Unless you’re a time traveller (and therefore comfortable with temporal paradoxes), the best rule of thumb is to stick to the present tense as much as possible and make occasional forays to other tenses as needed.
English has twelve tenses. Present tense is the only real tense—all the others are factors of our imagination, so don’t make time travellers of your readers by hiking around through your imaginary temporal landscapes.
The phrase, “Mistakes were made” is attributed to US President, Richard Nixon, to acknowledge that the Watergate situation was mishandled. He could have spoken in active voice and said, “Mistakes were made by me” or better still, “I made mistakes”, but he evaded direct admission of responsibility and thereby went down to history as Tricky Dick.
There are three times when it’s appropriate to write in the passive voice:
TIP: In technical writing, you can distinguish between general concepts and action-oriented procedures by writing the former in passive voice and the latter in active.
Using active voice in web writing adds interest and action to your writing. Good sentences begin with a clearly stated subject (the doer) and a strong verb (action). While it is a commonly used verb, “to be” is passive as it describes a state of being rather than doing. So the more you use “to be”, the more passive sounding your writing will be. Also, some verbs are weaker than others. The verb “to understand” is weaker, because it is harder to quantify and tends to get lumped with another verb that’s doing the real work.
Try writing the following sentences in the active voice.
EXAMPLE: To understand how to run for President of the United States, you must have friends in high places.
Using concrete specific words won’t necessarily make your writing shorter, but it will make it more interesting to read. Consider the following:
“A number of factors must be addressed to ensure this effort meets its objectives within the proposed time frame.”
Avoid:
And of course:
Rule: Use Concrete Specific Words
I was contracted to provide technical help, which I would describe as The Perfect Contract. What was perfect about this contract was how much I was able provide because it mirrored my diverse range of skills and abilities. So much so, in fact, that the description of what I did reads almost like my résumé. This contract was a quick turn around – I was called on Thursday and had the majority of work completed by the following Wednesday.
The client was in the midst of an office-wide migration from Macintosh computers to Windows PC computers to be compliant with head office. I spoke with their IT Administrator to determine what operating systems were involved and what she thought the key issues were.
I discovered that some Users would migrate directly to PC computers and other would be on their old Apple Macintosh computers running Windows in a Citrix shell for several weeks. My training and materials needed to reflect that.
I explored their system making notes. I needed to know their systems well enough to anticipate a broad range of questions pertaining to both Apple Macintosh and Windows PC operating systems as well as the Citrix Shell. I concluded that I would be giving a lecture type demonstration to all staff using screen projections and handouts.
At home, I created a complementary End-User Migration Guide aimed at both the full PC Users as well as the Mac Users now operating Windows in the Citrix Shell.
Topics covered included Understanding Windows 2000 Server, Using Word and Excel in Windows, Introduction to Outlook, Good PC keyboard shortcuts for Mac Users and how to navigate between the two environments.
On Monday, I delivered a presentation to all available staff in their boardroom. I handed out my Guide and used a projector to demonstrate how their new computer environment would operate.
Following the demonstration I answered questions ranging from how to access old programs and files to security concerns in Windows 2000.
After the presentation, I visited each staff member in person to help with specific questions or concerns. As with many offices, there was a broad range of skills to accommodate. Some Users had come from Windows backgrounds in other companies and were pleased to return to a Windows environment. Others had only ever known a Mac environment and verged on terror at the prospect of starting all over again with a new and unfamiliar operating system.
I took time to assess their individual needs so that I could provide service to even those who initially thought they didn’t require any support. For example, I showed some Users how to create mail rules to organize their email in Outlook, how to assign their favourite keyboard shortcuts to toolbars in Word and how to navigate and manage files in Windows.
I returned over several days to provide desk side support and re-iterate the initial presentation to those how had not been to the original presentation.
An interesting spin-off of this contract was that the IT Administrator discovered that their corporate logo did not port over well from Macintosh to Windows and asked if I could redesign it.
My solution was to recreate their old logo using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and create both Web and print versions to suit all their needs. After one revision, they were pleased with what I created and the new logo now adorns their corporate letterhead and Website.
Although I have taken on more technically challenging contracts than this one, rarely have I been able to roll so many skills into one short contract. I welcome all other creative and diverse opportunities where my skills and abilities can be as well utilized.
Thank you for providing [us] with Jason Hall’s services during their migration; the project is officially over. During the sign-off interview, [our IT Manager] said she was extremely satisfied with the work Jason did. (Despite me giving you such short notice!) [She] was particularly impressed with Jason’s ability to quickly resolve their logo migration issue. This would have been a huge problem for them to resolve but Jason did it within a day.
Thanks again for pulling the rabbit out of the hat. I look forward to working with you again.
This is such a clever way of visualizing data creatively that I had to share it.
Once again, I’ve been too ambitious and have nearly shot myself in the foot on this site. I’m pulling back to a simple WordPress site until I’m satisfied (and later perhaps bored) with it. Trying to set up a WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal would be super fantastic, but that’s the whole problem. I need less super fantastic and more simple.
More to come…very soon.
