Hi guys,
Just thought i should share this with ya'll. I just finished doing my sponsorship proposals and i had them all ready and was pretty excited my first accomplished task...anyway shock on me when i boss read it through and realised a few mistakes and i had to re-do most of it...then after that i read through and hoped for the best. went to show her and she read through then i had to do editing work, this was the bit that got to me, i would read, edit and show her and every other time we would find something to change cause it did not sound right if we read it out loud. then i remembered what most tutors if not all say, "read your work out loud" then proof read it again and again...my goodness reality did check in. After printing, reading through, printing and reading through again i felt like i could almost scream.
Anyway dont know if any of you experienced that but my gosh...reality did check in. Normally i would think being told to proof read is more (a tutor/lecturers) statement and though i would read i never used to think its important that someone else reads it out loud for me. One of my work mates reminded me that bit, let someone else read it too just so that you get a feel of what your saying and more so, when someone else reads out your work they tend to get that grammar mistake that you didnt see.
Anyway all the best guys, if youve finished your placement your all so lucky...for the rest of us still going on...lets keep doing a good job...cheers!!!
3 comments:
Hey there!
I read your title and straight away agree with it. That is so true. I felt the same way too. What the lecturer/ tutors told us from the start of public relations unit about read and write and read again and write again. That is so true. I experienced the same thing as you. I have to write a lot of media releases. Moreover I am an International student, English is my second language, therefore, I have to be more careful and check over and over again on my sentences and grammar. Sometimes I just write to much information in one sentence and I have to re do it again and think of other ways how to write it. I find it really challenging. So what I did was, read and write and read and write until I satisfy with it, but after that I will get someone who have more experiences than me or someone that is already working to help me check my work, just so that they could give me some comments and I could improve more on my work.
All the best!
Hey Miriam,
It's true that throughout our studies the lecturers have continuously reinforced the idea that we should read through, edit, proof read, edit and proof read again - and I have to say that I have learnt that this is so very true when it comes to any documents within PR. While I haven't been doing media releases in my placement I've found that editing and proof reading is just as important to all documents being seen by anyone outside the organisation. Although English is not my second language I believe that this is -yet again- a great opportunity to reinforce the importance of correct spelling and grammar in all areas of PR. I also find it helps - if time allows - to leave a document for 15 minutes before going back to edit. I find that mistakes are easier to find and fix if I've had the opportunity to look at the document with 'fresh eyes' and not under pressure.
Best luck with the rest of your placement!
Zoe
Hey Miriam!!!
Indeed keep on doing a great job during your placement.
I also found out that everything taught during the lectures and tutes were essential to being a good PR.
English not being my first language I had the same issues as you, except that since I did my placement with the International Students Committee, no one had English as a first language. I was chosen to read all the different works or texts to leave the office. Thus if there was a mistake it was my fault.
One of them was sending an email to an Alex and misspelling his name. He sent me a mail to let me know it was Alex. I apologised and it was ok. Really I think one key lesson is to always say the truth and apologise, do not blame it on someone else, just say it as it is and keep on doing your job.
Tips I thought helpful to overcome this:
1. Make someone else read it.
2. Read it aloud
3. Print it and read it
4. Read it from end to beginning
5. Put my spell checker on English (UK) and check for mistakes.
Good luck with the rest Miriam!
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