Avoid Helping Verbs (Might, May, Would, Should, and Could)

Helping verbs, also called auxiliary verbs, are tricky for two reasons: they can have multiple meanings and those meanings are sometimes a matter of interpretation.

EXAMPLE: “When you complete your timesheet, you should be paid.”

If you insert may instead of should, implies possibility or permission.

EXAMPLE: “When you complete your timesheet, you will be paid.”

Check Sentences for Misplaced or Dangling Modifiers

Of all grammatical errors, misplaced and dangling modifiers cause the most hilartity. Let’s face it, they’re just plain fun (as long as it’s not you who writes them). In the words of Groucho Marx, “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.”

• A misplaced modifier is confusing because, although the modifier may be correct, it’s modifying the wrong word in the sentence.”We almost ate all the turkey” is confusing because it’s not possible to “almost eat” something. The correction is, “We ate almost all the turkey”.

• A dangling modifier is confusing because the doer of the action is unclear. “After waiting for three hours, the train left the station.” Who did the waiting—you or the train? It’s not clear.

Another example: “It wasn’t long before the two got engaged, lived in several Canadian cities, pursued their separate career paths and explored their new surroundings while weighing the pros and cons of each.”

What are they weighing the pros and cons of?

• Their surroundings
• Their separate career paths
• Several Canadian cities
• Their engagement
• All of the above

Simplify the Tense

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.

EXAMPLE: “Madonna removed her wedding ring before she appeared last week sparking rumours that her marriage is on the rocks.”

Use Active Voice

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:

• When the doer is unknown. “My bass clarinet was removed.”
• When the doer is unimportant. “The lab rats were given a placebo.”
• To protect the doer from embarrassment. “You were overcharged for your purchase.”

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.

• The road was crossed by the children.
• The paint is then allowed to dry for one hour.

EXAMPLE: To understand how to run for President of the United States, you must have friends in high places.