Business Writing: Change to Active Voice and Clean Up the Clutter

Business Writing: Change to Active Voice and Clean Up the Clutter

Originally Published July 2018. Updated February 2024. Have you been told to use active not passive voice in your business writing? Probably. And if not, you’re hearing it now. I came across a useful example of the passive voice and edited it below to illustrate the difference. Read through the before version and see where you would make changes, not only to use the active voice but to the clutter caused by so many additional (and unnecessary) words. Then you can check out my edits, and see how the version with the edits...
Monday’s Mistake for June 14: Their, Their, Their

Monday’s Mistake for June 14: Their, Their, Their

What’s wrong with this sentence? “As interest in keeping her healthy increases, it bodes well for companies to do their part—for their customers, employees and their bottom line.” The writer got a little confused about the theirs, I guess. They didn’t need that second their before bottom line. It’s clutter. Plus it’s weird to put their before customers and bottom line but not before employees. That makes it seem like the employees could work for any company, I guess. The sentence is better without the extra their because it’s both...
Monday’s Mistake for June 14: Their, Their, Their

Monday’s Mistake for June 7, 2021: Comma Craziness + Clutter

I had an attack of acute gastritis a while back, although I didn’t know it at first. I thought I had a severely upset stomach, that’s all, although I was in a lot of pain and sleeping a lot. On the evening of the second day, I finally Googled my symptoms to learn it was acute gastritis. As much as I appreciated finding the information I needed so I could treat the ailment, I was distressed to see this crazy use of commas on a medical website: “There are several different types of acute gastritis. This is due to the fact that the...
Monday’s Mistake for June 14: Their, Their, Their

Monday’s Mistake for March 1, 2021: The Dangers of Automated Email!

Sadly, this is the first paragraph in an automated email I get once a week now that we have a registered puppy. I count three blatant mistakes plus several places where writing could be improved. What do you see? To be honest, it’s not the mistakes or poor writing that bug me about this. What bugs me is this is yet another example of the dangers of the set-it-and-forget-it mentality many marketers have with automated email. These emails are being sent out when triggered by an event, in this case, our puppy turning 16 weeks old...
Monday’s Mistake for June 14: Their, Their, Their

Monday’s Mistake for February 22, 2021–Do You See the Clutter Word?

Here’s this week’s Monday’s Mistake, a chance to learn how to avoid mistakes and strengthen your business writing through mini pop quizzes… I found this week’s example in a print magazine. Does anything about the sentence read or sound off to you? It is grammatically correct, so it’s not as if it has a mistake in it, but it does have an extra word that adds clutter. Do you see it? The word is “lengthier.” The writer already said the war was short-lived, so obviously the other conflicts were longer. That makes the word “lengthier”...