Repetition dulls the senses

From a Fairview, N.J., press release:

Heavy Backpacks Are Not the Only Threat to Children’s Chiropractic Health

Sept. 24 /PRNewswire/ — As the school year starts, it’s important for parents to have their children tested for scoliosis. While heavy backpacks represent a threat to children’s chiropractic health, many people forget the importance of a simple scoliosis screening. Because it’s not always noticeable, a checkup for scoliosis should be at the top of every parent’s back to school to-do list.

This writer used “important” in the first sentence and “importance” in the second. Apparently, it’s important. I’m afraid this writer couldn’t decide between two leads, so he or she kept them both.

By the end of September, parents are tuning out stories about heavy backpacks; we’ve been inundated with them. What we haven’t heard, though, is a story about the condition that those heavy packs may be hiding. This writer missed the chance to grab our attention, both with his/her timing and with his/her awkward wording.

(On a more nit-picky level, the second paragraph starts with a grammatical mistake all too easy to make: “Because it’s not always noticeable” needs to modify what follows the comma, which in this case – “a checkup” – it does not.)

Patrick Williams has a wonderful editorial checklist on MyRagan.com that includes the tip, “Write with as few words as possible.” By applying this simply rule, writers like this one could bring tone to their writing. The result? More compelling copy, guaranteed.

Red List announcement made with clarity

Kudos to the aptly named Jane Smart of the World Conservation Union for the way she clearly announced the Red List today, the definitive list of disappearing plants and animals as created by scientists worldwide. At a press conference in Washington, D.C., Smart said:

“We get very excited about the release of the Red List and perhaps we shouldn’t be, because actually it’s a very bad news story. But for those of us who work in the field, I feel that the only way we are going to get society to pay attention to what’s happening to our species is to tell everybody.”

Smart leads the listing effort for the World Conservation Union and could, no doubt, talk circles around all of us. Instead, she’s delivering a significant message in terms everyone can understand. Bravo.

Lilly Endowment Annual Report is a must-read

The next time you’re looking for a good book, pick up the Lilly Endowment’s 2006 annual report.

No, I don’t normally recommend annual reports for anyone’s reading pleasure. If you’ve read my other posts, you’ll infer that I find most annual reports full of stilted language and business jargon intended to impress readers into putting them down before they’re actually read.

The Endowment’s report easily could have fallen into that category. The organization gives away millions of dollars each year to help individuals, groups and communities improve the world; its writers could have used the annual report as a forum for proclaiming its transformational generosity and unsurpassed greatness, etc.
Instead, its writers chose to show how the organization is leaving its imprint on the world through the compelling personal stories of the people who receive its money. Here’s the start of one:

In June 1966 John Sherman, a 2005-2006 Creative Renewal fellowship winner, left his cap and gown from Indiana University on a table after the graduation ceremony in Bloomington. That was on a Monday. By Saturday he was in Atlanta, Ga., undergoing Peace Corps training. A farm boy from rural Marshall County, Ind., Sherman recalls, “My parents always encouraged me to go out and see the world.” Good advice.

You’re immediately drawn in, and stay interested through the rest of the story. You don’t run into a stilted quote by a Lilly Endowment official anywhere. Here’s part of another:

“Just getting out the photo album and looking at the pictures has an effect on students,” Fancher says. “When they see that their teacher has worked in the field and done something unique, students see that teacher differently. The experience helps my students perceive me as a scientist as well as their teacher.”

Coupled with photos more journalistic than posed and art-directed, these stories personalize the organization’s mission in a way that no CEO ever could.
 
Sit down for an inspiring read.