Writing Tips
for clarity and concisenessArchive for August, 2007
quotation marks: U.S. v. Britain, #1
Just as the British and American rules for which side of the road to drive on are different, so too are their rules for the use of quotation marks and other punctuation.
In the United States:
- First quotations take double quotation marks.
- Periods and commas belong inside the closing quotation mark.
Example: “I’m going to a concert tonight,” said Amy.
In Great Britain:
- First quotations take single quotation marks.
- Periods and commas belong outside the closing quotation mark.
Example: ‘I’m going to the concert tonight’, said James.
When in Britain, do as the British do, and when in the United States, do as the Americans do–especially if you’re staying for awhile. Above all, avoid mixing the two styles in the same paragraph.
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quotation marks
Quotation marks have a kind of domino effect on other punctuation marks, causing them to land in the wrong places — or nowhere at all. Here’s an example:
When one of our fantastic staff members resigns, my first response is something like “oh no!”. But now, I am getting better at saying to myself “If it’s good for him/her, it must be good for us.”
There are many problems with this example:
- It’s customary to introduce a brief quotation with a comma. This writer didn’t do that.
- Because “oh” is the first word of the quoted material, it needs an initial cap (Oh).
- To denote a slight pause, “Oh” should be followed by a comma.
- The first period is extraneous; the exclamation point ends the first sentence.
Here is the sentence again, with corrections:
When one of our fantastic staff members resigns, my first response is something like, “Oh, no!” But now, I am getting better at saying to myself, “If it’s good for him/her, it must be good for us.”
For more free writing tips and guidelines, free articles, and a free introductory consultation, visit Treasurefield Communications.
imminent, immanent
Since there is only one letter of difference between them, imminent and immanent are easy to confuse. But they are not at all the same.
Both words are adjectives.
Imminent modifies something that’s about to happen:
The conference in Italy was imminent. This was to be her first trip to Europe, and she would be on the plane and on her way first thing in the morning.
Another use for imminent is to modify something that is threatening:
When the water reached his ankles, he realized that the boat was in imminent danger of sinking. He immediately got on the radio and called for help.
In contrast, immanent means indwelling, innate, inborn, inherent:
She believes that God, the Absolute, the Spirit Essence — whatever you choose to call it — is immanent in nature.
Another meaning of immanent is “widespread,” as below:
A longing for exorbitant wealth is immanent in the United States of America.
For more free writing tips and guidelines, free articles, and a free introductory consultation, visit Treasurefield Communications.
prerequisite, requisite, perquisite
This morning, when I began to use prerequisite in a sentence, perquisite came to mind. I guessed that they are synonyms.
I trace my confusion to childhood, when my mother said something like this: “If you want to go to the beach today, a perquisite is to make your bed first.”
I knew exactly what she meant, and had no idea that what she actually said wasn’t grammatically correct. Now, I know.
A perquisite is a “perk”–a fringe benefit, a gratuity, a tip, a benefit that comes with the job (health insurance, day care, tuition, a company car). Here is a correct use of perquisite:
Sue felt as though she had entered a parallel universe. Her new boss had just informed her that the perquisites of her position included, but were not limited to, a full health care package, a Prius, a yacht, a solar-powered mansion in Spain, and a $10,000,000 golden parachute.
Prerequisite, on the other hand, is something that is necessary to achieve a certain end or carry out a particular function:
Clear thinking is a prerequisite for clear writing.
Humanities 101 is a prerequisite for Humanities 304.
Now, if you lop off the “pre” in prerequisite, you are left with requisite, which means indispensable. Requisite is sometimes a noun and sometimes an adjective:
After making the requisite number of phone calls, I went to lunch. (adj.)
One of the key requisites of good writing is the willingness to rewrite. (noun)
Alarmed, Ginger noticed that the caterer had failed to deliver the requisite amount of sauerkraut for the imminent polka party. (adj.)
A close relative of requisite is requisition:
Finding only one pencil and two ballpoint pens in the supply room, Ginger promptly submitted a requisition form for two dozen pencils, three dozen ballpoint pens–and one supply room clerk.
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
Tara’s Writing Studio
higher education?
Unless the writer or editor pays close attention, a garbled message will leave readers scratching their heads.
A case in point is the sentence below, taken from an opinion piece by two top-level education officials trying to rally support for a bill before the state legislature:
It [the bill] commits to low income youth and their parents in middle school financial aid so they can afford to go to college.
Literally, this sentence says that the parents are in middle school and they need money so that they can afford to go to college.
How to fix it? It seems to me that the most direct approach is to leave the parents out of it. If you have other ideas, I’d be interested in hearing them:
It [the bill] commits the state to provide financial aid to qualified low-income youth in middle school who wish to attend college.
For more free writing tips and guidelines, free articles, and a free introductory consultation, visit Treasurefield Communications.
reflexive pronoun
A reflexive pronoun is personal pronoun with self or selves at the end. The singular forms of a reflective pronoun are myself, yourself, himself/herself/itself. The plural forms are ourselves, yourselves, themselves.
