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
Reporters in one study who were asked to rank news release elements placed quotes dead last — after the boilerplate and the dateline.
So how can you get the wah-wah out to write quotes that reporters will actually use?Find out how to write quotes that reporters will actually use at NOT Your Father’s News Release — online from Aug. 31 - Sept. 28 or in Kansas City on Sept. 24-25.
There, you’ll steal techniques from Silver Anvil winners for making your sound bites sound better … learn how to transform your quotations from bleh to brilliant … and find out how to avoid the worst PR quote clichés (PR Newswire sees 1,284 of these in a single month.)
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