Passive Voice vs. Active Voice

I often equate the battle between passive and active voice as a sweet balance in “The Force”; in creative writing, passive voice becomes the author’s sylistic choice, but in Academic or professional writing, active voice is the standard. Since this blog is mostly about what is acceptable for academia/professional discourse I’m going to say this as though it is the only acceptable thing to do: Do not use Passive Voice in your writing. Why? Well, it’s actually quite simple: it’s passive. The definition of passive is one that I’m certain we are all aware of, so I won’t waste your time, or mine, in defining it. Passive voice allows for something to happen to someone/thing, whereas Active voice has someone doing something.

Example: Passive Voice– “The paper airplane was thrown.” This little sentence leaves the reader wondering who or what threw the paper airplane. If you can follow up the statement with “…by zombies.”, thereby completely ruining your professional credibility, you have written in Passive voice.

I define Passive voice as, any sentence in which an object is acted upon by an unknown subject, thereby giving the illusion that the object is in fact the subject of the sentence. The object in the above sentence is the paper airplane, and the subject is unknown. The subject of a sentence is always the noun/pronoun which performs the action, and the object is always the noun/pronoun that is acted upon. It is easy to replace passive voice with active voice; all the writer has to do is insert a subject.

Example: Active Voice– “The little boy threw the paper airplane.”

It may not seem like a very pressing issue in a simple sentence as above, but when you are trying to convince your employer, client, or professor that you are an expert in regards to your chosen topic, using active voice becomes the difference between landing the client and missing out on a multi-million dollar opportunity. So, next time you are looking through your proposal, or your next paper just remember that if you can add “…by zombies.” to the end of any sentence, you have used passive voice. Replacing passive voice with active voice will make your argument come across as stronger, and it will help you come across as very eolquent.

Good luck, and remember: Active Voice is your friend!

Back to Basics

Seeing as it is the beginning of a New Year, and beginnings always make me think about the basics, I thought I could touch on some of the most basic (and often forgotten) precepts of grammar. There is an apostrophe missing in the above photograph; the inspirational message ought to read “Dreams are the footprints of our life’s path”, and despite the fact that I actually find this little message to be a comforting one, I take issue with mass printed grammatical errors. Yet, despite my dislike for obvious infractions I’ve managed to conjure up some focus, and produce a little tutorial.

The Basics of English Grammar:

1. Capitalization: Proper Nouns (i.e. names, titles, and the pronoun “I”), and at the beginning of EVERY sentence.

2. The comma cannot substitute a period; it is to be used to separate objects in a list (i.e. apple, banana, and orange), in proceeding FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so), and acceptably as an indication of a natural pause within a proper, non-run-on, sentence. Just be cautious of the comma splice: joining two separate clauses with a comma instead of with a semi-colon, or completely separating the two with a period. e.g. “We had an exam at three, I decided to buy coffee first.” This ought to be separated by either a semi-colon, or a period since neither clause requires the other to make a cohesive, proper sentence. The other option is to completely restructure the sentence into “I decided to buy coffee before our exam at three.”

3. Basic Sentence Structure: A noun followed by a verb; e.g. I am. “I” is the noun, “am” is the verb. A sentence without a subject (noun) or an action word (verb), is not a proper sentence. There are, of course, some exemptions to the rule such as verbs followed by an exclamation point (!)–this indicates an order given.

4. Apostrophes: This little punctuation mark makes the word “can’t” possible; it also allows us to differentiate between the possession of an object, and a plural. E.g. “Joe’s…” vs. “Joes…” The first sentence tells us that the object belongs to Joe, the latter indicates that there are many individuals named “Joe”.

5. The difference between There, Their, and They’re, as well as You’re and Your, Two and too. There indicates a place “Over there!”, Their indicates possession “That is their office.”, and They’re is a conjunction of “they are”. You’re is a conjunction of “You are” and Your is the possessive of the pronoun you “That is your coffee mug.” Two is the numerical “2”, whereas too indicates a number of things “too many”, “me too”–It could probably use a blog post of its very own.

6. Semi-colons are your friend; two short, and complimentary sentences can be conjoined by using the semi-colon (;). Generally the sentence following the semi-colon explains the first sentence. E.g. Shelly was a quiet girl; when she was three she had witnessed her mother die in a horrific car wreck. These two clauses seem completely unrelated, but “Shelly’s” quietness is explained by the trauma of witnessing her mother die. The semi-colon can be used in place of a comma where a comma splice may occur.

7. Lastly, emoticons and abbreviations/acronyms are not considered to be professional, or appropriate outside of texting, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.

