What writers and others say
“Sprinkling quotes is one thing. Hosing them on is another.”
— John B. Campbell, former senior editor, Business Week
“Too many good ideas are buried in Dilbert-esque releases because … every corporate executive gets quoted.”
— Alison Harris, publisher, Call Center News
“Of all the devices that can add humanity to your writing, the direct quotation is the most overused. A newspaper sports story or a traditional news feature may contain a direct quote in every other paragraph, a practice that usually produces a parade of inane or merely dull utterances.”
— Jack Hart, editor at large, The Oregonian, in A Writer’s Coach
“Nothing dulls up a piece of writing like a stream of boring quotations.”
— Jack Hart, editor at large, The Oregonian, in A Writer’s Coach
“Control the blather.”
— Jim Ylisela Jr., editorial director, Lawrence Ragan Communications, Inc.
“I think of quotes as spices. Spices in themselves have no nutritional value. They make nutritious things taste better but, like spices, quotes should be used sparingly.”
— Isabel Wilkerson, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, The Washington Post
Write Killer Bites
Half of reporters complain that quotes in releases don’t sound natural, according to a 2014 Greentarget survey. Maybe that’s why 78% of them don’t regularly use quotes from releases.
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