
Mary Dash's Writing Tips - primogen
https://plainlanguage.gov/resources/articles/dash-writing-tips/
======
btilly
Judging by this sample, Mary Dash should be receiving writing tips, not giving
them.

Do you doubt me? Consider the opening paragraph:

 _Readers prefer active voice sentences, and we should try to use the active
voice in most of our business writing to communicate our message most
effectively. Active voice clearly identifies the action and who is performing
that action. Unfortunately, much of government writing is in the passive
voice, giving documents a wordy, bureaucratic tone. Over time, writing in the
passive voice simply becomes a habit, one we should all work to change._

Here is a quick redraft:

 _We should use the active voice in most of our business writing. Readers
prefer it, and will better understand our message. This style clearly
identifies what the action is, and who is doing it. Unfortunately most
government writing is in the passive voice. This gives documents a wordy,
bureaucratic tone. We need to break that habit._

The message has not changed, but readability improved a lot. Use
[https://app.readable.com/text/](https://app.readable.com/text/) to test that.
The required reading level went from grade 10 to advanced grade 5, and other
measures of readability also improved.

This is a big difference. [https://www.wyliecomm.com/2019/03/us-literacy-
rate/](https://www.wyliecomm.com/2019/03/us-literacy-rate/) reports on a broad
survey of adult literacy rates. Only 2% of US adults read and write at a grade
11 or better level. By contrast 48% read and write at a grade 6 or better
level. My redraft is readable by an order of magnitude more people.

What did I change?

1\. Break up complex sentences.

2\. Shorter is better.

This isn't hard. But it really makes a difference.

~~~
knee-cartilage
do we really need to be putting all our writing down to grade 5 level

~~~
btilly
You do if you want to understood by the average American.

Please remember that simple words do not imply simple ideas. As Hemingway said
when criticized for his simple language, _Poor Faulkner. Does he really think
big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words.
I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and
those are the ones I use._

~~~
weinzierl
I'm sure the average Non-American reader appreciates it as well. Even more so
all English as a second language readers like myself.

------
puzzledobserver
I concede that people have a tendency to overuse the passive voice, perhaps to
appear less assertive, but... I find this injunction against the passive voice
simplistic. The active and passive versions of a sentence _mean_ different
things, and one cannot blindly substitute one for the other. Compare:

1\. There was a cat in the house. She had not been fed by her owner that
morning. She meowed loudly at the passing postman.

2\. There was a cat in the house. Her owner hadn't fed her that morning. She
meowed loudly at the passing postman.

Also, who is the intended audience of style guides such as this? One's style
in a romantic letter is necessarily different from the tone used in a
scientific paper, both of which are different from how one would tell a story
to a friend. Without nuance, a one-size-fits-all approach to linguistic style
will destroy much that is beautiful about the world.

~~~
mrob
The famous opening line of Pride and Prejudice relies on passive voice: "It is
a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good
fortune must be in want of a wife." If you specify who's acknowledging it then
the joke doesn't work.

~~~
ellius
This is a great example of where to use the passive voice. Austen reverses the
sentence structure to pack the punch at the end.

In general, 2 good principles are:

1\. Put the punch at the end of a sentence.

2\. Put familiar information at the beginning of a sentence and new
information toward the end.

The passive voice can help you with both of these design goals.

Orwell talked about where the passive voice is most dangerous/bad. It mainly
comes down to thoughtlessness or insincerity. The passive voice removes or
hides the actor, so it's useful for people trying to cloak their beliefs or
hide assumptions.

"Politics and the English Language" is a great read, as is the book "Style."

~~~
naniwaduni
Orwell also had no fucking idea what he was talking about and couldn't
identify a passive to make a point about it.

Since you bring up "Politics and the English Language", I'll pull up some
"Fear and Loathing of the English Passive":

> This is not a statistical quirk. Orwell’s writing features significantly
> more passives than typical prose. By one count, on average in typical prose
> about 13% of the transitive verbs are in the passive, whereas in Orwell’s
> essay ‘Politics and the English language’ it is 20% (Merriam-Webster’s
> Dictionary of English Usage, p. 720, citing Bryant 1962). My own counts,
> adhering strictly to the definitions of Huddleston & Pullum et al. (2002),
> are somewhat higher (probably because I include passive participles used as
> modifiers rather than complements, which for some reason many grammarians
> miss), but the ratio is unchanged: by my count, about 17% of the transitive
> verbs in random prose are likely to be passive, while a careful count of the
> whole of Orwell’s essay shows that 26% are passive. By either count, then,
> Orwell uses more than one and a half times as many passives as typical
> writers.

~~~
ellius
He also freely admits at the end of the essay that he's sure he committed many
of the sins he's preaching against. I suspect he'd also freely admit that
there are reasons to use the passive voice. But I think his primary
complaints, especially his egregious examples of academic and political
writing, were right on the money.