I hope you find this little tutorial helpful in your writing, proofreading, and editing practices. Stop by again next week for some more tips, and inspiration. Please leave a comment if you have any area of writing (grammar, style, spelling differences etc.) that you would like me to explore, and I will start plugging away at the research. Happy writing, and don’t forget to like our Facebook page “Jespersen Writing and Editing Services”, as well as our website http://jespersenwritingservices.webs.com

Creative Cramming

At times it can be difficult to invent a new idea; the premise behind it is flawed at its core. So, what can one do when faced with the infamous “Writer’s Block”? Well, each writer has his/her own process and it is best to stay true to that process. If you are accustomed to cracking open a bottle of Merlot, putting on some music, and lighting up before you sit down to create your next masterpiece, then that is precisely what you should do–you may simply end up typing a slew of slurred, jumbled, discombobulated (and yes, I realize that is not an actual word, but it ought to be one) mumbo-jumbo, or you could write the next best-seller in your drunken stupor. Personally, I forgo the wine, music, and tobacco and try to get in as many words as possible when I find a quiet moment; once the kids are in bed, of course. Since I don’t have a specific ritual to stimulate the firing of synapses, and the onset of that sought after euphoria of creative inspiration, I have to improvise. Yes, I have heard that talking about, or in this case blogging about, the creative process is a damning thing, but thankfully I am not a superstitious person.

Some of you may cringe at the idea of simply winging it, but it is just as effective as an elaborate (and costly) ritual. Sometimes it is helpful to go for a walk, fresh air is good for the mind and for the body; other times it is just as helpful to pour a cup of coffee or tea, open up the laptop and start typing–like tonight, my husband and I put the kids to bed, I threw on a load of laundry, and instead of going straight to Facebook and Twitter, I came here to type. I had no clue what I was going to write about, but I knew that I would write. That is how my mind works–randomly. I gleam inspiration from the simplest of things–the frost on a neighbours roof a few months ago inspired me to write a poem, which I subsequently submitted to a competition, that poem is being published in an anthology–yet I find that inspiration can be terribly fleeting, and at times it completely escapes me. There is no cure for that. Henry Miller once wrote “When you cannot create, you can work”, meaning that no matter how pointless it may seem you must sit down, and put pen to paper. Usually, after 30 minutes of staring at the screen, or at the page, and starting sentences, or poems, something clicks; something in your mind begins to form connections that you previously didn’t know existed, and suddenly your fingers are flying accross the keyboard and a story, a poem, a blog post even begins to form, and you are left feeling exposed on the page. That feeling, that fear that comes after writing, wondering if you have shown too much of yourself, it only means one thing; that you have created something beautiful, something new. You have given yourself over and found inspiration, not in a flower petal, or in the orange hues of a sunrise, but in the depths of your mind. Inspiration does not come from external stimulus, it comes from the deepest recesses of your mind; from careful contemplation.

Writing Woes

In a culture so utterly obsessed with quick, easy and convenient communication something has been lost in translation. We are all too quick to abbreviate and create acronyms for everyday phrasing; remember when you would type “ha ha ha!” or “That’s hillarious!” rather than “ROTFL” or “LOL”? These acronyms, that is what they are afterall, have even made it into spoken conversations with people saying things such as “I actually LOL’d!” or the infamous “OMG!”. Acronyms have always had their place in written language, they are a great tool for remembering grammatical precepts, or for use in the study of Science, but they have little to no place (except for in the case of accepted jargon) in formal business discourse and reporting. Unfortunately, we all know too well the feeling of reading an article on an online newspaper and nitpicking all of the little typographical errors and grammatical mistakes. We all do it, that slip of the pinky or forefinger accidentally pressing “I” instead of “O”, and these errors are forgivable in informal written discourse or occasionally in formal prose, but when these errors become recurrent the writer begins to look sloppy and under-educated. Grammatical errors are perhaps even more difficult to overlook; the basic grammatical rules are taught in grade school and ought to be honed, engrained even, during the period of higher education. It was surprising to me when a few years ago I heard a professor explaining to a student that emoticons were not acceptable academic prose. It would seem that this would be common sense as there is absolutely nothing formal about a smiley-face or its alpha-numeric equivalent, yet it has become common practice for young people to use the same form of sloppy and garbled writing in their formal practices as for texting a friend.

I have always been a stickler for the proper use of grammar and spelling, and have only in recent years begun to abbreviate and use acronyms in informal written discourse. This, I believe, has given me an edge; a sharpened wit if you will. My reluctance to conform to the popular use of textology allows for me to be able to pick out those small errors, which make a significant difference in the presentation of factual evidence and data. It bothers me that youth no longer can tell the difference between “There, their and they’re” or “your, and you’re” etc. and that it reflects so clearly in their writing that they are not held to a higher standard of writing practices. The generation which is now entering the workforce has limited appreciation for the written word, and for the rules that have been developed and improved upon for thousands of years. Every word we speak or write conveys meaning, and when strung together in a sentence with the proper use of spelling and grammar, these phonemes relate a clear and concise message. When the writer or speaker ignores the agreed upon grammatical and syntactical rules, the message becomes incomprehensible, and the receiver finds him/herself lost in the sea of miscommunication.