We have a horrible suspicion that most journalists believe that public relations consultants’ writing leaves a lot to be desired.   These opinions are most likely founded on those PR people who don’t take the time to concentrate on and master the craft of good writing but put their efforts instead into turning around copy so fast it makes your head spin. To be a successful journalist you have to be a good writer; the same is true of the PR practitioner, but they don’t all know it. At Potion we understand that plain, concise and accurate writing is not the province of just the information or advisory document, it’s important in all communications -- and that’s what PR is about. If you can't write clearly, concisely and interestingly, how can you communicate the message you want your public to grasp and understand? Good ideas require good writing to project them; mediocre ideas even more so. So why do we see so many examples of jargon, fluff, padding , ambiguity and superfluous writing in a lot of PR text? – because we think we have to impress.  It’s not necessary, in fact, quite the converse is true: using plain language to communicate with journalists is not considered bland but effective. Whatever publication your PR campaign is targeting, it is unlikely that all reporters reviewing your press kit will be familiar with specific industry jargon or acronyms. So keep them out.  Providing journalists with information in plain language is the surest way to get your point across and improve your chances for media coverage. While good writing doesn’t increase the reliability of your products or services, it shows that you care about communicating with people and make the effort to do it well. It shows that quality matters to you. The problem of bad writing is especially noticeable when it is in direct conflict with the promise of excellence; so look to your websites and emails which are equally deserving of good English. Like it or not, people judge others by the way they write and speak, especially if they are not familiar with them.  Striving for the highest quality in every word that goes out in your company's name should be the guiding principle of every writing-based profession. Here are six simple guidelines:

• Keep sentences short where you can:  up to about 25 words.
• Use active rather than the passive voice: X consultancy wrote a letter to the editor not A letter to the editor was written by X consultancy.
• Use simple rather than complex words. We will try to help you not We will endeavour to do our best to assist you.
• Avoid acronyms or abbreviations unless you are sure your reader will understand them.
• Don't put more than one idea into a sentence.
• Get rid of long-winded phrases, clichés, meaningless language , jargon, buzzwords and words imported from other languages.