So, the burning question for today is, do you need to know grammar for your pitches to the press to be successful? This is something I get asked a lot from nervous business owners who wobble about contacting the press.

Grammar seems to be one of those topics that just puts fear into some folk’s heart’s, and I can understand why. There’s so much to remember.

Some people just love grammar – they know what they’re doing and simply crack on with it.

Others bumble their way through and are really not sure where to put those apostrophes, when they need a full stop or how to manage brackets. So, they do their best.

I know from talking to many clients that the stress around grammar is holding them back from contacting the press for the coverage they want so much. Mostly worried that they’re going to make a right wally of themselves.  

What I want to say right now is that you shouldn’t panic, worry or stress.  There are ways to make sure that you’re doing it right enough.

So, the answer to the question, do you need to know grammar well to be able to pitch the press, is a resounding yes and no. Let me explain a myself a little.

I’ve waxed lyrical in various blogs, on podcasts, videos, LinkedIn (basically everywhere) that one thing that sets the journalist alight is if you make their lives easy. You deliver on time, you’re easy to work with, your ideas are good and you understand their publication/website.

So, when you’re pitching in to a media outlet, if your idea is strong and the angle you’re taking is interesting, they’re going to be excited about that.

Then, when you deliver that feature if it also has perfect grammar, everything’s spelt correctly and they don’t have to do any work to it, then obviously that’s going to be even better.

But really, what they’re looking for initially is a good story, a really powerful, magical story that only you can deliver because of your knowledge or your insight or an experience that you’ve had. But when it gets to the point of sending them your story, that’s when they’re going to want to see certain things.

I’m not going to ask you to get your grammar spot on, because I know that probably isn’t going to be easy for everybody. But there are some things you can do that’s really going to help.

Now, moving away from grammar for a minute, I want to talk about spelling. Journalists will not feel a lot of love for you if you send in a piece of copy that’s peppered with spelling mistakes. We’ve all got spell checkers on our computers and if you’re not using this to spell check your work before submitting, it just shows the level of laziness that the journalist isn’t going to appreciate. Now, I know that spell checkers can be a bit wicked and change the spelling without you asking it to – S to a Z in specialised for instance because they default to the American spelling. The journalist will forgive you this because you they know it’s easy to overlook. Saying that once you’ve should spell checked your work, always reread it and see if you can spot those spell checker caused anomalies.

So, the first thing – please, please spell check your work.

Now, grammar is slightly different, because not everybody knows the rules and a journalist sort of understands that. I would advise you do the best you can with it. Don’t be lackadaisical and just think, oh that’ll do. Go through your work and see whether you can spot any obvious mistakes you’ve made and correct them.

Then, there’s a couple of other things that you can do. First off, sign up to a grammar checking programme such as Grammarly, which will help you by spotting your mistakes -there’s a free version. Now, it doesn’t pick up everything but for some of the basic grammatical errors, it’s good to go.

You could also get a book to help you. I’ve got one called ‘Grammar, Know Your Sh*t or Know You’re Sh*t’. It’s a small but really useful tool because it goes through, very clearly, some of the common grammatical and spelling mistakes. This one is by Joanne Adams, but there are lots of others to choose from. I just keep it nearby so I can refer to it if I get stuck (yes even I can forget at times!)

The other thing I wanted to urge you to do, and this isn’t just about getting the grammar correct from an English-speaking perspective. This is about getting it right for the place that you’re sending your feature to.

Let me explain. Every magazine, publication, newspaper, even website, will have its own guidelines as far as grammar and spelling are concerned. You can either ask the editor for a style guide (that’ll impress them) and if they haven’t got one, then take a good look at the publication or the website you’re writing for and study it. How do they write their copy? They may use slang words, may or may not use full stops at the end of bullet points or numbered lists. They may prefer single quotation marks to double and they may hate exclamation marks.

Read every line of every page of that magazine or website and write down what you notice. Then every time you write for this particular media outlet refer back your notes to make sure you’re doing the correct things.

Also take a look at what tense they write in. Do they use ‘said’ or ‘says’ for instance when they’re quoting someone. And are case studies or personal stories written in the first or third person? Check all the details.

Now, I know that sounds quite laborious, but this is about giving you the best chance of getting you and your business in the press. If you make a good job of it, then they’ll want to use you again and may even help you publicise the piece of work you’ve done for them. It really puts you head and shoulders above the rest.

Now, I’ll refer back to what I said at the beginning, don’t panic about all this. Journalists do realise that the experts (that’s you) they choose to use in their publications/websites are not going to know everything – they haven’t been to journalism school and may not have even studied English to any particular level. They don’t expect you to get everything spot on.

But the more you can do to, the more likely you are to get your pitches accepted.

Also bear in mind that every single feature that’s destined for a publication or website will have at least least two or three proofreads before publication. Usually there is a person whose job it is to solely read pages. So, any mistakes that make will be picked up, but the fewer you can have in there the better.

There you go, no need to panic.