Welcome to Public Relations Writing, Week 4

Today's lesson deals with feature releases and related matters. We'll also talk a little bit about grades here today -- it's natural that students want to know how they're being measured.

This week you will receive your first draft of the "Evita" release, with edits. For many, this will be the first individual feedback you will receive. For the most part, feedback for the "From the Heart" release was collective feedback – since most students had the same or similar problems with their releases.

The collective feedback included examples of how a Message Planner and press release should look. Take those examples seriously. If your Message Planner was not as complete or as developed as the example, then you know where you need improvement.

When you get your "Evita" release edits back, you are expected to rewrite the release using the feedback as a guide. Especially at first, you are almost certainly not going to be able to get it right without trial and error, and you may do three or even more drafts before you are satisfied with the results. Each draft will be edited and returned to you, and you will have multiple opportunities to perfect your work. There is no deadline for these rewrites, except that everything has to be in by the end of the 13th week of this semester. I suggest that you do NOT do your rewrites right away -- you will learn more from each set of edited papers, and it would be better to wait a few weeks, so you don't have to rewrite more often than necesssary.

Typically, you won't receive a letter grade until the third draft, sometimes the second draft, if your work is very good. Except for the first (diagnostic) press release assignment, every release assignment includes a "pre-writing" exercise, the Message Planner, worth about 25 percent of your grade. The lead is worth about 40 percent, and the rest of the release about 35 percent. It's rare that early drafts score well in all three areas, and my team teaches and I don't want our students to be wading around in "D" and "F" grades -- it's demoralizing. So we hold off giving grades until the work is coming along well. Different students have different learning curves, and we're patient.

Learning to write is not learning a string of "facts" -- it's learning a craft -- it takes time and effort, and what ultimately matters is the level of skill you achieve, rather than how long it takes you to get there. Here's the math: a "C" at midterm, and an "A" in the final week, average out to an "A" for the course, not a "B". You are not dragged down by low grades in the early weeks, if you progress during the semester.

What do we look for when we're evaluating your Message Planner and press release? If you have been exploring your online resources, you have already found Evaluating Press Releases, where I have given you all the criteria -- including actual examples of "A", "C" and "F" work, plus a completed message planner for "From the Heart." (With this example, this is one assignnment that every student should have perfect.)

You should expect to work at least 5-6 hours a week on this course -- sometimes more. That's about what in-class students do. Even though you can choose your own hours to study, you are expected to keep up with the class schedule.

Go to Lesson Four You can always return to past lessons, if you need to. Click on Lessons at left, and then on the lesson you want.

Keep up the good work, Alton Miller altonmiller@mail.com