What does a copywriter do?
A
copywriter does not 'copy.' Advertising agencies refer to
written scripts as 'copy,' and those who create the scripts became
known as copywriters.
Copywriters originate the
text for sales brochures, promotional
material, advertisements, press releases, and in all instances
where written communication is used to promote, persuade, incite,
excite or elicit a desired response. Copywriting is, however, primarily
significant in promotional and marketing literature.
Besides product launches and grand marketing
campaigns, copywriters also perform a lot of routine work.
Behind the vivid descriptions in a print advertisement or a 15
second broadcast message lies the creative talent of a
copywriter.
A
good copywriter is able to manipulate and arrange words
to paint vivid mental images or create a desired mood.
Copywriters work closely with their clients to try and produce a
message with the right tone and persuasiveness.
There
is no standard rate for copywriting, as no two jobs are exactly
similar. Copywriting rates vary. Some charge by the page,
while others by the hour. Reliable and professional
copywriters not only charge by the page, but also include at
least two revisions should the message need modifications or
re-scripting.
As in all
other transactions, you get what you pay for. Be wary of quotes that
are way below a commensurate rate. Plagiarism is a very real problem
and difficult to spot without using special software to identify. Even
this is not totally effective.
Outsourcing.
You may decide to
outsource your copywriting requirements in whole or in part. You may
choose to handle the parts of writing that you particularly enjoy, and
outsource your drudge work. Or you may want to write the whole piece yourself
and just outsource the copy-editing portion. Some prefer to outsource
the research and compilation components and then write the
editorials, feature articles or
advertisements themselves.
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Bad
writing. Examples and Denouement.
This
is a short rogues' gallery of bad practice. It is short because we
don't want to dwell on negative examples, but it exists to offer a few
warnings and to explain how problems are often caused. Most of the
items have been mentioned elsewhere in advice on what to avoid, or
cautions of one kind or another. I think they are worth second mention
in a different context.
What are the most common causes of bad
writing? Well, some people are just not used to expressing themselves
on paper at all, and can't be expected to write fluently. Apart from
that however, the following bad habits and misunderstandings cause the
most problems. They are not in any particular order. Some people may be
stuck with just one of these weaknesses. In the worst cases they may be
suffering from more than one.
- Using speech patterns
- Poor punctuation
- Weak grammar and syntax
- Sentences too long
- Unrelated clauses
- Jumbled vocabulary
- Straining to impress
- Mired in cliché
Using
speech patterns
When
we speak to each other, we don't use grammatically complete sentences,
careful constructions, and beautifully modulated syntax. Our utterances
are often quite ungrammatical, abbreviated, and incomplete. We might
say 'She wasn't there at home, it'll be later when I'm going to call'.
This would be acceptable in speech. But we would write 'She was not at
home, so I will call again later'.
If these habits of speech are carried
over into the written language the results are usually not very good.
Remember that on the page we do not have any of the other parts of
spoken communication to guide us. Tone of voice, accent, stress, and
facial expression are absent. The two forms of communication may both
use words as their basic element, but they are two different
'codes'.
If
you wish to be understood, and if you wish to make a good impression in
the written language language, then you should stay
fairly close to what is called 'Standard English'. For most forms of
writing, if you want to move away from this norm, you should know what
it is you are doing, and you should have a good reason for doing
so.
Order
the book here
It might
be acceptable to use dialects and the irregularities of the spoken
language if you were writing fiction or trying to illustrate someone's
character. In almost all types of formal writing however, your best
plan is to stay close to the norm - if only because you will thereby
communicate with the largest number of people. This is not to be
proscriptive or fuddy-duddy. If you have the confidence and the skill,
you can use whatever linguistic devices you wish - but then you would
probably not be reading this book.
Poor
punctuation
Some
people scatter marks of punctuation like confetti throughout their
writing, making little distinction between the range of devices
available. Yet if it is not used accurately and consistently, this
creates an unsettling effect. The sense of a statement can be rendered
ambiguous or obscure. Reading can become like hacking your way through
a linguistic jungle. Remember that commas, semicolons, and colons are
used to create pauses of different length in the grammar and the sense
of a statement.
Another common form of poor punctuation
occurs when one punctuation mark is substituted for another. The most
frequent abuse of this kind is the use of the comma to string together
statements which are in fact grammatically separate. They might be
independent sentences, or (more usually) notes or brief
'thoughts'.
'The senator's reaction
was only outrage that a man's career should be threatened, it was her
word against his, they chose to believe his.'
These
are separate statements, and should be
treated as such. The first comma here should be a full stop (followed
by a capital letter) and the second a colon.
The other
extreme of the same problem is too
little punctuation. This usually has the effect of leaving readers
disoriented. We are not sure where one clause ends and the next begins.
