2008-03-02

Advertising

I help a couple of non-profits with some advertising and community awareness events. I'm certainly not the biggest expert regarding marketing and advertising, but I do know this. If you are going to send out something to promote your organization - PROOF-READ IT! Fix all the spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. And if that's not your thing, find someone who can help.

That seems like common sense, right? Yet, I continue to receive substandard writing and grammar for advertising. Amazing. I'm not talking about an occasional typo or mistake, these are articles riddled with errors. I received something today to include in our church bulletin, and frankly it was embarrassingly bad. I wish they had asked for help from someone before they sent it out.

Is English that difficult? Ok, maybe it is. English has some really crazy rules. But this is a skill that we should be able to master. What I’m really wondering is, what does it say about our educational system if so many of us have not mastered basic language skills? I guess the real thing to ponder is, are we going to do anything about it? Are future generations doomed to have poor English skills? Is there something can be done? Does it matter that we can’t write proper English?

For those of you who are bilingual, do other languages have this same issue? Does the quality of writing seem to continually degenerate?

What do you think?

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