Writing & Grammar – Page 23

After one month of tracking misused words (for a class I’m developing), here are the six biggest troublemakers and how to use them correctly.

Simplistic

Doesn’t mean easy or simple. It means oversimplifying by leaving out important factors. Use "simple" instead.

Podium

A riser. You have to step up on it. Comes from the Greek for ‘feet,’ as does podiatrist. The tall piece of furniture you stand behind to deliver a speech is a lectern.

Disinterested

Fair or impartial. Does not mean "used to be interested but not any more." That word is uninterested.

Passionate/Passion

A buzz word, a fad that will soon pass. It means, "based only on emotions, without reason," as in the sentence, "He killed his wife with a knife. It was a crime of passion." Once ‘passionate’ is worn out, a new, escalating word will have to replace it. Wachovia bank already claims to be "obsessed" with their clients. Really? Scary.

Actionable

Not an action item on a list. Much worse. Something that will get you sued. "Punching my boss in the mouth is not only actionable, it got me fired."

One off

Short for "one of a kind," not "turn this one off," or even "off the last ‘f’ in this word." So it’s "one of."

About the Author: Quinn McDonald is a writer, certified creativity coach and trainer in business communications. See more of her work at Quinncreative.wordpress.com

October 9, 2007

“Adobe Captivate 3: Script Writing and Production Guide” Nearing Completion

My newest book, "Adobe Captivate 3: Script Writing and Production Guide" is nearing completion. You can order a pre-published copy of the book now and we will ship it to you "hot off the press." (We expect this book to begin shipping before the end of October.)

About This Book:

I’ve been teaching Captivate for years. At the end of a two-day class, my students have all the skills they need to create highly interactive computer-based training simulations (CBTs) using Captivate.

Some time ago a student, just prior to leaving class the last day, asked how she could focus her writing skills and create clean, step-by-step documentation she could use for her Captivate storyboards. She said she had searched and searched and could not find a class designed specifically for creating step-by-step documentation.

I had another student ask me if I had a style guide he could "borrow" so that he could create a corporate style guide to be used for all of their Captivate CBTs. Based on those conversations, I created this book. Part 1 of the book is designed to focus your grammar and writing skills and help you create concise step-by-step documentation. Part 2 of this book is the Style Guide and Process document I created for use at IconLogic.

Click here for more information about the book or to order.

September 26, 2007

Writing and Grammar: Less is More, But is Fewer Very Much?

This week, let’s discuss less and fewer as in "less than ten years’ experience"? What a confluence of issues is represented by this tiny phrase: spoken versus written English; rules of grammar flouted so often that most people had forgotten them just when grocery stores finally conceded; and the age-old battle between count and noncount nouns. How fabulous! Let’s dig in.

First, the rule: less is for noncount nouns, fewer is for count; much is for noncount nouns, many is for count. Count nouns are nouns representing items you can count, such as knives and spoons, and noncount nouns describe things that come in mass quantities that you cannot count, such as water, time, food, and-get this-money.

A good test for whether a noun is count or noncount is to ask "How many _____ do you have?" If the question makes sense, and you can answer it with a number, you have a count noun. "How many knives do you have? Ten." Knives is a count noun. "How many money do you have? Seven." Um, no. That does not make sense. Money is actually a noncount noun, even though people count their money all the time! What they are really counting is dollars, and dollars is a count noun.

Now let’s put "fewer" and "less" in there. "I have fewer knives than spoons," but "I have less time than money." Fewer pennies = less money. Many mouths = less food.

"Less than ten years’ experience" is a difficult phrase because it contains both a count noun, "years," and a noncount noun, "experience." How many years? Ten. But how much experience? Well, ten years’ worth of experience. This phrase is describing an amount of a noncount noun, experience, so less is the correct word.

So what is the deal with the grocery stores? They used to have signs over one lane that said "Ten items or less." Grammatically astute shoppers over the years wrote in so many complaints that many, if not all, grocery stores have changed the signs to read "Ten items or fewer." Meanwhile, in the spoken language, we routinely say things like "Describe your qualifications for the job in 50 words or less," and "You may enter the amusement park ride in groups of five or less." The Gregg Reference Manual, which I must thank for those last two examples, even goes so far as to say that even though fewer would be correct in these situations, less is more often used, and that in casual writing or speech-such as in grocery stores!-less sounds better.

