One trick to use when checking your grammar is to remove part of your sentence and see if it still makes sense.

I find this useful when considering if “I” should be used instead of “me”.

Think about the sentence I have just written and substitute “Me” for the initial “I” - “Me find this useful…” just does not make any real sense in that context and “I” is correctly used.

Now think about this sentence:

“They gave my father and I drinks at the pub.”

That sounds natural and correct to me but it is not correct - remove “my father” and you would have “They gave I drinks at the pub.” which sounds wrong and indeed it is - using “me” is better, so:

“My father and me were bought drinks at the pub.”

Now look at this example:

“My son and I went to the park.”

Removing “My son” leaves us with “I went to the park.” and that is correct - in this instance “I” is correctly used rather than me.

I see “myself” used to get around this grammatical conundrum but that just seems clumsy.

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My first day back from the New Year and I would like to wish everyone a great year! I’m going to start it off right, with a story about freelancing and how to get off to a good start. Proofreaders are here to make you look good and here’s an example.

It was the year end, so I decided to take a look at a few things the other day. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I’ve got to admit that I feel a little inspired when I see how great other freelancers are doing. I looked at one such freelancer’s earnings and found him in the $70,000 USD range. That doesn’t even include work not accounted for in that particular profile.

It motivates me because that’s the potential we all have. But, I can’t help to think how much more potential I have over that writer because there were so many errors in his profile it was unbelievable. Yes, I looked. It was interesting and confusing at the same time. I guess it was an experience that humbled me a bit too.

It’s kind of a thing with me. I like to know my competition. I looked at the work he had done over the last year and I was impressed. But, I couldn’t get past the thought of wondering how in the world he got all those jobs. If I wanted someone to write something for me, I wouldn’t want to see any errors in his profile.

That’s kind of a pet peeve. I thought every writer felt that way. I know he earned quite a bit and I can’t argue with success. I also know that writers are often times the only ones who notice all those hideous mistakes. But, putting your best foot forward is the rule of thumb and in writing that means error free copy.  Here are just a few written documents that should always be submitted without error.

Resume

Your resume is your potential employer’s first impression of you. Just like a freelancer’s profile, it is the first thing a potential employer sees. Wouldn’t you want it to be error free? If that employer looks at errors as incompetence, you won’t get the job. Sometimes, job hunters can’t get through the door with a perfect resume. Don’t hurt yourself before you even get a chance.

Reports

Reports are your way of showing the world what you know. But, sometimes the boss uses them for promotional purposes. Yes, it’s more important to have the content and make sure your facts are straight. But after that, sit down and look the report over. Make sure it’s error free. Two people vying for the same position might get compared through their reports. Maybe not! But, if you were head-to-head with another person in getting that promotion, would you want anything holding you back?

Portfolio

There are different types of portfolios from modeling to architecture. The writer’s portfolio should be error free. Of course, having impressive work under your belt is a good way to get your foot in the door. But, your work should be error free if you want any chance at getting ahead in the freelance world.

The resume, a report and your portfolio merely scratches the surface on the handful of documents you need to ensure are error free.  Now, I can’t answer how in the world a professional writer is getting that good of a paycheck with a profile that contains errors. I’d rather not try to answer for him. But, yours should be error free just like I try to make mine. In fact, I think I’ll look mine over again just to make sure it’s as perfect as I can make it.

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I have the habit of writing in the passive voice, a hangover from my school days when the difference between the two was never mentioned. I must consciously think of writing in the active voice all of the time and it is not easy. Indeed many writers, new and experienced find writing in the active voice tiring, not least as it requires mental effort from most to keep writing with it.

So what is the difference between an Active Voice and the Passive Voice?

A grammatical definition will go something like this:

“The active voice uses the subject of a sentence to act upon something, whereas the passive voice has the subject itself acted upon.”

In plain English, the subject of a sentence is doing something to something else so;

“ERH wrote this using his computer.”

The subject is ERH and he is writing, in other words ERH is doing something and this makes it the active voice.

Compare this sentence with;

“This was written on a computer by ERH.”

