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Re: Marketing email - VENT

Subject: Re: Marketing email - VENT
From: Al Geist <al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 21:13:37 -0800



Susan W. Gallagher wrote:

remember that most marketing writers follow the API style
guide rather than Chicago, so serial commas are not a big
issue with them.


After nearly 30 years of writing for a living, I can say that forgoing that last comma in a series has nothing to do with marketing writers. If you have a background in journalism (which I do in addition to electrical and software engineering), you learn before the end of your first assignment to ditch that last comma. Adding a comma before the "and" is like the old Monty Python Department of Redundancy Department. Since part of my task as a technical writer is to be concise and remove redundancy, that redundant serial comma is gone. As a marketing writer (a hat I've worn a number of times), you can bend the rules, but if you do make sure you never, ever lie to your current of potential customers. More importantly, always remember that your marketing literature may be the first impression a potential customer has of your company's product. That, in my mind, is far more important. Unfortunately, there are entirely too many people in marketing that believe it's okay to stretch the truth as long as it makes a sale, and that is why we end up with marketing brochures filled with misspellings and inaccurate information. But, they sure do look pretty.

--

Al Geist, Geist Associates
From Concept to Completion
Technical Writing, Publishing, Video, Web Design, Graphic Arts
Voice 907-317-3194 Fax 907-622-2321
www.geistassociates.com al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com <mailto:al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>
"When the situation is absolutely hopeless, you have nothing to worry about."
Compliments of The Monkey Wrench Gang






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