Required Reading: How to Write a Press Release: The Definitive Guide (2019) (Links to an external site.)

Required Reading: How to Write a Press Release, with Examples (Links to an external site.)

Scenario

You have been asked to write a press release for your organization (one of the discourse communities to which you belong, or recently belonged). Note that this should be fact-/reality-based, not a fictional press release. You may write one that is retrospective (based on something in your organization that happened in the past) or prospective (something that you anticipate your organization doing or experiencing in the near future) or in real time, if you are lucky, so that you can kill two birds with one stone and write a press release you can put to immediate use for your organization.

Recall that writing expert Ann Beaufort mentioned press releases as one of the most difficult workplace genres to master. I will second that, having written many myself over the years with varying degrees of success, which is to say, measured by how many resulted in actual news stories.

The first (optional) reading is academic/theoretical, advancing your understanding of genre. The two required readings are nuts and bolts pieces that guide you through the surface features as well as some of the other knowledge domains involved with writing a press release. As you read these, see if you can identify when the author is using one or another knowledge domain in terms of genre, discourse community, declarative, conditional, and procedural knowledge–as well as perhaps other knowledge domains bound up with writing that are emerging alongside your study of writing. It’s a good practice to rehearse these sorts of knowledge domains as you acquaint yourself with a new genre or writing situation, and as you listen to other writers attempting to teach others how to write in a particular genre. This will help you transfer what you are learning to new genres and new writing situations. You may never have to write a press release, but you may someday soon have to write in an unfamiliar genre and activating your understanding of these knowledge domains will greatly accelerate the process and enhance the effectiveness of your work.

Two-Part Task

1) Post your reality-based (no fiction, please!) press release below, following the rules of the genre as elaborated by the two readings, and doing your best to come up with a newsworthy story for your organization. Choose a target publication for your press release (for example, the Philadelphia Inquirer; New York Times; Atlantic Monthly; Huffington Post; Psychology Today).

2) Read over your colleagues’ press releases, as if you were the editor of the target publication, and choose one that you think is particularly successful. Explain why, keeping in mind what the two authors have taught you about the genre.

Congratulations on completing Module 4! You’ve now addressed some of the most challenging domains and are adding to it one of the most complex: genre.

Now is the time to reflect upon what you have learned in this module. Perhaps your sense of genre has expanded or become more explicit to you; at this point you are likely finding it easier to identify some of your strengths and challenges as a writer.

Jot down a few takeaways, for that will help them make their way into your long-term memory and your explicit grasp of the knowledge domains, both of which will advance your writing repertoire. Note some area of competence that has been confirmed for you in any of the domains as we continue to progress, and add or refine a goal related to one of these. Goal-setting helps us to take control of our learning process and also helps us measure whether we are making progress in achieving our goals.

Make sure to set a goal that motivates you. As much as possible, try to make it a measurable, tangible goal — and one that is positively framed rather than self-critical.

You may submit this as a text entry (in the text box provided) or as a document. If you’d like to re-use your reflection & goal setting document from the last module and add to it for this round, by all means do so! In the end, you will have a course takeaway in terms of the reflections and goals you have set for yourself.