Tag Archives: Writing

The Benefits of a Classroom

Posted on December 3, 2011 | Leave a comment

Could you market this room? In my communications writing class at Emerson College this week, the professor ran us through an exercise that taught us how.

It’s all about features vs. benefits. How would you describe this room? Small? Undecorated? Now how would you describe it to someone you were trying to get to use it? Maybe something more like “comfortably cozy” or “a blank slate for your own decorating?” The trick is really not to describe the room at all – Describe what the room does.

Here is a condensed list of qualities that I used to describe our classroom:

Cold
Small
Tech-friendly (contains projector, computer, audio, etc.)
Bright
Versatile blank space
Sound-absorbing walls
Carpeted floor
Quiet

Now here’s the list of some benefits of the same room (using the audience of students):

You will receive intimate individual attention (since the room capacity is only about a dozen).
You will be kept awake and alert (because of the cold and brightness).
You will have a relaxed learning environment (thanks to the quiet).
You will take better notes and learn more because you were kept awake, alert, and relaxed.
You will advance your career further because you had a better learning environment.

Who would have thought that such a drab room could get you a better job?

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Posted in Diary

Tagged Marketing, Writing

Vintage Vignette: Civil Unions Article

Posted on October 1, 2011 | Leave a comment

Vintage Vignettes glimpse into the Communicationist’s past, one to ten years ago from this day.

On this day in 2005, I had an op-ed published in the Hartford Courant. Same-sex marriage wasn’t legal in Connecticut like it is today and I wrote about the ever-evolving history of the institution and why civil unions are not an acceptable substitute for full marriage equality. Looking back on this is a lesson in how quickly our own views can evolve (I already disagree with some of my parallels and terms), but I’m proud that I was able to do my part to get the message out to well over a million readers in my home state. Here is the link to the full piece and an excerpt:

I spent this past summer in Paraguay, where I met an American gay man who was living there with his Paraguayan partner. The couple met in the United States and they wanted to get married. But when the American’s partner’s visa expired, the only way they could continue to be together was to leave the country. If they had been straight, this American would not have had to make the choice between the partner he loves and the country he loves.

Many of us in Connecticut are wondering where civil unions, which became legal in the state today, come into all of this. Simply put, civil unions are separate and unequal. Some people call them a compromise, but when we compromise civil rights we create second-class citizens. That is what civil unions do: State that gays and lesbians are not worthy of full rights. As long as same-sex marriage is illegal, we will not be able to call ourselves a nation that is just.

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Posted in Diary

Tagged LGBT, Outreach, Press, Vintage Vignette, Writing

Walk is Codeword for…

Posted on April 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

fundraise! Yesterday I participated in the 6th annual Walk for Change, put on by the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center (BARCC). My original fundraising goal was $250 but I quickly realized I should set my sights higher and changed it to $500. I am proud to say that today my total came to $626. I called on my network of friends, colleagues, and family to donate to this important cause and they came through. I used the tools through FirstGiving, the program that BARCC uses for its fundraisers. You can see my fundraising page here.

I used some of their provided text for emails to donors but edited most of it and wrote a lot of my own. Here is an excerpt from an email I sent yesterday to my connections who hadn’t yet donated:

[The $571.22 raised so far] came from 13 separate donations, most of them under $30. It has really inspired me to see what what can achieve when we all pull together. My fundraising page will stay open and active for 3 months after the walk is over this afternoon. Please consider making a contribution or send my page on to anyone who might like to donate. The amount we have raised so far will cover the costs of 9 free counseling sessions for survivors and I would love to make it 10.

The walk itself was a moving experience. There were speakers at the beginning of the event who shared experiences of desperation and survival and T-shirts bearing stories from the Clothesline Project were hung up around the starting area. There was a great turn-out and I met some incredible women. I’m fortunate to have been able to contribute to this cause.

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Posted in Diary

Tagged Fundraising, Nonprofit Giving, Volunteering, Writing

Vintage Vignette: Spanish in Spain

Posted on March 7, 2011 | Leave a comment

Vintage Vignettes glimpse into the Communicationist’s past, one to ten years ago from this day.