When the subject of a sentence or clause and the object of a verb or preposition are the same, a reflexive pronoun is the correct choice for the object. But often, writers and speakers use a reflexive pronoun when they shouldn’t, as in the following example:
Diane invited Betsy and myself to make blackberry jam with her on Friday afternoon.
Since the subject of this sentence is Diane, and the object of the verb, invited, is not Diane, there is no need for the reflexive. The correct wording is:
Diane invited Betsy and me to make blackberry jam with her on Friday afternoon.
Here’s another example. In this case, the writer should have used the reflexive:
Money is a powerful force. Unfortunately, people use the power of money against them.
Uh-uh. Since the subject is people and them reflects back to people, the reflexive form of them (themselves) is appropriate:
Money is a powerful force. Unfortunately, people use the power of money against themselves.
For more free writing tips and guidelines, free articles, and a free introductory consultation, visit Treasurefield Communications.
sat/set
I recently came across this usage of sat in a mystery novel:
She sat a pitcher of fresh, thick cream in the middle of the table.
This is incorrect. Sat is the past tense of sit, as in, “She sat at the table, picked up the pitcher of cream, and poured the entire contents over the bowl of blackberries before her.” Sat also serves as an abbreviation for saturated, or for Saturday. As far as I know, that’s it. Sat is simple. (If you know differently, I’d like to hear from you.)
Set is far more complicated. It has a surprising number of meanings, and the first is “to put or place with care.” This is the usage the writer of the first example above intended to convey:
She set a pitcher of fresh, thick cream in the middle of the table.
Other meanings of set include, but are by no means limited to, the following: to get in position to run a race; to make a trap ready to catch prey; to fix a hook in a fish’s mouth; to put on film; to put in order for use; to wave, curl, or otherwise arrange hair; to defeat an opponent in bridge; to incite to attack or antagonism (set brother against brother); to have a specified direction in motion; to dance face to face with another in a square dance; to apply oneself to some activity; to cause to become firm or solid (as in milk to cheese); to adjust in conformity with some standard, as in a clock, and on and on…
Versatile little word, set.
For more free writing tips and guidelines, free articles, and a free introductory consultation, visit Treasurefield Communications.
Me, Myself, and I
The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., advises against using myself as a pronoun in place of I or me. Here’s an example of a journalist who doesn’t heed that advice, or at least didn’t in this case:
In the summer of 1973, unbeknownst to most of the public – particularly myself because I spent nearly every waking hour of that summer driving an ice cream truck – Richard Nixon and his wily cats John Erlichman and Robert “Bob” Haldeman were trying to appease the public and congress by batting around half-truths about the Watergate burglary and cover-up.
A more grammatically-kosher way to write this sentence would be to replace myself with me–and also add a comma:
In the summer of 1973, unbeknownst to most of the public – particularly me, because I spent nearly every waking hour of that summer driving an ice cream truck. . .
Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines myself as a reflexive pronoun, “a pronoun referring to the sentence, clause, or verbal phrase in which it stands.” Use a reflexive pronoun for emphasis, as below:
I myself have attended every performance of the local volunteer symphony for several years, and have thoroughly enjoyed it every time.
For more free writing tips and guidelines, free articles, and a free introductory consultation, visit Treasurefield Communications.
infer and imply
I seldom use infer or imply. That’s probably why I tend to confuse them. If you also sometimes confuse these challenging words, the examples below may help.
The first example is in the words of a radio talk show host, who was joking about what a leading political figure might say if he were to be candid:
How dare you, Mr. Kucinich, infer that I am who I am!
According to the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., “The writer or speaker implies (hints, suggests); the reader or listener infers (deduces).”
I infer (deduce) that the talk show host meant to say:
How dare you, Mr. Kucinich, imply that I am who I am!
Here’s an example of another proper use of infer:
Based on what you just said, I infer that you don’t intend to support this bill.
For more free writing tips and guidelines, free articles, and a free introductory consultation, visit Treasurefield Communications.
disruptive phrase and passive voice
A misplaced phrase disrupts sentence flow. Here’s an example:
This tax, in virtually all cases, is collected by the county where the property is located.
To improve the flow, move the phrase to the beginning of the sentence:
In virtually all cases, this tax is collected by the county where the property is located.
Stop there if you like. But if you noticed that it’s people, not counties, that collect taxes, you may want to eliminate the passive voice, too:
In virtually all cases, the assessor in the county where the property is located collects this tax.
Now the sentence not only moves right along. It also alerts readers that the county assessor generally collects this tax.
But wait. What if some counties assign responsibility for collecting this tax to someone other than the assessor? What if some counties don’t even have a tax assessor?
Short of checking with every county in the state or nation, you can’t be sure. If accuracy matters to you, and it probably does, ignore the fact that a county is not a person and stick with the passive voice:
In virtually all cases, this tax is collected by the county where the property is located.
For more free writing tips and guidelines, free articles, and a free introductory consultation, visit Treasurefield Communications.
