Part 1

Create Your Identity

If you’re going to be talking to the public about fencing, you’ll want to create an image for your organization, whether it’s a club or an annual tournament or a school fencing program. You want that image to be memorable enough that when you present yourself as someone who knows what they’re talking about (which you will, of course—but more on that in Parts 2 & 3), the local media will remember to come back to you when they want a local story to tie in with news of American fencing medals at the Olympics or the latest movie swashbuckler. You’ll need a logo, some basics of English usage and grammar, and a little bit of style.

Working with a Logo

My favorite logo story is one told in a publications workshop I gave at a conference years ago. The frustrated woman who told it explained that when she and a few others started up their organization, they decided that they wanted a logo, so they appointed a committee of three or four people to come up with an appropriate design. The committee set to work and eventually came forth with a proposal: they had developed three or four designs that they liked, but because they each thought their own design was best, they suggested that the group rotate among the different designs, using a different one each month.

One senses here a certain lack of understanding of just what a logo is for.

A logo is a symbol used by an organization to represent itself. It usually appears on every piece of published material the organization produces: letterhead, envelopes, advertising, brochures, pamphlets, websites, banners, club warm-ups and other apparel, patches—everything. A good logo can be invaluable to any organization, but especially so to a small organization with limited resources, like most fencing clubs. A good, memorable logo can dramatically increase your public name recognition and create the impression of a strong, active, professional organization.

Developing a logo

We’ll assume you don’t have the budget to hire a professional to design a logo for you. (But don’t overlook the possibility that there is a professional in your club or division who can help you!) There are some quick and easy methods you can use, individually or in combination, to create an effective logo.

• Typeface designs. Try your name or acronym in a variety of typefaces—you may find that a specific style used consistently in everything you do may be all the logo you need. Or, you might try playing with the letters of your acronym: reverse the letters, vary the size, change the shapes.

• Calligraphy. A handwritten version of your name may suit your needs perfectly. (Again, check your membership to see if you have calligraphers among you.)

• Color. A block of color used with your name can give your publications the distinctive look you want. (But color almost always means more expense, so be careful.)

Don’t rush into choosing a logo. You want something that you will be happy with for a long time, and something that will present the image you want to project, so it’s better to go without for a while than end up with something that doesn’t do the job.

Elizabeth W. Adler, in Everyone’s Guide to Successful Publications: How to Produce Powerful Brochures, Newsletters, Flyers, and Business Communications, Start to Finish (Peachpit Press, 1993; much of this advice is based on her ideas), suggests the following questions to help evaluate a proposed logo’s suitability:

• Does this logo have immediate impact?

• Is it good to look at?

• Is it distinctive?

• Does it create a positive image?

• Does it accurately represent your organization or business?

• Is it straightforward?

• Is it comprehensible?

• Is it memorable?

• Is it flexible?

• Does it copy well?

• Will it hold up both large and small?

• Will it wear well over time?

• Will you be proud to use it?

Some examples

There are a few definite themes among fencing logos used around the country these days. There are lots of weapons, naturally enough, and quite a few fencers. Many clubs incorporate some sort of geographical reference into their logo, (Keep in mind that these are real logos already used by existing organizations and may therefore be under trademark protection.)

From straightforward text, we add weapons:

And then add some angles and play around with shapes a bit:

There are the shield or patch variations:

And the more abstract:

Mix in some fencers:

Finally, add some geography:

Looking Professional:
Why Bother?

Once you’ve got a visual image for yourself, it’s important to take the time to make your written communications look professional, too. Looking professional means being careful and precise. It is knowing lots of often arbitrary rules of spelling and grammar and sentence structure and style. It is following the rules.

Many of us rebel against the very idea. We’re running a fencing club, after all—we’re coaches and parents and fencers, not professional writers or editors. Why all the fuss? After all, even if I make a few typos or write less than perfect prose, they’ll know what I really mean, won’t they? Why should I have to be so picky about what I send out? Why bother?