This time of year in 2007, I was nine months in to my year in Europe. I was living in Spain and completely in love with being able to speak Spanish every day. I was also writing my first blog, and I’d like to share an excerpt from it with you in today’s Vintage Vignette:

For me, learning another language is like building a new life. Every time I speak Spanish or listen to Spanish, each word has so much more meaning than most in my native language. It’s because each time you learn a word, you make a memory. I learned the word for terrorist attack when I was in Spain and the terrorist bombing on the Madrid train happened. I learned the word for popcorn the first time I went to the movies in a Spanish-speaking country. I learned the word for red-head trying to describe my family to the interns in Paraguay. I learned the words for clubs and spades playing poker in Asunción. I learned the word for “done up” in my reading for my Social Movements class describing a drag queen at the 1993 March of Washington for gay rights. I learned the word for execution yesterday collecting signatures with Amnesty International against the death penalty. I learned the word for understand in Ecuador the summer before I started studying Spanish when a shop-keeper kept asking me if I understood (I didn’t). I learned the word for stamps sending postcards home from Puerto Rico. I learned the word for canopy in the rainforest in Costa Rica. My friends and I learned the word for license plate in Bilbao trying to figure out the system to pay for parking the other day (you have to punch your plate number into a machine and we were running up to people on the street asking them when the heck the directions said because the Guggenheim was only open another hour and we had to get there). Every time I use or hear one of those words, I think of when I learned it.

Then there are other memories that go with other words. Like the first time a student of Spanish asked me a word they didn’t know and I did know it (a Swiss girl asked me how to say wheat). Then there are words that don’t have translations to English like the word for the time sitting around the table talking after you’ve eaten that I learned living with the family in Sevilla. Or the word for a big tango hall that I learned in Buenos Aires. When I’m trying to figure out which grammatical tense to use, I think of the teacher who taught it to me. For me, Spanish is a collection of the last 5 years of my life. That’s what makes it so alive for me…Each word is an experience. Learning a language is just like life…You get frustrated, you learn, you grow. There are little triumphs (the first time I was able to talk politics in Spanish) and hang-ups (for some reason I could never remember the word for broom until I finally mastered it a few months ago). Spanish is a whole other life within a life for me.

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Posted in Diary

Tagged International, Vintage Vignette, Writing

The Writing/Design Dance

Posted on October 19, 2010 | Leave a comment

My communications class this week was about writing for brochures. But the main lesson I took away wasn’t about a writing skill…

We had to work in a small group to create a brochure based on our first 3-hour lecture about writing strategies specific to brochure layouts and audiences. My group created a gourmet cupcake company to promote. I wrote the copy about the benefits companies enjoy by ordering a cupcake package for their client (the client will be feel respected and values, the client will be more likely to repeat business with that company, the company will be seen as unique and thoughtful, etc). It was challenging to have 24 hours to turn around a full brochure with 5 individuals’ input. I volunteered to be the layout person and chose the fonts, colors, and graphics.

I do both writing and layout for marketing materials at work, but I hadn’t really realized how inseparable they are. When we wanted to tweak the tone or re-focus our audience, both the design and the writing had to change. At a logistical level, the length of the text and the size of the text box need to work together and if one changes, so does the other. The copy and the design are always doing a tango together, reacting to the other’s movements. They must stay in sync or your brochure will look as clumsy as my fiancée and I trying to learn the foxtrot at our first dance class.

How does your organization handle this? Do you have one person who does the writing and design or separate people? In-house or consultants?

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Posted in Diary

Tagged Marketing, Teamwork, Writing

A Very Personal Speaking Engagement

Posted on October 13, 2010 | Leave a comment

On National Coming Out Day 2003, I made an announcement to my entire high school that I am a lesbian. For National Coming Out Day 2010, I returned to that school to talk to the students about how scary that was.

