchildren of inmates under 15.

Wrong Words

A good dictionary serves not only to check spelling but also to verify the meaning of a word.

An Associated Press (AP) story once told about a man who had inherited a small scenic railroad from his "descendants", who had started it in the nineteenth century. The writer meant "ancestors" but used the wrong word. A government publication also used the wrong word when it reported, "Colonel Kit Carson's military campaign result­ed in the interment of 9,000 Navajo and Apache Indians". "Interment" means burial; the writer probably meant to say "internment", which means detention or confinement.

More common mistakes involve the usage of "it's" and "its", "effect" and "affect", "there" and "their", and "presume" and "assume". Other frequently confused words are listed in the next section. When in doubt, take the time to use the dictionary. It will save you embarrassment later.

□ Words and word-combinations

1. poor sentence structure — неправильное построение фразы

2. to cause confusion — стать причиной путаницы, неразберихи

3. to verify the meaning — проверить значение (слова)

4. it'll save you... — это избавит вас от...

"Sound-alike" Words

Many words sound alike and are similar in spelling but have very different mean­ings. Although it may be somewhat humorous to read that a survey is "chalk full" of information (instead of "chock-full"), a company's management team is doing some "sole" searching (instead of "soul searching"), or an employee was in a "comma" (in­stead of a "coma") after a car accident, such mistakes are the mark of a careless writer. A spell-checking program for your personal computer is extremely efficient at catching misspelled words but often can't catch homonyms because they are correctly spelled words. It is therefore important always to proofread your copy even after it has been corrected by a spell-checker program.

Here is a list of words that are frequently confused:

adapt, adopt incredible, incredulous

appraise, apprise negligent, negligible

canvas, canvass peak, peek

comprise, compose pore, pour

continual, continuous principal, principle

ensure, insure rebut, refute

fortunate, fortuitous shoe, shoo

imply, infer stationary, stationery

This list is far from complete. There are many other words that sound alike or almost alike but have different spellings and meanings.

□ Words and word-combinations

1. spell-checking program — (компьютерная) программа по проверке право­писания слов

2. to proofread a copy — корректировать текст

D

Redundancies

Another gross error in the use of redundant words. It is not necessary to use the word « totally» to modify a word like « destroyed » or «completely» to modify «demolished». A lot of writers also say that something is « somewhat» or «very» unique. «Unique», by definition, means one of a kind; either something is unique or it isn’t.

Too Many Words

Like redundancies, excessive words impede understanding and readability. Here are two examples of "overstuffed sentences" and their remedied versions:

BLOATED SENTENCE:

Studying advertising research findings leads one to believe

that the most important factors in effectiveness are the

quality of creative work and the read interest in the

message.

REVISED SENTENCE: Research indicates that the most effective ads are creative

and appeal to readers' interests.

BLOATED SENTENCE: Should you have the occasion to know of someone

whose background configuration approximates the

position spec­ifications above, we would welcome a

recommendation from you or directly from the exploring

individual

REVISED SENTENCE: If you know of someone who qualifies for this job, please

let us know or have the person contact us.

□ Words and word-combinations

1. redundant — избыточный, лишний, многословный

2. excessive — чрезмерный, изобильный

3. to impede understanding — затруднять понимание (мешать)

E

Too Many Numbers

People can digest a few Figures but not a mass of statistics. Use numbers sparingly in your writing, and keep in mind the following points:

— It is better to write "$92 million" than "92,000,000 dollars".

— It is better to give a readily understood comparison than a massive number.

For example, you could say that 500 million pounds of garbage are produced in the

United States every day, but it would be more effective to express that as 10 pounds per citizen.

— Check your math. The price of something can go up more than 100 percent, but it can never go down more than 100 percent.

Hype

You can ruin the credibility and believability of your message by using exaggerated words and phrases. Companies often describe their products as "first of its kind", "unique", and even "revolitionary", which tends to raise suspicion among media gate­keepers as well as readers.

The following words are often overused: leading, enhanced, unique, significant, solution, integrated, powerful, innovative, advanced, high-performance, and sophisti­cated.

Words and word-combinations

1. sparingly — умеренно

2. hype — навязчивая реклама; преувеличение; газетная шумиха

F

Bias

Avoid gender bias by using non-gender-related words. Awareness of the irrele­vance of an employee's gender is why airlines now have "flight attendants" instead of "stewardesses" and why the postal service hires "mail carriers" instead of "mailmen". It also is unnecessary to write that something is "man-made" when a neutral word like 'synthetic" or "artificial" is just as good. "Employees" is better than "manpower", and "chairperson" is more acceptable than "chairman". Some terms may seem difficult to neutralize — "congressperson", "business person", and "waitperson" don't exactly trip off the tongue. However, with a little thought, you can come up with appropriate titles, such as "legislator", "executive", and "server".

The problem of avoiding gender bias is particularly difficult because much of our language is geared to the use of the word "man" as a generic term for both males and females. Attempts to avoid this lead to such usages as "he/she" or "his/her" that make for difficult reading. However, another word can be used in most cases. If you pluralize the noun in question/the pronoun "their" will serve nicely. In other cases, you can use words such as "personnel", "staff, "employee", "worker", "person", or "practitioner" to describe both men and women in the workplace.

□ Words and word-combinations

1. bias — тенденциозность

2. employee — служащий

3. manpower — личный состав; людские ресурсы

4. executive — руководитель, администратор

5. personnel — персонал, штат, кадры

6. staff — штат, штатные сотрудники (в отличие от внештатных)

В

Politically Incorrect Language

Beyond avoidance of stereotypes, there is an ongoing controversy about what constitutes "politically correct" (commonly called "PC") language. In today's world of diversity at all levels of national life, there is increased sensitivity about what words are used to describe minorities and other groups of people.

Such concern has merit, and writers should be sensitive to words that may offend individuals or groups. However, critics charge that a flood of euphemisms can cause a loss of clarity and may result in a kind of political censorship that is not healthy for freedom of expression. For example, some groups think the word "civilization" is polit­ically incorrect because it infers that some people are not civilized. Still others object to the word "disabled" and want to substitute "physically challenged" or "differently abled". Is a person an "alcoholic" or just "suffering from substance abuse"? Even the old term "Dutch treat" is under attack because it implies that Dutch people are cheap.

On another level, however, some suggestions seem quite logical. For example, in a global economy, American companies now refer to "international" sales because "for­eign" sounds ethnocentric. Writers are using terms like "Asian-American" instead of

the now pejorative "Oriental". And currently, there is some argument as to whether "African-American" is more politically correct than "black"; both terms have their supporters.

Language, and its connotations, is constantly changing. The professional public relations writer must be aware of the changes and must make decisions on the basis of such factors as sensitivity to the audience, accuracy, and clarity of communication.

□ Notes

Dutch treat — угощение, при котором каждый платит за себя; складчина, уго­щение в складчину

□ Words and word-combinations

1. merit — заслуга, достоинство

2. to charge — обвинять, выдвигать обвинение (требования)

3. euphemism — эвфемизм

4. censorship — цензура

5. pejorative — уничижительный

6. connotation — коннотация; дополнительное значение

EXERCISES