Despite company guidelines that encourage lively and clear writing, the pieces I edited were full of reader turn-offs:

• The passive voice:  “The session was facilitated” or “responses were received.”
• Unnecessarily big words: “Facilitate” a session vs. “lead” a session; “utilize” vs. “use”; “precipitation” vs. “rain and snow.”
• Unnecessary extra words: “In order to” and “as a result of.”
• Buried leads: Taking too long to get to the point by including a lot of details about location, time or who was involved, for instance, instead of giving some idea of what was important about the article and why the reader should care.

In fairness, I think some of the articles were submitted by people who weren’t in communications. All the more reason it made sense to hire a professional to tweak the articles before publication.

Photo credit: Daryll Jann Bumanlag via Flickr and Creative Commons.

The infrastructure issue impacting the service has been well identified and we are now closing in on a final resolution.

Let’s pick it apart:

Infrastructure issue: Well, points to Paper.li for apparently, sort of, taking ownership of the issue by identifying it as (presumably their own) “infrastructure.” Still, they could be more up front.

Impacting. Please, say “affecting,” the way you would if you were speaking to another human being. Teeth are impacted. People are affected.

Well identified. Ditch the “well.” Either you have identified the problem or you haven’t. And “has been” is the signal that this is a passive sentence. Who identified the problem? Take credit for it by saying “we” or “our technicians” have identified the problem.

Closing in on. I feel like they are a pack of hyenas, circling a victim! How about just, “We’re working on it”?

Final resolution. Redundant; a resolution by its nature is final. And what does that mean to me, the reader? Is there a time lag between “closing in on” the “resolution” and when I can access the service again? Assure me that you are working on it.

No apology. I would have expected that in the first line.

Here’s my suggested rewrite:

We’re sorry you can’t access the page you were looking for. We’re working on the problem and hope to fix it soon.

How would you rewrite it?

When I first saw the newspaper heading shown here, I thought the firm was being sold in separate units or parts, in which case “discretely” is correct. As I read the article, it became apparent that the writer actually meant “discreetly;” efforts to sell the firm were happening under the radar.

Here are a few other common homonyms I keep seeing:

Affect/effect:
Affect is most often used as a verb, meaning to influence someone or something: “The weather affects my mood.”
Effect is most often used as a noun, meaning a result, consequence or (corporate buzzword alert!) impact: “The weather had no effect on my mood.”

Reins/reigns:
Reins are something used to control a horse or otherwise curb or halt something: “He wasn’t willing to give up the reins to a junior officer” or “You’ll have to rein in your spending.”
Reigns (or more likely, the singular reign) refer to the length of time someone held power or something stayed in fashion: “The king enjoyed a long reign.”

Throes/throws:
To be “in the throes” of something means struggling with something painful or emotional, as in death throes.
Throws are light shawls, so you could be in one, but chances are you wouldn’t be in many at a time.

If any of these are words you occasionally use, check them carefully, and if they trip you up, pick a different word that won’t get you into trouble. It can also help to set aside your work and re-read it before publication.

Last week I edited an annual report written by a non-profit group. Knowing the group wanted “donor-centric” copy, I deliberately left tone and style alone. Instead, I did things that aimed for consistency, accuracy and ease of reading a sentence, like fixing typos and adding capital letters and commas where they were needed and removing them where they weren’t.

But then I came to five! exclamation marks! in just six sentences! I suggested changing three into periods, which I thought showed restraint.

The client resisted, saying that she thought being conversational (which included exclamations) meant that “a lot of traditional grammar will be going right out of the window.”

I respectfully disagreed. Grammar is important even in a friendly, conversational piece. Done correctly, it doesn’t get in the way of conversational; it just helps the structure get out of the way of the meaning.

One of the problems with so many exclamations — besides annoying many readers — is it dilutes the importance of these sentences. The Canadian Writer’s Handbook says the exclamation point is appropriate for “emphatic surprise, emphatic query, or strong emotion,” but cautions, “Try to make your sentences appropriately emphatic without resorting to this sometimes artificial device.”