This is written in the passive voice where ERH is still the subject but instead of ERH “doing something” he has “something done” by him - the verb “written” is acting upon the subject “ERH”.

The active voice is more direct and conveys energy far better than the passive voice. As a writing style it tends to be preferred by readers (and critics) as it flows more smoothly compared to the passive voice and is more economical in terms of words required to convey your meaning.

Another way to view the active/passive voices is to consider the action order:

ACTIVE VOICE: Doer of Action –>Action–>Receiver of Action

PASSIVE VOICE: Receiver of Action–>Action–>Doer of Action

Examples:

ACTIVE VOICE: At each competition, the gymnasts performed at least one exercise on the floor.

(gymnasts = doer of action;performed = action; exercise = receiver of action)

PASSIVE VOICE: At each competition, the floor was used to perform at least one exercise by the gymnasts.

Readers and writing stylists preference for the active voice does not mean you must slavishly comply with the stricture of using the active voice only when writing. There are times when the passive voice provides advantages over the active voice. For instance, imagine you wish to convey greater effect from what the sentence itself has to say rather than focus on the “doer” of the action eg. “The world record for the mile was broken today.” At other times it will not be clear who the “doer” of the action is or it is not necessary to know eg. “The audit has been completed.” While at other times, you may wish to use the passive voice simply because it gives some variety to your writing.

If you would like to learn more you can check out these resources:

Towson University

Purdue University

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I thought it time to nobble this particular English language conundrum - when to use Who and when to use Whom.

Supaproofread has a section that goes into far more detail than I will here on this post and you can find it in the writing tips section here.

Who is a subjective pronoun that describes what or which person.

Whom is a pronoun that acts as an object for a verb or preceding preposition.

Phew!

In plain English please!!

A subjective pronoun is a word that is used when the person is a subject of the sentence. So, “I like fast cars but he doesn’t” - “I” and “he” are subjective pronouns. We would ask “Who likes fast cars?” but not “Whom likes fast cars?”

A verb object is the person or thing the verb is acting on. So, “ERH flew the plane” has ERH as the subject, the verb is flying and the object is the plane. Except we would never refer to a plane as “whom” so how about “ERH flew her to Paris.” In the latter case, “her” would be the object and so we would ask “With whom did ERH fly to Paris?”

Got that?

Here’s a cheat tip then.

If you have a sentence using he/she then use “Who” and if it is him/her use “Whom”.

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I once sat in agony as I read through a pile of project proposals. I was looking for my competition because I wanted the project that bad. I was willing to look for the one or two people I was going to have to beat to get it. When I found them, I was going to write my proposal so that it out-shined the others in all ways.

The humor of it all is that those proposals I was reading through didn’t reflect on me at all. They reflected on the other people who were trying to get my project. I should have been grateful that they were awful. But, I was still in agony because of what I was reading.

These are no lie, no punches pulled examples of the proposals I fished through:

“lets talk in detail.company profile attached.”

No, I’m not kidding. This proposal took all of five seconds to write…errors included. The first letter isn’t capitalized. A space doesn’t exist between the first and second sentence. And that just gets me started.

This project was for a bid of about two thousand to three thousand dollars for a month worth of work. If it were a five dollar job, I could understand. But even then, if you want the job put your back into it.

Doing a project proposal is about providing a potential client with enough information to make a decision about you. If I can’t get more than two sentences out of you in your proposal and then they have errors in them on top of it all, you’ve made your statement loud and clear. I don’t want you to do my work.

Another example:

“i can do it plz check ur pmb You can expect professional work from me”

One of my other blog posts actually addresses the issue found here. In addition to the issues raised in the previous example, this proposal confuses formal from informal online dialog. A chat room or a friendly instant message can have “i,” “plz,” and “ur” in it. That’s not a problem because your audience expects you to get with the program, use slang and save yourself time.

But, a potential client doesn’t want to see that you get confused between informal and formal communication. Using informal expressions in your project proposal makes the statement that such errors will also be found in the document they want you to write.

So, how do you put together a professional proposal? Well, let’s go ahead and take a look at that in my next post. We’ll start by showing you why it’s important to write professional proposals.

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