The upshot of this conflicting information is that the formal rules disagree with colloquial, spoken English, but in formal writing you must still follow the rules. Fewer and fewer people will notice, however, if you get less wrong.

About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Essentials of Access 2000" and "Editing with MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7" to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

Want help with a grammar issue? Email us your troubles and we’ll turn Jennie loose!

September 14, 2007

Writing and Grammar: Comma Inside or Comma Outside the Quotation Mark?

Does the comma go inside or outside of a closing quotation mark? The difference is less than a millimeter, but there is an ocean of difference to an editor. The Atlantic Ocean, to be specific. This is one of those things, like whether to put a "u" in color or spell gray with an "e," that distinguishes British from American English usage.

First, let’s answer the question. In the United States, the comma goes inside the quotation mark. The period goes inside the quotation mark too. No logic or thinking is involved. You just put it on the inside, like both of these examples:

She said, "Don’t even think about it," then slammed the door.
He gave one good reason: "Because I said so."

In business and editorial offices, the issue of comma placement often leads to a fight. Why? Because it is an arbitrary-seeming style rule. However, comma placement is important for consistency, which is the mark of a high-quality publication or a well-constructed business document. And the tradition in American publishing is to punctuate quotations this way.

The popular book "Eats Shoots and Leaves" did not help matters much. Because it is a British publication, Americans reading the book to learn about punctuation rules arrive at the wrong conclusion.

Here are the U.S. rules for other punctuation with quotation marks:

Colons and semicolons always go outside a closing quotation mark.
Question marks and exclamation points go either on the outside or the inside of the quotation mark, depending on whether the punctuation is part of the quote or not.

Consider these examples:

He asked, "How do you punctuate a question?" (The quote is actually a question, so the question mark is part of the quote.)
She shouted, "No way!" (The exclamation point is part of the quote.)
Did he say, "I don’t know"? (The quote is not a question, so the question mark does not go inside the quotation mark. The overall sentence is a question, so the question mark goes at the very end, after the closing quotation mark.)
Did she ask, "Where is the library?" (When both the quote and the overall sentence are questions, you arbitrarily opt for inside.)

Now that we have looked at the rules, it is time to look at the exception. In text that is specifying exactly what to type in something like a computer programming language or a URL, you do not put the comma or period inside the quote: Type "http://www.iconlogic.com", which is the web address of our company.

Want help with a grammar issue? Email us your troubles and we’ll turn Jennie loose!

September 9, 2007

Writing and Grammar: You can Lead or Be Led. Either Way, You Gotta Get the Lead Out…

Led/Lead/Leading/Leading

When I told a copyeditor I had a request to write about these words, she did a little victory dance involving that John Travolta pointing a finger skyward thing saying, yes, yes, people get that wrong all the time. And it’s no wonder they do, since we have two words that sound alike but are spelled differently, and two words that are spelled alike but sound different.

Between them, "Led, Lead, Leading, and Leading" have three different meanings that are often confused. And to top it all off, these words have other meanings that typically are not confusing at all.

Let’s lead off with (sorry, couldn’t resist) the verb "to lead," pronounced "leed" and meaning to show the way by going ahead of others. In the present and future tenses, it is spelled with the a: I lead the way, he leads the way, and tomorrow they will lead the way. The -ing form of this verb is "leading" (pronounced "leeding"), as in she is leading the way. In the past tenses this verb is spelled "led" and rhymes with "bed": Yesterday he led the way, and he has often led the way.

Now let’s look at the noun "lead," spelled with an a, rhyming with the word "head," and meaning a type of metal, as in she wore a lead shield during the x-ray. It also means the marking material inside a pencil. And it also means the narrow chunk of metal that used to be inserted between lines of metal type to create line spacing. The process of putting that chunk of metal in used to be called "leading," pronounced like "heading." Today we use the word "leading" to describe the space between the lines, or the baseline-to-baseline distance, in typography.

