Media Contact:

Brianna Bennett
University of Northern Iowa
(319) 310 5061
bennebac@uni.edu
Generous Donation Keeps Scholarship Alive
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CEDAR FALLS, IOWA-- Sept. 30, 2015-- A $25,000 donation the the UNI Medal of Leadership
allows the organization to increase the amount of scholarship given to each award recipient.
An anonymous donation of $25,000, has given the leaders of UNI Medal of Leadership the
opportunity to increase the amount of scholarship given to 2015 award recipients. Recent
budget cuts by the university decreased the amount and number of scholarships, given in the
spring semester of each academic year. The Medal of Leadership if one of many awards given
at the award ceremony, but is considered the most prestigious. Selection Committee Chair,
John Mark shared the meaning of the award, saying, The UNI Medal of Leadership is awarded
to the individuals who go out into the Cedar Valley and represent UNI with utmost respect and
dignity. It is a special award that goes to someone who goes above and beyond to show strong
leadership skills to make a difference in this community we all love.
The UNI Medal of Leadership is in its 15th year. The award was created by former University
President Robert Koob, who began his tenure in August, 1995 as the first UNI graduate to return
to his alma mater as President. He was known for his efforts to promote and strengthen
relationships between the University and the citizens of Iowa and his integration of cutting-edge
technology.
About the University of Northern Iowa: The University serves approximately 13,000 students
from across the country and is located in Cedar Falls, IA. The smallest public university in Iowa
prides itself on the small campus environment, but also offers a large campus education. UNI
boasts small class sizes, educated professors, a tight-knit community, and a qualified leader in
President Bill Ruud are the differentiating factors between the institution and its top competitors,
the University of Iowa and Iowa State University.

###

Brianna Bennett
PR Writing
Professor Nicki Johnson
12/15/15
Final Revision Essay
I have always been taught that revising is one of the most important steps in the
writing process, but as a college student, I have to say that I do not always take the time
to revise my work before turning it in. Thankfully, I am a strong enough writer that it has
not affected my grades, but my habit of never revising my work made this assignment
challenging on a different level than most of my other final exam classwork. Getting my
brain to re-read my work critically was something that I am not used to doing, and it
proved to be very hard.
I made a few different types of changes throughout my news release. First, I
focused on the small errors including punctuation, grammar, and capitalization. Once I
got those out of the way, I was able to focus on more of the corrections that needed to
be made to the overall content. The biggest change that I needed to make was getting
rid of the prepositional phrases that I used in almost every single one of my sentences,
especially in the body paragraphs and supporting information. My sentences started
with prepositional phrases such as After an anonymous donation, While the award
is one of many, and When asked about the award. I was able to use the skills we
learned throughout the remainder of the semester to correct my prepositional phrases,
which also made each sentence more streamlined. Without the prepositional phrases,

the news release lost the majority of its fluff and each sentence got straight to the
point.
In my opinion, this is my biggest weakness in writing for Public Relations
reasons. I consider myself to be a strong academic writer, and it is hard to break the
habit of using constructions such as prepositional phrases for instances such as writing
a news release. This revision assignment has given me the opportunity to take a step
back and really look at my sentence structure, change it to the correct format for the
assignment, but also process exactly why fluff like prepositional phrases are not
needed in a news release. Putting myself in the readers position, I can see why, when
looking for quick and dirty information, a news release that uses prepositional phrases is
not practical. It is hard to understand because the reader has to wait until the end of the
sentence to understand what information is being shared.
In conclusion, I believe that my news release is now solid A work. There are no
grammar, punctuation, or capitalization errors, and the content has been restructured to
be easier to understand for the reader. There is no longer any fluffy prepositional
phrases, and the information is all very streamlined and to the point. This, along with a
paper that is typed and printed, stapled together, and on time, is proof that I should get
an A on my final project.