I was scheduled to read a statement at the daily morning meeting on the holiday itself (October 11), the same venue where I first came out publicly. Unfortunately, the school decided that it wasn’t appropriate content for a morning meeting on an open house day. They weren’t comfortable with it seven years ago either and reprimanded me after my announcement which I imagine wouldn’t have been pre-approved if I had asked for pre-approval. I wasn’t able to read my own statement because I couldn’t be there on the re-scheduled day, but a brave student I had never met before did read it for me.

On National Coming Out Day, I spoke with a class, met with the GSA members over lunch, and answered questions at a forum in the evening. Dozens of students attended the forum and asked some excellent questions. I spoke with them for almost two hours. I was acting locally and thinking globally, and it was an event unlike the school had had before. I’ll leave you with some excerpts from the statement that was read to the whole school on Friday:

Coming out is complicated. It’s so much more than simply telling someone you’re gay. It’s a long process that starts at different ages for different people. The first step is coming out to yourself, which can be confusing, scary, isolating, and can seem like it goes on forever. You wonder what being gay might mean for your day-to-day life and your future. During my time of questioning, I knew hardly anyone who was not straight, so I had no reference for what it meant to be gay. Did I have to try to act like “them”? Eventually I learned that being gay can’t be defined by a set of stereotypes, and that in the end all I have to be is me. It’s not about fitting in with gays or with straights, but about being true to yourself. [...]

Coming out is an extremely personal and individual choice. I would encourage anyone considering coming out to remember to do whatever is best for herself. If you don’t feel safe or ready, that’s OK, you don’t have to. You could tell one person you do feel safe with and build from there. Write out what you want to say, think about what time might be the best, mentally prepare for the possible reactions. Don’t feel like you need to rush to figure it out, because there is no such thing as having it all figured out. Coming out is a journey, not a destination.

For those of you listening right now who are going through the process of coming out to yourself or to others, please rest assured — every other lesbian, bisexual, and transgender person has gone through this process too, we’ve all wondered the same thoughts and worries, and it gets easier.

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Posted in Diary

Tagged LGBT, Outreach, Writing

This Is Not A Good Headline

Posted on October 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

This week’s class at Emerson was about press releases. These are a great tool for getting news about your non-profit out there, whether its a new advocacy campaign, a recent accomplishment, or a change in leadership. Never used one in your marketing? Never fear! Here are the take-away tips for getting started:

Free advertising!…Kind of. Unlike public relations where you attempt to control the public’s perception, you give up some control with a press release. Since this is not an ad where you would pay for it to appear exactly as you want, once you send it out to the media without any money exchanged they can take what they want of it and add their spin… positive or negative.
Anticipate questions. Of course you should answer the who, what, where, when, why, and how. But once you’re done writing, read over the press release and think about what follow-up questions a journalist might ask you after they read it. Then add in the answers!
Format is important. Using the layout of a press release makes it recognizable and readable. The top should have “For Immediate Release,” with your name and all contact information. Directly below should be a clear headline (which should be in all caps) and below that you can put a subtitle (not in caps). Headlines must be in the present tense and concisely summarize the story. The body of the release would ideally be one page long, but it can be two. It should always end with one of the three options for signifying the end of a press release: -30-, ###, or -end-. The ### is most popular and my personal favorite. Of you are going on to a second page, write -more- or (more) at the bottom of the first page.
Format is really important. There’s so much on this I have to write about the body of the text in its own section. Before the first sentence, write the city and the date (of release, not of the event/news). Your first line will look like: “BOSTON (October 8, 2010) — Blogger Sarah Prager will publish her best post to date at http://www.sarahprager.com today.” The first paragraph goes on to give all the most important basic information. Imagine this is the only paragraph that will be read (because it might). Your very last paragraph is called a boiler plate. This paragraph gives all of the main information about your organization like the year it was founded, where its based, its size and, most importantly, its mission. You can put this at the end of every press release.
Write for a 5th grade level. Keep your language simple. Use active voice and present tense whenever possible. Always remember your audience. Save space by using less words and shorter words.