Think about the editor or reporter you’ve sent your press release to, in hopes of getting some publicity for the tournament you’re organizing. If she works for a moderately sized newspaper, she’s got a stack of press releases sitting on her desk and many more in her computer’s inbox waiting to be reviewed. She’s a busy person, with deadlines fast approaching and three or four stories in progress, but she’s always on the lookout for new stories to fill that newspaper space every day. She doesn’t have the time to read every one of those releases carefully, so how’s she going to choose?

How would you choose? A handwritten notice goes into the trash immediately—too time-consuming. Here’s one that nicely printed, but there’s no headline and no clues to what it’s about in the first few paragraphs—into the trash. Here’s one that’s 12 pages of tiny single-spaced type about some fundraiser’s cause, but the editor can’t find her bifocals under the stacks of paper on her desk, so into the trash it goes. Next is a clearly written announcement of an interesting-sounding event, except that the location and time are not clear, and there’s no contact person listed for further information—regretfully, she tosses it, too.

At the end of her review, our newsperson may have no more than half a dozen items to look into further. They may still not be used, perhaps because something similar is already being covered, perhaps because it’s just a busy news day. Maybe a couple of them are interesting enough that the information will be noted for a possible feature article someday or filed for future reference.

Looking professional gets you through the door. There’s not much you can do about a new doping scandal or a basketball trade that preempts the story about your tournament, but you can control the picky little details that can sink your work regardless of its substantive value.

How that substantive value is perceived is tricky, too. Information presented sloppily, in a haphazard format, without enough attention given to its presentation, will raise doubts about its reliability: If a writer is so careless about how his information appears, perhaps he is just as careless with his facts and figures.

The time and effort and patience you put into getting all the boring, nitpicky, arbitrary details right are well worth the effort. You won’t hear much about it if you do it right, but getting it wrong could negate all your hard work.

What’s “Right”?

How do you go about getting it right? Attention to detail, pure and simple.

Good reference books can help. A dictionary and thesaurus are basic, but there’s lots of other help available.

If you can afford only one book on writing, make it The Elements of Style (William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White, Allyn & Bacon). It’s cheap, it’s short, it’s deceptively simple, and it uses lots of examples. One friend groans whenever she hears it recommended: “Everybody recommends it—I’m sick of hearing about The Elements of Style! People have been telling me about it since I was in high school.” Everybody does recommend it, and for good reason: it’s the best basic guide to style and usage around. Many professionals (including this one) reread it at least annually to make sure its advice stays drummed into their brains. The last chapter, “An Approach to Style (With a List of Reminders),” offers terrific advice for keeping your writing clear, concise, and powerful.

On the other hand, if you hate The Elements of Style, browse through the reference section of your local book store and find a style and usage guide you do like. As you look through the many available guides, you’ll find that they often disagree on details of what is considered “correct” usage. You could buy all of them and try to figure out the majority opinion on any given problem, but it’s not really worth the trouble. Usage recommendations from any of them will be acceptable as long as you don’t alternate styles from one sentence to the next. Choose the guide you like best and find easiest to use, and stick with it consistently.

If you’re not familiar with typesetting conventions used for publication, get either The Mac Is Not a Typewriter or The PC Is Not a Typewriter (Robin Williams, Peachpit Press). These look far too skinny for the price, but they’re cheap for computer books and worth every penny. The rules we (the Boomers among us, anyway) learned in typing (e.g., “Doublespace after a period.”) are different from the rules typesetters use for printed matter, and Williams offers clear and specific advice to make your work meet publishing standards. You’ll be amazed what a few simple spacing and punctuation changes can do for your documents. (After all, “épée” looks much better than a plain old “epee.”)

Making It Right

All the reference volumes in the world, though, aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on if you don’t notice when you need to use them. How do you learn to catch and correct problems in your own writing?

The best answer, of course, is not to try. Once words are down on paper, writing ceases to be a solitary undertaking and becomes a collaborative art. When reading your own work, it’s easy to miss problems because you already know what you mean, and you will tend to see what you expect to see. Ask someone to read your work for you. If the idea of others discovering your mistakes bothers you, think how much worse it would be to have those mistakes appear in print publicly.

