Blog

 There’s a time and a place for everything, the old idiom reads.

Well, that time should be always, and that place should be everywhere.

I’m talking about grammar and its nauseating misuse among our generation.

Now, I’ll admit I’m a bit of a grammar policeman. Proofreading is legitimately one of my favorite PR-related tasks. One might even say I have a flair for the … grammatic. (Sorry, I’ll stop with the terrible puns.)

Regardless of your passion level for accurate grammar, however, you must understand its importance, especially in the PR/marketing/communication industry.

I’m not going to use this space to walk through correct punctuation or discuss my opinions on controversial usage like the Oxford comma (which I vehemently oppose). You’re all bright students who have constructed enough sentences correctly to perform at the college level.

Instead, I want to emphasize the significance of proofreading and hopefully inspire you to re-read your next written assignment just one more time.

Here are some reasons to #checkyourgrammar:

Credibility: Probably the most consequential reason to #checkyourgrammar is to establish trust between you and your audience. In many of your PR classes, you’ll hear professors preach about recognizing a brand’s audiences and prioritizing stakeholders. What’s great about sharp grammar is that it’s effective for any and all audiences. Sure, slang will prove to be useful on social media to attract the younger generation, but even then, conscious grammar decisions go a long way in supporting a brand’s communication efforts.

Resume building: Wondering why you’re not receiving calls from potential employers after submitting an application? Take a harder look at your resume. Multiple HR directors have told me that grammar mistakes are just about the easiest way to have your resume end up in the trash. If you can’t find the time to polish one of the most valuable documents in your life, how can an organization expect you to professionally organize your thoughts on behalf of their brand?

Satisfaction: Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t it feel fantastic when you turn in an assignment and have no qualms about getting dinged for sloppy work? Conversely, I loathe that feeling of knowing I made sound arguments, but nothing in life matters anymore because I left a dangling modifier in the second paragraph.

The knowledge is there: It’s not as if this is a skill set you don’t already have. You already understand the difference between a dependent and independent clause. You know when to use lay and when to use lie. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t take advantage of your understanding of the language.

You can’t rely solely on spell check: I hate to break it to you, but Microsoft Word’s spell check function doesn’t catch it all. Spell check is the Google Maps of grammar fixers. It’ll get you close to where you want to go, but sometimes it’ll leave you hanging around the corner from your destination. Before you hit submit, you need to give it one final read. Put yourself in the shoes of a word like affect. Affect is a verb (except for its psychology-based definition), an emotional one at that, and people hurt its feelings when they use it as a noun. You wouldn’t want to be called Jack if your name was Jake, would you? Think about that the next time you don’t think you need to proofread.

If not for yourself, then proofread for the sake of the beautiful English language!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Written by Lukia Yuanshu Xu

Storytelling has always been a center of PR and marketing, in fact, it is sometimes more important to a business than the product or service. A well-crafted and visually appealing story could help your business catch the attention of customers, but to further convince your audience, you will need to build some credibility with data.

Being a data-driven storyteller is not just for content marketers, but for nearly everyone who needs to present to clients, superiors and even just in class. The numbers always speak for themselves.

To be a data-driven storyteller you don’t need a degree in statistics or be a maven in data analytics, as someone whose job is to tell the story, you just need to know how to interpret and present the data in a right way. So here are some tips of becoming a savvy data-driven storyteller and some resources you can use, mostly free.

1. Think about your audience.

Like all marketing/PR campaigns, you always want to keep audience on the top of your mind. Make sure you know what their “pain points” are and how your products/services could speak to their needs. Your goal at this stage is to come up with a question that your story will address. If your question has a quantifiable dimension, it is more likely to make up for a good data-driven story.

1. Find the right data.

By “right data” I’m not just talking about the data that make your story compelling, but the data that are credible and solid enough to convince your toughest client. That means you need to be careful about the sources of data, Wikipedia is not allowed as data source in thesis for a reason.

If you want credible data, here is a list of some common sources:

• Public data sites: government databases, state agency databases, WTO/IMF databases etc.
• Research institutes: Pew Research Center, Forrester Research etc.
• Reports from large consulting firms: McKinsey, BCG, PwC, KPMG etc.
• Publications: Academic journals etc.

1. Present your data.

If good data make up 40% of a successful story, then visualization is 60%. Human beings are visual animals, especially in this world full of distractions, people will only pay attention to the catchy ones.

Using infographics is a good way to convey your message. The longer layout allows one to actually tell a story from the beginning to the end, keeping your audience on hook before getting bored of all the numbers.

Some tools to generate infographics are: Adobe Illustrator, Powerpoint/Keynote, and online websites like infogr.am. If you like design or holds very high standard to your work, Illustrator would work to your best interest, it just takes more time to learn. If you don’t mind using other people’s design, online websites would be your go-to place. Personally I like Powerpoint, because it’s just so easy to use and also allows great room for creativity. A lot of designers actually use Powerpoint frequently. You can get Illustrator for free if you are from Annenberg, and most of the templates on infogr.am are free while some do cost a bit money.

An interesting way to present the data would be interactive, this works well for audiences who like to explore a bit, and honestly who wouldn’t like to play a little game? A software to help you realize this would be Tableau. I call it a “fancy Excel” because all you need to do is put your data in and choose a chart/graph. It works well even on large quantity of data, like thousands of tuples. And you can get a free student version on their website, otherwise it’s very expensive for entreprises.

With your USC account, you can take the courses on Lynda.com for free to learn these tools.

1. Seek feedback before launch.

This sounds like cliche but a lot people will forget when they actually start working. You get excited about your beautiful masterpiece and you can’t wait to show it off to everyone. But before you do anything, be aware that you are too small a sample and your opinion is highly biased. Ask someone else for their thoughts, especially those similar to your audience, have a keen eye for design or have done this before, they might tell you this color should be lighter, that portions on the pie chart don’t match with the numbers, or it’s just not that interesting to catch attention. They will save you a lot of trouble and frustration.