Copywriting Style

1
Chapter 2

• Copywriting Style
• Basic Mechanics

2

• How many people are you trying to communicate
  with when you broadcast?
• Who else must the writer keep in mind besides the
  viewer or listener?
• Radio and TV format
• See p. 18 and 19 Radio and TV copy formats.
  What is the big difference in radio and TV
  scripts?
• Good method of setting up a two-column format on
  p. 20.
• All shops dont follow exactly the same format.

3

• Neatness
• What would be the effect of copy with a lot of
  corrections (crossed-out words)? P. 21
• With word processing, little need for
  hand-written corrections.
• What does wordiness mean? (bottom of p. 21)
• Abbreviations
• What about abbreviations? P. 22
• Differences in hyphenated abbreviations (Y-M-C-A)
  and acronyms (MADD). P. 22.
• What about symbols? P. 23
• What are the problems with web addresses?

4

• Conversational
• Why should we write in a conversational style?
• Try to write each spot so it can be read and
  understood the first time through.
• What about contractions? P. 23
• When do you not want to use contractions?

5

• Cliches and superlatives
• What are clichés When we talk about clichés,
  were mainly talking about broadcast advertising
  clichés. See Table 2.1 on p. 24.
• What are superlatives? What are the problems
  with using superlatives?
• What about questions that listener or viewer can
  answer with yes or no? (Do you ever wish
  you could work seven days a week?

6

• Punctuation
• What does punctuation do for the announcer?
• Difference in a comma and a period?
• Difference in a comma and a dash or an ellipsis?
• Difference in a dash and a hyphen?
• Why underline a word or phrase?

7

• Numbers
• See p. 27. Spell out point or dot.
• Round-off large numbers. Why?
• If you use telephone numbers, give them at least
  twice. Why?
• Whats a better way to give location than a
  numerical street address?
• What should you do about difficult-to-pronounce
  words or names?

8

• Grammar
• How can you overuse pronouns? Why can pronouns
  be confusing? P. 29. (Use advertisers name
  instead of pronoun).
• Can you ever leave out verbs? P. 30.
• Whats the difference in active and passive verbs?

9

• Additional rules in brief p. 32.
• Generalizations better to be specific.
• Avoid if
• Avoid negatives.
• Use present tense.