Lynne Truss, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves, says:

“grammarians have warned us to be wary of the exclamation mark, mainly because…it still shouts, flashes like neon, and jumps up and down…I suppose the rule is: only use an exclamation mark when you are absolutely sure you require such a big effect.”

She quotes H.W. Fowler as saying, “An excessive use of exclamation marks is a certain indication of an unpractised writer or of one who wants to add a spurious dash of sensation to something unsensational.”

My friend and colleague Amy Sept calls the overuse of exclamation marks “hyperventilating” (a term I love). She quotes an email she received with a four-sentence paragraph in which every sentence ended with an exclamation, saying, “After one brief paragraph, I felt like I was facing a too-perky barista waiting for my morning coffee — and they weren’t handing it over.”

CP Style, as Amy notes, says to use the exclamation mark “to denote great surprise, a command, deep emotion, emphasis and sarcasm” and not “to end a mildly exclamatory sentence.” Hear, hear!

• “If you have not seen The Social Network, put it on your list. It’s the Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride of movies, but it’s also an outstanding portrayal of the many forms obsession takes in the modern world.”
  - Colleen Wainwright‘s Communicatrix newsletter

• “I wouldn’t patrol the newsroom looking for column ideas, they would simply arrive on my mental doorstep like cowpats.”
  - Heather Mallick writing in the Toronto Star about Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

• “If your description of what you do — whether written or verbal — doesn’t feel painfully oversimplified (to you), it’s too complicated. I can’t even remember where I parked my car, do you think I’m going to remember your tagline when I leave tonight’s networking meeting?”
  - Michael Katz in his E-Newsletter on E-Newsletters

• “‘If you have a quake of, let’s say, 6.2 or larger, every sand grain on the planet is moving to the music of that event,’ says Ross Stein of the US Geological Survey…”
  - Catherine Brahic in NewScientist on “The megaquake connection: Are huge earthquakes linked?”

• “How on earth can [Mac Spotlight] be so good, you ask? Well, it’s hard to say. But some have speculated that it runs on only the purest tears collected from Apple’s most prized unicorns.” – J. Eddie Smith, IV
  

• “I took on the responsibility of seeing to the welfare of something which didn’t ask to be small and helpless and can’t help having the personality of a ‘Jersey Shore’ cast member.”
  - Quinn Cummings on her nasty rabbit.

What gems have you seen? Some of my previous finds are here and here.

I do scan mail in the junk folder, especially because postings to my school forums often seem to end up there. “Thought you might be interested in this” is almost a classic spam line, so it’s only because the sender’s name was vaguely familiar that I opened this piece. I won’t embarrass the sender by identifying him, but let’s just say he’s in the PR business and should know better.

Email marketing experts at MarketingSherpa say, “When done right, email can be one of the most effective tools you have in your marketing arsenal.”

So what is “done right”?

1. Make it descriptive and inviting.

In a February 2011 study, email newsletter specialists MailChimp analyzed the open rates for over 200 million emails. While factors like the sender, the frequency and nature of the message all affect whether the recipient will open the message or not, the best email subject lines provide the reader with a reason to explore the message further. “Put yourself in your recipient’s shoes,” MailChimp says. “People are flooded with spam and increasingly pressed for time.”

2. Keep it short

Try to keep to 50 characters or less. Many people will be reading your message on a mobile device, which will cut off much of it anyway. So will many email programs.

3. …unless length adds value

For newsletters, including something about what’s inside can encourage opening the issue. The emailguide.com says shorter is better for click-through rates, but the line must be long enough to convey your message. Describe the content, use a deadline, appeal to the emotions.

4. Focus on the benefits.

What’s in it for the reader? emaildesignreview.com says  “use pyramid writing,” where you put the key point or offer right at the start. So instead of “Buy a new toaster and save 50%” make it “Half off toasters.”

5. Avoid spammy sounding words

Words like free, help, hello, special offer, percent off and reminder all act as red flags to email programs. So do using all caps and exclamation marks.

6. Test before you send

A company described in one of MarketingSherpa’s many case studies tested a longer, stronger “call to action” and a shorter, less-direct phrase. The call to action significantly beat the shorter line, which made the reader think too much.

