4. Dealing With Approvals

While researching copy for internal communications is usually fairly straightforward, often involving no more than a call to someone in a particular department, the approval process that follows can be extremely trying.

Here again, two opposing forces can come into play. To begin with, as a competent and conscientious copywriter, you will produce a draft that tells the story in the simplest, most interesting way possible, following the rules of good copywriting outlined in Chapter 8. But your contacts within the organisation, whether they are the people you speak to in researching the story or those that have the final veto, may well feel that they want the story told in a different way, and introduce all sorts of changes when they are asked to clear the copy.

If these changes are to do with factual accuracy then there should be no reason to challenge them, unless they contradict something you have already double-checked yourself. Similarly, cosmetic changes to direct quotes (made by the people being quoted) should not present a problem. But as often as not you might be confronted with partial or complete re-writes which impair the readability of the story, contravene in-house rules on style or even introduce grammatically incorrect language. (The use of the plural instead of the singular when referring to organisations or departments, as in ‘Company X are,’ is a common offence.)

How you choose to deal with these changes, or indeed whether you choose to ignore them, will vary depending on the sensitivities of each client and the strength of your working relationship with them. Generally, though, I would recommend the following when handling corrections:

• Admit factual corrections and changes to direct quotes.
• Challenge corrections that are nonsensical, grammatically incorrect or contravene house style.
• If a lot of the revised copy needs to be challenged, then re-draft it correctly using as much of the revised copy as possible and staying true to the meaning of the revisions elsewhere.
• If you have made substantial changes to the approved version, send it back for a second approval, along with an explanation of why you have made your changes.