Nailing pronouns in one's writing is possibly the hardest thing to do because we constantly bungle them in our speech. However, there's a time and a place to use he/she and they. To get us started on this discussion, here's another School House Rock video. Enjoy!
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I'm sure you, as a talented group of writers, know what a noun is, but for a little post-holiday refresher, let's take a look at this School House Rock video for funsies. Next time, we'll delve into pronouns -- the no. 1 error I see in contributor posts.
If you aren't quite sure of your voice, below is an exercise taken from Jeff Goins's “10 steps to finding your writing voice.”
Here’s a short exercise that can help you — just follow these 10 steps:
As promised, we're back to the who versus whom debate, or as discussed on "The Office," the whoever versus whomever debate.
Grammar Girl breaks this down for us in a very simple way: "Like whom, the pronoun him ends with the letter M. When you're trying to decide whether to use who or whom, ask yourself if the hypothetical answer to the question would contain he or him. If it’s him, you use whom, and they both end with M." You would follow the same principles with she (who) and her (whom) as well as they (who) and them (whom). See how them and whom both end in M -- another handy trick for remembering. WHICH ANSWER IS CORRECT? • Who is that for? • Whom is that for? When looking at these questions, the answer would be something like, that's for him (or her, or them), so the proper answer would be whom. • Who is going to the store? • Whom is going to the store? The answer to this question is likely to be he is (or she is, or they are), so the answer would be who. So to end the office debate, Ryan says he wants Michael to know the presentation so that he can communicate it to whomever. Who would he be communicating it to? Them. So Ryan wins this round — although Pam and Toby were the only ones who could explain why Ryan won, so perhaps it was an accidental victory. For a more in-depth explanation, check out Grammar Girl's post or Grammarly's post. We're going to hold off on the who vs. whom debate until next time for a behind the story. Dan Smith wrote "The not-so-secret playbook of today’s top real estate team leaders," which is third on our top 5 this week, and below he describes how the story came to be. I always find value in hearing about other writers' and editors' processes, and I hope you will too. (If you haven't read the story, it's a good read!)
As I set out to write this post, I had a totally different idea of what it was going to be about. The original thought was to interview leaders from some of the top teams around the country to help identify how they were continuously bringing value to their teams, to learn their secret formulas in this world on change, innovation and tech. As a team leader myself who constantly struggles to find ways to add value, I believed this would give the Inman community a diverse collection of ideas emulate and implement. But, one after the other, the answers I heard while doing the interviews were strikingly similar. It seemed they were sharing the same playbook, and I was struggling with how to write the piece. It wasn’t until I was visiting and brainstorming with the uber Inman Ambassador Jim Walberg that I got a new idea. It came from something he said to me offhandedly about one of his personal experiences in recently changing the material for a presentation. That, I’ve learned, is how many great ideas come to be -- randomly during great conversations if we only keep our ears open to hear the possibilities. So, now the post has shifted from sharing secret formulas to showing that there are none. Adding value is a well-known playbook, and the individuals I’ve interviewed execute to near perfection.
This is one of those common grammatical errors that people make all the time.
Next time, we'll talk about who's right -- and why.
Picking up where we left off last time, let’s talk about the expendable which and the necessary that.
KNOWING WHEN TO USE WHICH AND THAT Expendable which The which is expendable because if you were to leave it off the sentence, the OG (original) meaning of the sentence stays the same. For example, “Bob lost the softball game, which is bad news.” The point is that Bob lost the softball game. The “which is bad news” part is just an aside. Grammar Girl’s quick and dirty tip: "You can throw out the 'whiches,' and no harm will be done." You use which in nonrestrictive clauses, and if you eliminate that clause, the meaning of the sentence remains the same. Necessary that However, if throwing out the clause would change the meaning of the sentence, it’s a “that” that should be used. The example Grammar Girl gives is: “Cars that have hybrid technology get great gas mileage.” If you took out the “that have hybrid technology,” you’d be saying that cars get great gas mileage. Or for instance: “Leaves that are green contain chlorophyll.” Take out the that, and you’re saying “Leaves contain chlorophyll.” Both have different meanings without the restrictive clause. (Also note: restrictive clauses aren’t set off by commas. Only non-restrictive clauses take commas.) So just remember, if you could throw out the clause without changing the meaning of the sentence, it’s a “which” clause. If not, go with that, and leave out the commas. This is a common problem I see in so many people’s writing. Grammar Girl gives a simple explanation: use that before a restrictive clause and which before everything else.
So what’s a restrictive clause? It’s part of the sentence you can’t get rid of because it specifically restricts another part of the sentence. Grammar Girl gives this example: “Gems that sparkle often elicit forgiveness.” That sparkle restricts what kind of gems you are talking about. It specifies. Without “that sparkle,” you’d be saying all gems elicit forgiveness, which is another sentence entirely. (And you don’t generally use commas with that.) However, with a nonrestrictive clause, you use which. A nonrestrictive clause is one that can be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence. Grammar Girl gives this example: “Diamonds, which are expensive, often elicit forgiveness.” In this case, the sentence would have the same meaning even if you removed “which are expensive.” It would simply be, “Diamonds often elicit forgiveness.” Next time, we’ll talk about the expendable which and the necessary that.
Affect or effect? This is one I constantly doubt myself on, so I thought I'd share with you a few resources that help me. Grammar Girl has a great post that goes more into detail, or you can check out the video below for a quick explanation.
Grammar Girl's memory trick for affect versus effect:
"I remember how to use affect and effect by thinking of a big black raven. A raven? Yes, a raven! Because raven has the letters A-V-E-N in it, and those also stand for |
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