In the case of the message from the PR guy, the content actually mentioned an interesting webinar. THAT was information that should have been in the subject line.

Have you seen any subject lines worthy of the Hall of Shame? I’d love to hear about them.

It’s true there are occasions where the passive voice is appropriate. Use it when you don’t know who did the action or when you want to put the emphasis on the receiver rather than the performer of an action. But what often happens in the corporate world is promising action without committing a specific person to performing it, or admitting something without accepting responsibility. Thus when a company fires an executive, it may announce “Changes are being made to the executive team” (by whom?) and “[NAME] has been appointed” (by whom?).

Ann Wylie shared a great trick for finding the passive voice in her December 6 Wylie’s Writing Tips newsletter (which she attributes to Tim Burnett at FedEx): If you can add “by my grandma” to the end of the sentence and it makes sense, it’s passive. For instance, “Changes are being made to the executive team by my grandma” and “[NAME] has been appointed by my grandma” both make sense; both are passive.

To fix the passive, make sure the subject (my grandma) is doing the action: “My grandma has made changes to the executive team” and “My grandma has appointed [NAME].” If my grandma didn’t do it, well, maybe it was “the board” or “the company.”

Since a king only has one reign, and he holds it whether he’s in the U.S. or not, I thought at first maybe the writer was joking. But the straightforward lead told me that it was a simple case of substituting the wrong word for reins, those narrow straps used to guide a horse, or in this case, a country. While the homonym (a word pronounced alike but spelled differently) made the print edition, someone made the change in the online version, turning “hands over reigns” into “leaves for medical tests.”

A lot of errors like this seem to be slipping through these days, so this seems a timely reminder to be careful out there, people. It’s easy enough to make a mistake, especially if you are writing in a hurry. But if you don’t have what now seems to be a luxury, a proofreader, set aside your work for a time and come back to it. Read it carefully.

Here are some others I’ve collected recently from newspapers, magazines and even textbooks:

• An Opera-of-style (I think it meant Oprah-style)
• Try it with disgression (discretion)
• Soon the gentile style is explained (genteel)
• Cumberbund dress (cummerbund)
• Where the law takes president over (precedence)
• Fait de complet (fait accompli)
• Spend hours pouring through magazines (poring)
• I wanted to chyme in (chime)
• The sign bares the message (bears)
• Wide whale corduroy (wale)
• Was in the throws of remarkable growth (throes)

And you can bet I proofread this post carefully!

By coincidence, writer David Murray blogged about just that topic yesterday, in a post cleverly entitled, “If a writer types in the forest, does it make a sound?”

He notes that “They say no one knows the influence he or she has in the world. That’s especially true of writers.”

So if you’re reading someone’s blog and something inspires you, touches you, or even just rings true from your own experience, why not take a minute to say so? The writer will love to know he or she has made a sound. And as you pass along to your friends and colleagues the treasures you find on the web — retweeting interesting blog posts, “liking” Facebook pages, sharing funny comments — please take the time to comment first.

What makes me crazy
are apostrophes in signs.
Know the one’s I mean?

That is my haiku in honour of National Punctuation Day, September 24. (OK, I know an apostrophe is not punctuation, so it’s more of a haiku in honour of general grammatical attention to detail, railing against those “grocer’s apostrophes” often seen in signs like “tomatoe’s sold here.”)

Nevertheless, today is the 7th annual celebration of “the lowly comma, correctly used quotes, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons, and the ever-mysterious ellipsis.” So says founder Jeff Rubin, who founded this day to draw attention to America’s lapsed grammar skills.

Of course, some of you may not be fans of the “Oxford comma” (also known as the serial comma, that final comma before “and” in the quote above). The Canadian Press Stylebook, used by most of my clients, does not use this comma; The Canadian Writer’s Handbook, used by Royal Roads University, does. So I have to watch out for this.

But no matter; today we celebrate you, comma, and other honourable if misused punctuation.

Submit your own haiku (three lines of 5 – 7 – 5 syllables) by September 30 to Jeff@NationalPunctuationDay.com. There may be prizes!