What is, is

Many of you recognize that you have a particular writing style. You may tend to write short sentences, use flowery language, or insert a lot of parentheticals (like me). But, have you ever considered that companies have styles? Whether intentionally or not, they do!

Organizational styles develop because people in organizations repurpose language and text that already exists, and people tend to write in styles similar to the style of what they read.

At JA, we have developed a worrisome habit that stems from a misapplication of a syntactic style called E-prime, which seeks to eliminate all forms of the verb “to be.” At its best, E-prime can force writers to think differently and use more creative and vivid verbs (e.g., “The project enhanced transportation options for the community” rather than “The project was a transportation expansion project.”). At its worst, E-prime can be inaccurate, grammatically incorrect, or just plain awkward.

Consider this frequent JA usage:

“The project represents the longest tunnel drive in history.”

This is an inaccurate sentence and an incorrect use of the verb “represent.” The project did not “represent” the longest tunnel drive in history; it simply was the longest. One of the philosophical bases of E-prime is that reality is perceived, not actual. Regardless of one’s opinion on that matter, the implication has no place in our work. We deal in facts, and if it was the longest tunnel drive, it was. 

Consider another example:

“The project consists of 1,560 feet of driven tunnel.” 

It is incorrect to say that one thing consists of another; the definition of “consists” that applies in this case is of multiple parts combining to make up a single new whole, like so:

“The project consists of 1,560 feet of driven tunnel, four shafts, and a new control building.”

Our final example is one that is not incorrect, but is awkward:

“The tunnels have not had an inspection since 1955.”

This sentence resulted from the desire to avoid saying “The tunnels have not been inspected since 1955.” The definition of “had” that applies in this case is “to get” — but we wouldn’t say “The tunnels have not gotten an inspection since 1955” would we? “Have not had” is only slightly less inelegant.

The bottom line? Use E-prime to liven up your language, but when something is, just say so.

Filed under: Lisa's Pet Peeves, Verbs, Word Choice, Writing

Pet Peeve

I try to avoid using the writing tips as a way to put an end to things that personally annoy me, but today I can’t resist!

There is almost never a reason to use the word upon as a substitute for on. We aren’t writing poetry, and therefore we aren’t concerned about rhythm and meter, so why would we use this unnecessary and pompous-sounding substitute?! Let’s not.

Filed under: Lisa's Pet Peeves, Word Choice

Bulleted Lists

The following example has several problems.

The following steps will be taken to address the homelessness problem:

• Implement the proposed three-tiered strategy to end homelessness.
• Provide all homeless people with health care.
• Reporting instances of homeless abuse to the police.
• Alcoholism and drug addiction.

When working with bulleted lists, the basic idea is that all of the items should be structured similarly. In this case: a) the first bullet is a broader idea than the others, b) the verb tense is different in the third bullet than it was in the first two bullets, c) there is no verb in the fourth bullet, d) the third and fourth bullets are not sentences, but are punctuated as if they are, and e) the last bullet is much less specific than the others.

Correction:

The City will implement a three-tiered strategy to address homelessness, with particular emphasis placed on:

• Providing all homeless people with health care,
• Taking steps to ensure that instances of homeless abuse are reported to the police, and
• Addressing alcoholism and drug addiction in the homeless population.

Filed under: Bulleted Lists, Lisa's Pet Peeves, Parallelism, Sentence Structure

What's Wrong with "About"?

I’ve been seeing some interesting avoidances of the word about lately:

With some 25 years spent on the project, the team was more experienced than any other.

The tunnel will be on the order of 1,000 feet long.

What’s wrong with about for these sentences? Nothing. If you know the exact value, use that. If not, use about or approximately.

With about 25 years on the project, the team was more experienced than any other.

The tunnel will be 1,025 feet long.

Filed under: Lisa's Pet Peeves, Word Choice

Capitalization

Words that should be capitalized (a basic list):

• I
• Proper nouns
• A specific person’s title (e.g., President Bush)
• Adjectives derived from proper nouns (e.g., Franciscan monk)
• The first word in a sentence

Words that I want to remind you not to capitalize: 

• Owner, contractor, etc. (except in a legal contract – documents that have “contract implications” are not legal contracts)
• Professional titles not used to describe a specific person (e.g., engineer, geologist)
• Words that you want to emphasize
• Random words in a sentence that you think are important
• Names of parts/components of a project (e.g., west shaft)

Filed under: Capitalization, Lisa's Pet Peeves

With respect to respectively

The Problem

The fluffy cat and the drooling dog sat on the green grassy hill and in the shiny red car parked on Park Street, respectively.

Do you know where your cat and dog are?

The Bottom Line

Don’t use the word “respectively” in this way. It almost always slows comprehension, and it is often hopelessly confusing. 

The Full Story

This construction can be useful when the sentence is very simple; it helps you avoid repetition. But more frequently, I see “respectively” being used to enable unnecessarily complex and confusing sentences:

Time histories of accelerations and velocities at the locations of Boring 2-1, 2-3, and 2-13 are plotted in Figures 11 to 16.  These time histories are considered applicable to the deep, medium, and shallow sections, respectively.

Do you know what will be plotted in Figures 11 through 16?  Here is a revision:

Acceleration time histories at Borings 2-1, 2-3, and 2-13 are depicted in Figures 11 through 13. Velocity time histories at Borings 2-1, 2-3, and 2-13 are depicted in Figures 14 through 16. Boring 2-1 is representative of the deep section of the alignment. Boring 2-3 is representative of the medium section. Boring 2-13 is representative of the shallow section.

In this example, you do not need for me to tell you how the borings and figures correspond. You see three items in order, followed by three figure numbers, and you intuitively understand that they will appear in that order. Also, dividing what was originally the second sentence into three separate sentences, rather than relying on “respectively,” makes the meaning more clear. Don’t sacrifice clarity to avoid redundancy. Not all redundancy is bad.

Note that in the revision I’ve moved what’s different about the figures (acceleration vs. velocity) to the beginning of the two sentences. It’s important to highlight differences when dealing with similarly phrased sentences.

Filed under: Lisa's Pet Peeves, Word Choice