I’ve always found it easiest to fix any mechanical problems first. Once the spelling and grammar are taken care of, it’s easier to notice places where meaning is unclear or information is missing.

Of course, in the real world, it’s often impossible to avoid having to check your own work. What then?

• Allow yourself enough time to set the article aside for a day or two, or at least a few hours. The less you remember about what you wrote, the more easily you’ll see any problems. (Of course, if you had time to do this, you’d probably have time to have someone proofread it for you.)

• Read it out loud. Phrases that seem articulate and intelligent in print can sound stilted and confusing when you hear them. Reading aloud also tends to slow you down, and that helps you find problems, too.

• Try reading your copy backwards. This will make you focus on one word at a time instead of whole phrases, and will make typos and spelling errors glaringly obvious.

• Do not try to proofread anything on a computer screen. Use your spellchecker, go over your copy on the screen for obvious problems, but don’t expect to find everything. Even when you think you’ve already caught and fixed it all, give it a final run-through on paper.

If you’re thorough and careful, you will catch every error, every awkward phrase, every senseless statement, and produce a perfect document every time.

Every time? Not a chance!

You’ll definitely improve your odds. You’ll produce better work than you would have without all that care and attention, But eventually, even under the best of circumstances, when six people review your work, and six more check it after layout just before it goes public, something really stupid will make it through, and you’ll be baffled at how all of you could have missed something so obvious.

Let it go. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes.

Developing a House Style

Getting your spelling and punctuation and subject-verb agreement right are just the beginning of finding your voice for communicating with the public. You also need some style, specifically, a “house style.”

Your house style is your collection of rules for handling all those details that don’t have a right or wrong, but are a matter of choice: Do you use “saber” or “sabre”? Do you give fencing commands in English or French (“on guard” or “en garde”)? Do you write out all numerals or only those under 10? What’s the proper acronym or abbreviation for your club? Is the American national governing body for fencing “US Fencing,” “USA Fencing,” or “USFA”?

Writers and editors can spend hours haggling over the details of such decisions, and differences of opinion can be every bit as fractious as political or religious disputes. One of the few true perquisites of being an editor is having the authority to decide such questions.

Once you make those decisions, though, you need a way to keep track of what you’ve decided. A house style is no house style if it’s forgotten from one newsletter issue or press release to the next.

What you need is a style sheet. A style sheet (and this kind of style sheet differs from those in word processing and page layout programs) is simply a sheet or several sheets of items you’ve created standard styles for. Such a style sheet also serves as a handy reminder for the correct spellings of words and names you have trouble with.

Probably the easiest kind of style sheet to use is the one Karen Judd describes in her Copyediting: A Practical Guide. She suggests four pages (or one 11 x 17 inch sheet of paper, folded in half). Divide pages 2 and 3 into boxes for the letters of the alphabet; list specific words (e.g., “repéchage”) in the appropriate boxes.

Pages 1 and 4 can be divided into whatever sections you need for your work. Judd lists some of the most commonly used boxes:

• Numbers & Dates: when to spell out numbers, whether to use commas between months and years, how to handle fractions, dollar amounts, etc.

• Abbreviations: when to use, how to punctuate.

• Footnote style

• Bibliographic style

• Typographic style: amount of space marked in similar situations, when to paragraph, when to use boldface or italic type, accents in words of foreign origin, etc.

One useful category Judd doesn’t mention is one I learned to use from embarrassing experience: words NOT to find. Basically, this is a way to avoid common typos. Keep a list of words you don’t expect to find in your publication, and before you go to print, use your word search to make sure they aren’t there. Sound like more trouble than it’s worth? You won’t think so after you’ve sent out an article with the “l” omitted from “public.”

The actual form of your style sheet is not important as long as you have something. Some people prefer index cards or yellow legal pads, but for most of us, a simple sheet or two is sufficient. (Following is an example of a simple single-sheet version.)

As you produce each publication, note any style decisions you make as you make them. This way you’ll have them written down for next time, and will spare yourself having to flip through past work to figure out what you did last time.

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