[Updated September 21, 2012 with new art ’cause I liked it better than the original.] What will the tone of your emails say about your attitude today? If you are feeling the need for a light-hearted look at tone in workplace writing, check out Toaster-Instruction Booklet Author Enraged That Editor Betrayed His Vision from The…
Folks who rail against passive voice usually cite an unethical writer (or speaker) who is trying to avoid responsibility. Passive voice is certainly one linguistic tool for unethical behavior. But active voice can be used unethically, too. Compare the two lies: My homework was eaten. (passive) The dog ate my homework. (active) I see confusion here between the tool and the…
Yesterday’s post argued that sentence variety is the enemy of efficiency. Efficient sentence organization is dependent on cohesion: the links between ideas that hold sentences together. My experience teaching professionals to write is that most are able to create cohesive prose without explicit instruction. But, for those without this ability, the problem is critical. Their readers struggle…
Amateurs write workplace documents as if they were some version of a five-paragraph essay. It’s one consequence of using literature teachers to teach writing in the US. Our students do not learn that different rhetorical contexts (different goals, audiences, messages) give rise to different ways of organizing and presenting information in a document. That’s called genre awareness. Let me…
I’ve been talking about the role of writing for professionals for nearly 25 years. My “talk” has always taken place in a university classroom or an academic journal. I’m not ready to stop talking in those contexts, but I am tired of their constraints. So why not talk with fewer (or at least different) constraints here? There are things…