Here are a couple memory-aid sentences that may lead to clarity on this issue: What led you to place so much leading between the heading and the text? That may lead the designer to want to fill you full of lead!

Now how did that victory dance go?

by Jennie Ruby

Want help with a grammar issue? Email us your troubles and we’ll turn Jennie loose!

August 28, 2007

Writing and Grammar: And, Both, As well as–When we join things, are they always plural?

Which of the following is incorrect?

Both the status report on the bridge project, as well as the budget report, are in the folder.
The page proof as well as the list of corrections has been sent.
Smith, Michaels and Jones is our law firm.

I often see errors of verb agreement in business writing, even though at its most basic level, verb agreement is considered quite elementary. After all, almost no-one who writes professionally would say "the reports is in the folder" or "the project are complete."

How, then, do we end up with verb agreement problems in professional writing? Often the problems occur when more than one subject precedes the verb in a sentence.

The basic rule for multiple subjects is that when two or more subjects are connected by the word "and," a plural verb is used. For example, "My dog and my cat [a total of two pets] are [plural verb] hiding behind the couch."

The second rule, however, is that if you use a connecting phrase other than the exact word "and," the subjects do not add up. So when you connect two subjects with phrases such as "as well as," "in addition to," "along with," the additional subjects do not count. For example, "My dog [the main pet I am discussing] as well as my cat [which does not count, because I used a phrase other than "and"] has [singular verb] fleas."

Another problem that comes up with "and" versus other connecting phrases is the use of the word "both" in front of any other connecter but "and." The words "both" and "and" form a team, known as a correlative conjunction, and "both" cannot be used with other phrases. "Both Jack as well as Jill" is completely wrong. Either eliminate "both" or use "and" instead of "as well as."

Finally, there is an exception to the "and makes plural" rule. I call it the macaroni and cheese rule. Some phrases containing the word "and" actually describe a singular thing, like macaroni and cheese. When you eat macaroni and cheese for dinner, you are eating one dish. The macaroni and the cheese are all mixed together to form one substance. So we correctly say "The macaroni and cheese [one substance] is [singular verb] good tonight."

Not only other foods, such as spaghetti and meatballs, but also many proper nouns and job titles contain the word "and" but name a singular thing: steak and eggs is my favorite breakfast; the Stars and Stripes is waving atop the flagpole; Smith and Jones is the accounting firm; our secretary and treasurer is Mike.

With these rules and exceptions duly noted, by now you can be sure: No. 1 is incorrect, and Nos. 2 and 3 are correct.

by Jennie Ruby

August 22, 2007

Writing and Grammar: Commas and Hyphens with Adjectives

Answers to last week’s quiz

I know you have been waiting on the edge of your chair all week to find out how you did on the quiz. Let’s take a look at the answers.

completely revised report (no hyphen because completely is an adverb)
high-income individuals (high and income cannot separately describe the individuals, so they must be connected by a hyphen to become a unit modifier that can describe the individuals)
scarcely noticeable difference (no hyphen because scarcely is an adverb, modifying noticeable)
long-term loan (unit modifier)
late, poorly written report (late is not part of the official order of adjectives, so we need a comma)
early-bird special (unit modifier)
critical care initiative (no hyphen, assuming an audience familiar with the compound noun critical care)
two long interim reports (no hyphens or commas needed because the adjectives are in the official order of adjectives)
two long-range plans (unit modifier)
completely revised proofs (no hyphen because completely is an adverb)
complete income record (no hyphens or commas because both words can describe the record separately, and the order is correct)
the baseball player’s home run record (baseball player and home run are compound nouns that do not need to be hyphenated for the readers to recognize them as units-like high school dance)
long-range budget projections (unit modifier followed by a noun identifying what kind of projections these are)
utterly ridiculous claim (utterly is an adverb modifying the adjective ridiculous, and therefore cannot be hyphenated)
three-year-old children (Two hyphens, if we mean the children were three years old. However, if there were three children, each a year old, it would be three year-old children.)
high earning potential (open, because earning potential is a compound noun, and high is modifying that compound)
false-positive result (It is not a false result, and it is not a positive result. Because these two adjectives cannot describe the result separately, they must be joined into-you guessed it! A unit modifier.)
one-inch margin (unit modifier)
fully armed artillery recovery service vehicle (Most military terms are not hyphenated. And before long, descriptions like this one grow up to become acronyms.)

