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Please contact Karl Jeffery, editor, if you are interested in submitting articles for Digital Energy Journal.

How to write press releases:

The purpose of a press release (we imagine) is to be read, not to promote the company. Promoting the company is important but if you're doing this at the expense of getting it read, then you are being counter productive.

Never use the word proprietary. If it is your technology, the reader assumes you have some rights over it. But the reader doesn't usually care who has the rights over it anyway, they want to know if it is something they can use.

Never say "we're not resting on our laurels, we want to get better and better" or anything similar. Everybody knows this is what life is like. No matter what you did yesterday, you carry on working hard tomorrow.

Do not use hyperbole - for example say how great you are or how unique you are. This adds nothing to the reader's understanding of what you do and just makes the reader think that you are trying to steal their attention.

Avoid using TM signs. Why does the reader care that you have protected your trademark? This is the equivalent of investing thousands of pounds in a shop front and then putting a notice on the front saying "maximum 3 schoolchildren". All the visitor notices is the unfriendly sign, not how great your shop front looks.

If you're going to put in quotes, have people say something interesting. Just 'we've very proud to ..' or 'this proves what a' is just stealing the reader's time so you can put useless nonsense in front of them.

Show gratitiude to your reader. The vast majority of people who write press releases treat the reader as if they are lucky to be able to read this fine piece of writing.

Actually explain what you do, why it is interersting, why someone should care and do that in the first paragraph.

If you don't have anything to say, then don't say anything. Or if you don't have anything to say which anyone else should care about. For example, junior staff members, what you are exhibing at a show. Don't issue press releases about these things. 


Our style guidelines are:
 
I) Aim for a headline and opening paragraph which explains to the reader that the article will tell them something they can use in their job tomorrow, which will help them to their jobs better, which they didn't know already. That is a tough demand but let's start with that.
 
ii) the first priority of any piece of writing is the reader, not the company being written about, even if the company being written about is paying you to write it. If no-one wants to read the article it is all a waste of time, and nobody reads anything unless the writer really begs them.
 
iii) make the article as accessible and attractive to readers as possible. For example: minimise use of jargon, only use acronyms where they actually help, no trademark symbols, add headlines which explain the benefit of reading the article to the reader right now - ie that it will tell them something they didn't already know which is helpful in their jobs, and covers an important recent development.
 
iv) powerpoint type diagrams and screenshots do not usually work very well in a print magazine.
 
v) use a journalistic style (not a press release style), writing about something with the aim to be as clear as possible, not to sell it.
 
vi) some topics are more technically demanding than others, but a reasonable technical level to aim for is a high school level / 16 year old science student, or maybe undergraduate level.

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