7. Keep It Honest

If you look carefully you might notice that all the points I have made so far are in fact variations on a theme. They all refer to putting across a message as directly and succinctly as possible. Such messages will be easier to understand and therefore more transparent to the audience reading them. Which brings us on to the final basic rule for great copy: honesty. Honesty is crucial in copywriting because, quite simply, customers are unlikely to buy from an organisation they do not trust. This lack of trust may be explicit in the company’s communications, for example through blatant over-claiming in advertising. But it can also, very often, be implicit in the use of long-winded language and technical jargon which appears to have little substance. If customers cannot understand what a piece of copy is saying, why should they trust the organisation it comes from? There is another good reason to stick to honest, accurate text. In many areas of writing, such as journalism or advertising, if you mislead your readers you can get into serious legal trouble.

Accuracy of information

As a copywriter, it is your job to cram as much information as possible into as few words as you can. That means you deal with a lot of information: names, dates, quotations, figures, theories, concepts, assumptions and so on. It is ultimately up to you to make sure they are all right. Someone else, whether it is the legal department of a client company or the subeditor of a magazine, may take some responsibility in checking what you have written, but no customer of yours is going to thank you for handing in material that is riddled with mistakes. So get used to questioning and checking every fact that goes into your copy. Also, do not assume that everything you read has been checked with the same diligence you should apply to your own copy. Much published information in newspapers, magazines and websites is notoriously inaccurate because the content is often generated at speed and with access to a limited number of sources. (It is sometimes said that information on the web is less trustworthy than that in the print media but my personal opinion is that the level of misreporting in both types is about the same. Online misinformation, however, can spread much more quickly and widely.)

Particular areas to watch out for (often because you may think you know what you are talking about when you do not) are:

• Place names (check against a good atlas).
• Name spellings (always check when you speak to someone and if in doubt then cross-reference your notes with published material, if available).
• Job titles (if in doubt, a phone call to a company switchboard can help).
• Company names (the phone book or the company’s corporate website are good ways to cross-check these; and beware of style points, such as names that are written with a lower-case initial).
• Figures (if they are sums of money, always check the currency).
• Sources (always provide a reference to the original source of information if you can, even if it is simply ‘research company X says’. On the web, you may be able to link directly to the source instead).

Accuracy extends to spelling and grammar, of course. While some people do not believe you should rely on automated spell checkers, they are at least useful for picking up the kind of obvious mistakes that can creep in when you are rushing to meet a deadline; just make sure you have your spell checker switched to the version of English that your audience will be reading in.

As for grammar, there is a case for doing away with as much spurious punctuation as possible (see above) but make sure your text does not become ambiguous in the process. The best option, as always, is to stick to short, simple sentences.

Accuracy versus interest

Since your copy is intended to grab a reader’s interest, it is not unusual (particularly with dull subject matter) to come across a conflict between the truth and what you would like to say.

Much advertising seems to over-claim routinely ( ‘Our herbal remedy will change your life forever!’) to the point where most audiences now recognise a level of poetic licence as an inherent feature of the medium. (In fact, as I will come back to in Chapter 10, around 70 per cent of people do not believe what adverts say at all.) Nevertheless, claims which are factually incorrect (for example, ‘Our product is 20 per cent cheaper than our nearest competitor’s’ – when it is not) can still land you in trouble. The smart copywriter will ignore the temptation to jazz up a product or service offering with fancy claims and, instead, look for something that will act as a unique selling point (USP, of which more in Chapter 10) for the target audience. Preferably, too, this will be linked to an emotional response rather than a feature of the product or service, which again lessens the potential for misrepresentation.

Proofreading

The smallest mistakes are the easiest ones to make: writing ‘an’ instead of ‘and’, missing out a word, misspelling a name. These also tend to be the mistakes that are least likely to be picked up by a spell checker. Because most of your copy will be proofread by a client at some point or other, it can be tempting, particularly if you are working against the clock, to not worry too much about these tiny mistakes and to leave them for others to pick up. Do not be tempted.

Handing your client copy that is riddled with basic mistakes makes your work look sloppy and unprofessional. And your client will not necessarily pick up on all your small mistakes. Some of them may make it through to the final version, with embarrassing and potentially costly consequences. Proofread everything you do before you send it off. Some people believe it helps to print a hard copy, since mistakes can be easier to spot on paper, but even a quick scan of your copy on screen is better than nothing – and could well help you spot a howler in the nick of time.

Do not just limit your proofreading to your copy, either. Make sure you check everything from proposals to emails. Since your writing is your trade, you can be judged on every word you put down, and you should admit no errors.