Public Relations Writing: Principles in Practice

"Public Relations Writing is currently the best public relations writing text available. The authors offer a no nonsense approach to teaching public relations writing. The text has great explanations of how to write an assortment of public relations documents and includes examples of each. Treadwell and Treadwell also spend time dealing with the aesthetics of public relations or how documents should look (color, paper, format, etc.) as well as how they should be written. Of special note are the excellent discussions of communication theory that many of the other writing texts lack."

-Michael L. Kent, Montclair State University

"This book integrates experiential exercises useful to understanding writing from an organizational perspective. The assignments require a student to become knowledgeable about the Internet and work as a member of a team. The text/workbook concept is very helpful if the course is taught online. The references to resources are invaluable for research."

-Bonita Dostal Neff, Ph.D., Valparaiso University

Public Relations Writing: Principles in Practice is a comprehensive core text that guides students from the most basic foundations of public relations writing-research, planning, ethics, organizational culture, law, and design-through the production of actual, effective public relations materials. The Second Edition focuses on identifying and writing public relations messages and examines how public relations messages differ from other messages.

Public Relations Writing begins with an overview of the principles of basic strategic communication decision-making, followed by chapters that apply these strategies and practices of writing public relations messages for multiple audiences. Authors Donald Treadwell and Jill B. Treadwell examine the macro-level understanding of societal factors that affect the relationships between organization and audience and the micro-level understanding of language and its applications that leads to elegant, finely-tuned, effective messages.

New to the Second Edition

• Covers foundational theory at the beginning of the text with references and applications woven throughout the book
• Includes chapters devoted exclusively to writing for the Web, crisis, and voice
• Provides more examples from the corporate, government, sports and entertainment, education and nonprofit sectors
• Includes multiple samples from the same organizations to demonstrate a common public relations message across writing genres
• Demonstrates how clients operate in the real world rather than a fictitious location
• Includes new and revised exercises

Public Relations Writing is ideal for undergraduate and graduate courses in public relations writing, media writing, and media relations. An Instructor’s Resource Manual is available on CD to qualified adopters. These resources include ideas for adapting the text for use with real-world clients, additional full-text examples, PowerPoint presentations, and ideas for course and student assessment.

Donald Treadwell earned his master’s degree in communication from Cornell University and his

PhD in communication and rhetoric from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

He developed and taught communication research classes in classroom and online settings

and also taught courses in organizational communication, public relations, and public relations

writing. He is the coauthor of Public Relations Writing: Principles in Practice (2nd ed., Sage,

2005).

He has published and presented research on organizational image, consumer response to

college names, health professionals’ images of AIDS, faculty perceptions of the communication

discipline, and employers’ expectations of newly hired communication graduates. His research

appears in Communication Monographs, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, Public

Relations Review, Journal of Human Subjectivity, and Criminal Justice Ethics.

He is professor emeritus, Westfield State University, and has international consulting experience

in agricultural extension and health communication.

 

Jill Treadwell has 30 years experience in publications and public relations.  She has managed PR campaigns for the US and international companies as well as for non-profit and educational organizations.  She has a background in both writing and design and has specialized in annual reports, newsletters, brochures, and proposals directed at state and federal procurement agencies.

In addition to maintaining a private public relations consulting practice, she currently teaches public relations, public relations writing and other writing courses in both classroom and online settings at Westfield State College.