An obituary or death notice is a paid announcement about the deceased person and details of his or her funeral services in a newspaper. As per the wish of the grieving family members, this announcement gets published to inform others. Some editors do not allow the family members to write the obituary, but some local newspapers allow the format given by the family members for the obituary.
To write an obituary, you will have to follow some specific guidelines. Just because you are paying for this does not mean that the newspaper will publish whatever you will give them. You need to know the factors which are mandatory in an obituary and the optional factors.
What to Include in an Obituary?
The first thing to be mentioned in the obituary is the full name, along with the nicknames of the person along with his or her full address. By specifying this, people will be able to identify the person.
Right after this, you can include the date, place, and cause of death. If you feel uncomfortable to mention the cause, you don’t need to.
After mentioning this in brief, you have to give the details of the funerals. Highlight the date, place, and time of the funeral service. You need to mention whether the funeral is private or open to all.
You can include other details regarding the funerals. You can mention the types of condolence gifts will be accepted. If you are expecting a donation, in spite of sympathy flowers or gifts, you have to be specific about that. If the deceased person is closely associated with any charity and you want to donate particularly at that place, mention that. It will enable those who are interested in attending the funerals to prepare their condolence messages and gifts accordingly. So, try to be specific at the time of writing the death notice.
Remember that the purpose of this notice is to inform others about the funeral services of the deceased person. It is quite obvious that they will like to share their condolences at that time. If you have any specific direction regarding that, feel free to mention that. You can include any special message in the obituary and a photo of the deceased person. Try to finish with the name of the surviving family members.
Tips to Take Care
Before you hand over the content to the publisher, do not forget to check the spellings, especially the names. Keep proof of death ready at the time of submitting the content because the editor may want this. If you are unsure about the correctness of any information, try to skip this.
At the time of including the names of the surviving family members, you have to decide how many names you need to include. Work collaboratively with the family members, and after writing the content, let them check if they want to add or remove some words or sentences.
Additional Information to add in an Obituary
At present, some people are including other information like the educational details and professional details so that the general public can identify the deceased person specifically. If the person has any special skill or hobby and earned fame for that, you can include that in the obituary.
Along with this, sometimes, the religious and cultural views of the person are also mentioned. These are not mandatory, but you can mention these if you wish to.
The length of an obituary is up to your choice. You have to decide how much information about the deceased person you want to include in the obituary. The charge of an obituary varies according to the number of words in it. So if you have a strict budget, jot your content accordingly.
Keep in mind that you need to inform people about the death of that person. So you can shorten the details of the person to keep the focus on the death of the person and the funeral services.