How’d you do? I hope with the help of last week’s article you breezed through this with at least 90% correct-and a lot less stress than so many of us had with those pop quizzes in high school. Any questions, please write in. I love to hear from my supremely intelligent, highly motivated, adoring readers.

by Jennie Ruby

August 15, 2007

Writing and Grammar: Have You Been Studying?

What? The quiz is today?

I know, the word quiz might be making you nervous. It might be giving you bad memories of a stressed-out high school career. But why not give it a try as a way to see more examples of how to use–or not use–commas and hyphens with adjectives. (If you need help, the last few posts. Both topics were covered during the past few weeks.)

In the examples below, add commas and hypens as you think necessary. The correct answers will follow, next week.

completely revised report
high income individuals
scarcely noticeable difference
long term loan
late poorly written report
early bird special
critical care initiative
two long interim reports
two long range plans
completely revised proofs
complete income record
the baseball player’s home run record
long range budget projections
utterly ridiculous claim
three year old children
high earning potential
false positive result
one inch margin
fully armed artillery recovery service vehicle

by Jennie Ruby

July 31, 2007

Writing and Grammar: Commas Between Adjectives? Sometimes Yes, Sometimes No!

This week you will learn when you should add commas between adjectives, and when you shouldn’t.

A good friend of mine who has been a writer for years recently took a job in which she has to copyedit. One day she IM’ed me: "What is up with the commas between adjectives? My boss seems to always put them in–but I don’t think they are needed. Are there rules for this?

Consider these two examples:

My dear old Aunt Sally

My dear, old Aunt Sally

Is the comma in the second example really necessary?

Ahhh, the kind of question that warms a long-time copyeditor and grammar teacher’s heart. Yes, my dear, there are rules for this. But most native speakers of English have never heard of them. We simply rely on our "ear."

The rules start with the official order of adjectives. The large blue dinosaur just sounds more familiar, more correct, than the blue large dinosaur. We always put size before color when describing something: the gigantic green frog, the large black briefcase.

We can put together long strings of adjectives without any punctuation, as long as we follow the official order of adjectives: the valuable old green Mercedes sedan.

The order is first a, the, or a possessive such as my or Tom’s. Then we put evaluation or opinion, followed by the physical description-size, shape, age, color, texture-followed by where it came from, the material it is made of, and finally its purpose or main use. Oh, and we might have one last item before the noun: another noun that helps identify it.

Thus I can describe Brian’s comfortable big old brown soft Italian leather driving jacket sleeve without using any commas, although that is admittedly going a little over the top.

When do we have to use commas? When we use the adjectives out of order, as in the old, uncomfortable sofa (age before evaluation) as opposed to the uncomfortable old sofa; and when we use two adjectives that are in the same category or that are not part of the official categories: her comfortable, affordable alternative (two evaluations).

Besides order, there is another easy test for whether you need a comma. Can you read it with the word and between the adjectives? If so, you need a comma. Her comfortable and affordable alternative? Yes. My dear and old Aunt Sally? I don’t think so. No comma.

Next time: Do I need a hyphen?

by Jennie Ruby

March 22, 2007

Writing Clinic: Writing Narratives

The trick to writing effective narratives is to remember the following mantra: "Less is more." Your goal as a technical writer is to trim the fat and leave the steak. Below you will find a writing example that will help you learn the process of removing information that is not necessary.

Remember that you’re trying to introduce a concept without going into too much detail. If the learner needs more information, the learner can always refer to the user manual. The narrative should be short and concise, and get quickly to the point.

Consider the concept of making a word appear in a bold style: Just about every program I can think of lets you make text bold. If you had to write a narrative introducing the bold feature, you could include the history of bold, why bold is important, the many ways you could make a word bold, testimonials on the power of bold and examples of how bold makes things, well, bold.

