A Draft for the Website on Copywriting
George Rusky
February 2005
"All great endeavors would inevitably sink into oblivion, if no one opened our eyes on these wonders to satisfy human desires and needs."
G.Rusky
This Site is about Copywriting. Copywriting as the trade, the science, the advertising, the marketing, the selling, the writing, the education, the earning money…
But most of all, this site is about the people in copywriting, a special breed of folks who take us into the world of unknown, telling us about new products entering the market today, or, as the Dictionary puts it: “A Copywriter is a person who writes or prepares a copy (especially for advertising material) for publication.”
Let’s think for a moment. Is that the main role of copywriter to inform her readers or listeners of a new vacuum cleaner or a better medication?
Do we agree with some career advisers who claim that: “…to become a copywriter, it’s enough, just to be able to write.?
I believe, a copywriter, first of all, is a person of high moral responsibility for the society she lives in. Consider the following, please.
Only a copywriter is able to persuade her audience to start using a new washing powder or to stay in the N. hotel. True?
Imagine: you read a leaflet which sends you to a hotel where there’s no hot water and yet, in his copy the author describes the whole range of pleasantries there?
Or, you’re invited to a new store, where, according to a letter found in your mailbox, something will be given away. You rush there, and soon learn this is just not true!
O.K. The last example.
A website designer promotes his website building program thru the most eye-catching sales copy. You click the link, then another, then another and finally, you leave his website with no intention of ever again clicking his link. Sounds familiar?
Isn’t a copywriter the one ho must be ready to declare, that she ‘stands to death’ for every word she has written, fully realizing that her readers may become buyers, and then users of the product she has once written highly about?
Being aware of that, I have worked out a Copywriter’s Oath, something similar to a well-known Hippocratic Oath, still traditionally taken by doctors at their graduation,
and invite you to read carefully the following and think if you are ready to put your name under it.
The Copywriter’s Oath.
I make the Lord my witness, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and to regard as equal to my brothers who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the copywriting law, and to teach them this art—if they desire to learn it.
I will apply my knowledge and writing skills for the benefit of the readers according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
I will neither give the wrong information about any subject of my writing if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.
I will guard my reputation and my art.
I will not use my pen for writing anything harmful for my audience, even if I am offered all the treasures of the world, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.
Whatever house I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the clients, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of charging extra reward for the writing done.
What I may see or hear in the course of the writing or even outside of the writing in regard to the interests of the client, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about.
If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.
