From Brittany Wright

From the very first day, Allison repeatedly told me that I was writing academically instead of focusing on readability. To be honest, I had no idea what she was talking about. As a grad student in public relations, writing is a skill I not only have to possess, but one that I have to excel in. So, I was confused and it was a blow to my ego when I got feedback that I needed to seriously work on my “voice.” I thought  my voice was great and definitely wasn’t expecting so much criticism.

Two months later, I get it. I can look at my papers and projects for school now and see the difference in tone compared to my blog posts, web copy and social media campaign work for Roundpeg.

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here is an example of the same sentence written in different tones:

Academic: The organization seeks to cultivate proactive relationships with appropriate media outlets to improve the frequency of quality media coverage.

Everyday speech: The organization wants to develop their media relationships to increase their coverage.

Now I understand the importance of being able to write in different voices and I’m able to adjust it when I need to. I’m not perfect at it yet, but I catch it much more than I did before I started this internship. I used to think Allison was just being nit-picky, but now I see that I had to figure this out so that I could become a better writer and be more marketable as I search for a PR position.

Brittany is an intern at Roundpeg, an Indianapolis public relations and social media firm.