If you were to write all that, you would lose the point of the narrative.

Remember that your goal is to introduce a concept quickly and in a concise manner. If I was going to introduce bold, I’d write why bold was important and show a few ways you can make text bold. And that’s all.

Here’s an example: You have been asked to write a narrative that introduces the concept of Absolute and how they relate to Relative formulas (both formulas are common features in spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel). Hold on to your hats, because here’s the text you were given by the subject matter expert (SME).

Note: For this example, it is assumed that users know all about Relative formulas.

Dear Technical Writer:

Here are the differences between relative and absolute references you asked for. Sure hope this helps ya!!!!!

Relative references: Well, relative cell references are kinda fun. They are the most commonly used references in a formula. So, WOW! Anyway, as you know, when you create a formula, references to cells are usually based on their position relative to the cell that contains the formula. Have I lost you? Here’s an example: cell B6 contains the formula =A5; our product finds the value one cell above and one cell to the left of B6.

BAM! This is known as a relative reference.

Got it? OK. So, when you copy a formula that uses relative references, our product automatically adjusts the references in the pasted formula to refer to different cells relative to the position of the formula. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Depends on what you ate for lunch! Har de har har!!!! Here’ another example: maybe you’ve got this formula in cell B6, =A5, which is one cell above and to the left of B6, has been copied to cell B7. Our product has adjusted the formula in cell B7 to =A6, which refers to the cell that is one cell above and to the left of cell B7.

Absolute references: But suppose you don’t want to adjust references when you copy a formula to a different cell. You might be hosed, unless you use an absolute reference. If the formula multiplies cell A5 with cell C1 (=A5*C1) and you copy the formula to another cell, our product will adjust both references. That could be BAD BAD BAD!!! You can create an absolute reference to cell C1 by placing a dollar sign ($) before the parts of the reference that do not change. To create an absolute reference to cell C1, for example, add dollar signs to the formula as follows:=A5*$C$1 You are getting this aren’t ya?

Switching between relative and absolute references: I know you must be wondering about this. What if you created a formula and want to change relative references to absolute (or vice versa), Well, first select the cell that contains the formula. Then in the formula bar, select the reference you want to change and then press F4. Each time you press F4, our product toggles through the combinations: absolute column and absolute row (for example, $C$1); relative column and absolute row (C$1); absolute column and relative row ($C1); and relative column and relative row (C1). For example, if you select the address $A$1 in a formula and press F4, the reference becomes A$1. Press F4 again and the reference becomes $A1, and so on.

Again, I hope this helps!

There is nothing easy about writing good narratives. What you’ll typically get from subject matter experts is all kinds of unnecessary information and possible "techno jargon" that won’t do your readers any good.

What you’ve got to do is eliminate all of the unnecessary information. Remember that you’re trying to also keep the narrative short if possible. Your readers can always refer to the user manual if they want in-depth information.

To begin with, the first few paragraphs can be removed because they discuss relative formulas. The information is good background information for you, but not necessary in a narrative about absolute cell references.

Here’s one possible solution:

Relative cell references are the most commonly used references in a formula. However, there will be occasions when you will not want the formula to change when you move or copy it to another cell. In this case, you will want to use an Absolute cell reference. Unlike Relative cell references, which do change, an Absolute cell reference does not change when you move or copy it to other cells.

Click here for a challenge exercise on writing narratives via our Writing Labs.

Category: Writing & Grammar

Writing Workshop: Troublesome Words

“Adobe Captivate 3: Script Writing and Production Guide” Nearing Completion

Writing and Grammar: Less is More, But is Fewer Very Much?

Writing and Grammar: Comma Inside or Comma Outside the Quotation Mark?

Writing and Grammar: You can Lead or Be Led. Either Way, You Gotta Get the Lead Out…

Writing and Grammar: And, Both, As well as–When we join things, are they always plural?

Writing and Grammar: Commas and Hyphens with Adjectives

Writing and Grammar: Have You Been Studying?

Writing and Grammar: Commas Between Adjectives? Sometimes Yes, Sometimes No!

Writing Clinic: Writing Narratives