Students Can Be Better Writers in PR

As an individual I have a passion for writing. As a student of PR I am lacking in my writing skills. I attribute this to a couple of important factors, the first being that I did not realize until now that there should be a specific order that PR classes should be taken. I just finished my junior year at University of Texas at San Antonio, it was not until my second semester as a junior that I took a technical writing class. By all means, this should have been a class taken in my freshman or sophomore year. Tough lesson learned. This next semester will be interesting because I will be enrolled in three intense PR classes, (Case Studies in PR, Editing, and Writing for PR). For some reason I am thinking I should have taken these classes a long time ago. I did not, so I will have my work cut out for me.

Because I am not well versed in writing for PR in any sense of the word, I will need a lot of help. Where will I get this help? Besides the normal route of instruction, I will be utilizing my renewed old best friend, reading. Part of this reading will entail reading as many blogs as possible, because I am learning that there is a wealth of information and instruction that is passed through the many blogs available for students of PR. I found another one to add to my bookmarks called Forward Blog. I recently read a posting entitled Write or Wrong? that was about whether writng matters in public relations.

Writing is an extremely important aspect in the PR profession, so in order to be successful in the profession a person must also be a successful writer. In order to be a better writer it is important to constantly follow four wisely given steps that are important to be successful at writing for public relations:

1. Read widely;
2. Think clearly;
3. Write simply;
4. Proof and edit last

As you can tell from my previous postings, I get wordy. So the step that will be hardest for me will be writing simply. What was great for me were the comments posted to this blog. I believe that there is never too much advice as long as it is good advice that continues to cement your efforts in learning the craft.