Unless there is great pressure to continue, we rapidly tire of trying
to make sense of writing which has no stress or grammatical indicators.
Let's look at an example used elsewhere. It isn't a particularly long
sentence, but the absence of any punctuation makes it very difficult to
understand at first reading.
'Each night you stay at a
Roberts-Plaza Moat Houses UK hotel at the fully published or corporate
rate you are entitled to a special discount voucher.'
Jumbled vocabulary
This usually occurs either because the
writer doesn't have a firm grasp of the meaning and best use of words
– or because there is a 'straining for effect' which goes
wrong. Sometimes the two features may be combined. A local council
circular [in what we might call 'Town Hall prose'] offers the following
example of the first weakness:
'Manchester has a strong
objective to be widely recognized as a fully accessible city, and
energetically supports the overall approach of the Action
Programme.'
The
council might have a 'strong ambition'; it might have these goals as
its objective; but it cannot have a 'strong objective', because the
term 'objective' is an abstract noun which cannot be qualified by
'strong'.
The over-long sentence
Long sentences should generally be avoided
– unless you have very good control of grammar and syntax.
This is a very common problem for beginners. Some people start out on
their subject, add qualifying clauses, explanations, or digressions of
some kind, then seem to forget where they have come from. Their
sentences drift grammatically and usually become difficult to
understand.
'If we contrast the past
situation where although a doctor may not have been able to cure a
patient, he would have visited the patient regularly giving emotional
support; with a situation that might occur today, such as the
impersonal treatment of a patient using highly sophisticated
technology, it could be argued that this transition has produced a less
humane or compassionate system.'
The following is a more subtle example of
the same phenomenon. The sentence isn't quite so disastrous, but it
should be much easier to understand. The weaknesses are caused by its
length, and also by its poor grammar and confusing repetitions. [We are
back in the Town Hall.]
'The Programme is of vital importance, and
would assist in creating a significant improvement in the quality of
life of disabled people of all ages, not least as access to transport
is a key requirement in education and employment, as well as for
social, leisure, health, shopping and other activities.'
It starts with the active verb is then
switches to the conditional 'would'; the three 'of's in quick
succession are clumsy; and 'not least as' [which should be 'because']
is not properly paralleled in 'as well as'. Like most of the examples
we have looked at, it would be improved if it were split into two
separate sentences.
Pretentiousness
Some people use
writing as a vehicle to 'impress' others. Rather than make direct
statements they use elaborate constructions and wordy phrases in an
attempt to appear very literary or clever. These attempts rarely
succeed because writing does reveal its author's 'style'. An insincere
purpose will show through - as the following example should
illustrate.
'One
would hesitate,
however, to sip from the same poisoned chalice as those who would
speciously crusade the assertion that literature is quintessentially
socially functional. Pose the following interrogative: Would Dante,
Shakespeare, or Milton, from their peerless pinnacles, have sullied
their art, prostituted the muse which their endeavours had enthroned,
by indicating something as trivial, as unworthy, as a social purpose?
The art of such as these argues another view; that at the heart of all
great creative achievement lies a self-justifying, eternally fathomless
and sacred mystery.'
Cliché
Let's finish with a stunning example from
the world of provincial journalism. In his book on Newspaper
Style, Keith Waterhouse points out that many tabloid
journalists inhabit a linguistic world so steeped in cliché
that their writing has the appearance of being constructed from
ready-made parts. The following is an extract from a genuine theatre
review (with the clichés highlighted) but the names have
been changed to protect the innocent. [That's a deliberate
example!]
'By their very nature
cabarets tend to be a bit of a hit and miss affair.
And Manchester's own Downtown Cabaret is ample proof
of that. When it was good it was good and when it was bad
it was awful. Holding this curate's egg together
was John Keswick acting as compere and keeping the hotch-potch of
sketches and songs running along smoothly. And his
professionalism shone through as he kept
his hand on the tiller and steered the show through
a difficult audience with his own brand of
witticism. Local playwright Alan Chivers had previously worked
like a Trojan and managed to marshall the talents
of a bevy of Manchester's rising stars.'
Avoiding bad writing
What then are the
cures for bad writing? There are essentially two solutions. One is
simply to take more care, and subject what you write to detailed
scrutiny. If you are in any doubt at all about something you have
written, be prepared to change it. If the meaning is ambiguous or
cloudy to you, it will almost certainly be so to somebody else. You
might ask a tolerant friend to read over what you have written. Check
that it makes sense. The other solution is to make yourself more aware
of the language and rhythms of good writing. Read the work of those who
are known to write well. Absorb the syntax, the cadences, and the
texture of good prose.
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