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Mary Dash's Writing Tips

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Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips

#51

Post by thaumasiotes »

ellius wrote: post #39
mrob wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The famous opening line of Pride and Prejudice relies on passive voice: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." If you specify who's acknowledging it then the joke doesn't work.

This is a great example of where to use the passive voice. Austen reverses the sentence structure to pack the punch at the end. In general, 2 good principles are: 1. Put the punch at the end of a sentence. 2. Put familiar information at the beginning of a sentence and new information toward the end. The passive voice can help you with both of these design goals. Orwell talked about where the passive voice is most dan…

> Austen reverses the sentence structure to pack the punch at the end.

> 2 good principles are:

> 1. Put the punch at the end of a sentence.

> 2. Put familiar information at the beginning of a sentence and new information toward the end.

> The passive voice can help you with both of these design goals.

This is true, but another major use of passive voice is to put the punch of the sentence at the beginning. Where you want the punch is a stylistic choice; it's not always best at the end. And passive voice doesn't guarantee anything about where the punch will go -- that depends on which phrases hold the punch.

Phrasing a sentence in passive voice lets you present the pieces in a different order and changes which pieces are required vs. optional. Those are important and useful things to be able to do, but if we always wanted to do them the same way, we wouldn't need multiple options.

Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips

#52

Post by aggie »

briefcomment wrote: post #47
btilly wrote: post #45

Judging by this sample, Mary Dash should be receiving writing tips, not giving them. Do you doubt me? Consider the opening paragraph: Readers prefer active voice sentences, and we should try to use the active voice in most of our business writing to communicate our message most effectively. Active voice clearly identifies the action and who is performing that action. Unfortunately, much of government writing is in th…

This is very effective in my experience. This kind of simplicity always gets praise in work environments, without explicitly being identified as "simplicity". Your rewrite was particularly skilled. Sometimes, it's hard to see that some things aren't adding value. Another tip: -In Emails, liberally use new paragraphs. Sometimes, even one sentence paragraphs are ok. I think this is because any way of compartmentalizing…

> Sometimes, even one sentence paragraphs are ok.

They're more than ok -- they're a great attention management device! Don't worry about stuffy rules of prose when writing an email.

Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips

#53

Post by ellius »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #51
ellius wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great example of where to use the passive voice. Austen reverses the sentence structure to pack the punch at the end. In general, 2 good principles are: 1. Put the punch at the end of a sentence. 2. Put familiar information at the beginning of a sentence and new information toward the end. The passive voice can help you with both of these design goals. Orwell talked about where the passive voice is most dan…

> Austen reverses the sentence structure to pack the punch at the end. > 2 good principles are: > 1. Put the punch at the end of a sentence. > 2. Put familiar information at the beginning of a sentence and new information toward the end. > The passive voice can help you with both of these design goals. This is true, but another major use of passive voice is to put the punch of the sentence at the beginning. Where you…

You're right, this is really the deeper principle. I'm talking more "useful rules of thumb" as people are trying to build intuition for why passive voice might be useful. But at the end of the day it gives you more options about how to structure information. I think like a lot of tools it's easy to turn into a foot gun, so having some ideas about when and why it may be useful is good.

Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips

#54

Post by combatentropy »

jfengel wrote: post #15

I find the "avoid gobbledygook" instruction a little odd. It's really about adopting a less formal register, which is fine, but words like "additional" and "purchase" aren't really obscure. From the examples, it seems to be more about avoiding French- and Latin-derived words, and using Germanic-derived ones instead. We do tend to use our Norman root words in legal and other formal registers, and Anglo-Saxon roots do…

I think it's simpler than that, a matter of syllables. The word "more" is 1 while "additional" is 4. Someone might say it is petty to count syllables. But it can add up, over the course of sentences, paragraphs, article.

Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips

#55

Post by hammock »

btilly wrote: post #45

Judging by this sample, Mary Dash should be receiving writing tips, not giving them. Do you doubt me? Consider the opening paragraph: Readers prefer active voice sentences, and we should try to use the active voice in most of our business writing to communicate our message most effectively. Active voice clearly identifies the action and who is performing that action. Unfortunately, much of government writing is in th…

There are two commas you can remove and one you can add (after "unfortunately"). Overall great edit.

Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips

#56

Post by hammock »

jfengel wrote: post #15

I find the "avoid gobbledygook" instruction a little odd. It's really about adopting a less formal register, which is fine, but words like "additional" and "purchase" aren't really obscure. From the examples, it seems to be more about avoiding French- and Latin-derived words, and using Germanic-derived ones instead. We do tend to use our Norman root words in legal and other formal registers, and Anglo-Saxon roots do…

>It's really about adopting a less formal register, which is fine, but words like "additional" and "purchase" aren't really obscure.

They're not obscure, but they are formal. "More" and "buy" are informal.

Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips

#57

Post by rusty__ »

btilly wrote: post #45

Judging by this sample, Mary Dash should be receiving writing tips, not giving them. Do you doubt me? Consider the opening paragraph: Readers prefer active voice sentences, and we should try to use the active voice in most of our business writing to communicate our message most effectively. Active voice clearly identifies the action and who is performing that action. Unfortunately, much of government writing is in th…

Excellent post! I've never heard of readable.com before. What a fantastic resource.

Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips

#58

Post by knee-cartilage »

btilly wrote: post #45

Judging by this sample, Mary Dash should be receiving writing tips, not giving them. Do you doubt me? Consider the opening paragraph: Readers prefer active voice sentences, and we should try to use the active voice in most of our business writing to communicate our message most effectively. Active voice clearly identifies the action and who is performing that action. Unfortunately, much of government writing is in th…

do we really need to be putting all our writing down to grade 5 level

Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips

#59

Post by potatoyogurt »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #50
potatoyogurt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with the general point that basic and direct sentence structure is not always the right choice, there is no passive voice in the sentence you quoted. "it is a truth universally acknowledged" -> impersonal construction "a single man... must be in want of a wife" -> this is active voice, man is still the subject of the sentence and be is the the only verb. "Want" is a noun. See https://www.dictionary.com/…

> there is no passive voice in the sentence you quoted There is no finite passive verb, but "acknowledged" is a passive form in the sentence in question. It's just a participle rather than a finite verb.

okay, you're right, i wasn't paying attention. shame on me. Still, I think it is a stretch to point to the use of this passive participle as the reason why this sentence works or doesn't work.

Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips

#60

Post by Riverheart »

knee-cartilage wrote: post #58
btilly wrote: post #45

Judging by this sample, Mary Dash should be receiving writing tips, not giving them. Do you doubt me? Consider the opening paragraph: Readers prefer active voice sentences, and we should try to use the active voice in most of our business writing to communicate our message most effectively. Active voice clearly identifies the action and who is performing that action. Unfortunately, much of government writing is in th…

do we really need to be putting all our writing down to grade 5 level

Not all, but if you're trying to convey complex ideas you probably want to save the readers mental bandwidth for the substance. Kentucky's healthcare exchange website targeted a 6th grade level and did well.
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