~~~
Joker_vD
And to quote from that very essay, "Professor Hogben... while disapproving of
the everyday phrase _put up with_ , is unwilling to look _egregious_ up in the
dictionary and see what it means".

That is, "egregious" used to mean—even as recent as in Orwell's time—"blatant,
obvious, unconcealed, glaring". But apparently all such words also gain a
secondary shade of meaning "bad" and come to mean "baltantly, openly bad, and
proud of it".

All the more reasons to use smaller, shorter words.

------
jfengel
I find the "avoid gobbledygook" instruction a little odd. It's really about
adopting a less formal register, which is fine, but words like "additional"
and "purchase" aren't really obscure.

From the examples, it seems to be more about avoiding French- and Latin-
derived words, and using Germanic-derived ones instead. We do tend to use our
Norman root words in legal and other formal registers, and Anglo-Saxon roots
do have a more active feel to them. And some of the examples are best left to
legal documents ("pursuant", "concur"). It's probably decent advice to a
novice writer, especially one who has been learning from academic or
government writing and picked up an unnecessary sense of formality.

But they're hardly "gobbledygook". They're perfectly cromulent words, with
shades of meaning different from their "synonyms", and can be used to enhance
writing rather than obscure it.

~~~
dan-robertson
If you’re writing for a very wide audience, many of whom may not have good
literacy, then avoiding anything slightly complicated matters a lot. There are
all sorts of words one often sees in documents from governments (and this
article is from and for the us government) that are not suitable for wide
audiences. For example:

\- shall

\- one as a pronoun

\- whom (instead of “incorrectly” writing who)

\- sentences with lots of clauses

\- basically any uncommon word, especially a long word or one with an uncommon
morphology that makes it hard to sound out

People with poor literacy will not be able to scan text and so every sentence
and paragraph should be short and to the point (as it may be read in its
entirety and if it is too long it will be skipped). I think something like 40%
of the US has this level of literacy.

Incidentally, writing for an audience like this improves the efficiency and
engagement of mere literate people too.

As an unrelated point: many legal phrases use both a Germanic and Romance
word, eg assault and battery; breaking and entering

~~~
cranekam
Definitely agree here. In addition, I am reasonably literate and understand
all the uncommon words people use instead of everyday ones but I find reading
windy prose is _tiring_. "I purchased a house", "we utilized the spoon",
"Steve and myself are going to the pub" all sound a lot more clumsy and
showoff-y than "I bought a house", "we used the spoon", "Steve and I are going
to the pub".

~~~
smogcutter
For what it’s worth, “Steve and myself are going to the pub” is flatly
incorrect. Good rule of thumb is that if it you rewrite the sentence with just
the pronoun and it sounds wrong, it’s wrong. “Myself is going to the pub” and
throwing poor Steve in there doesn’t change that.

~~~
cranekam
Yeah, I know this one is incorrect. I wasn’t sure whether to include it or not
but decided to because I think people generally say it for the same reason as
the others: to sound fancy.

------
cranekam
The UK bank Monzo has a great page about tone of voice with many of the same
ideas:

[https://monzo.com/tone-of-voice/](https://monzo.com/tone-of-voice/)

Also, The Economist has really great English. Despite being quite well-known
for using very obscure words now and then the bulk of its writing is very
clear, with succinct sentences and everyday words (they often use words like
"stuff" in exactly the same way as spoken English). I don't always agree with
its editorial stance but I find its style very enjoyable.

Orwell's Six Rules for Writing are great as well (along with pretty much
everything he wrote):

[https://infusion.media/blog/george-orwells-six-rules-for-
wri...](https://infusion.media/blog/george-orwells-six-rules-for-writing/)

------
danso
Tangent: plainlanguage.gov has been around since at least 1998 [0], and had
the same design from 2005 [1] until late 2017. Hadn't checked the site for
years (until seeing this today), so great to see it with a fresh look along
with good content.

[0]
[https://web.archive.org/web/19981111185743/https://plainlang...](https://web.archive.org/web/19981111185743/https://plainlanguage.gov/)

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20051113011109/http://www.plainl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20051113011109/http://www.plainlanguage.gov/)

------
motohagiography
The problem I have with the passive voice is how certain people use it to
affect a kind of officious, administrative power. When I ask someone to
clarify whether they're offering their own opinion or that of some other,
specific external authority, they tend to get angry.

The passive voice is really the passive-aggressive voice, and I recommend
taking every opportunity to antagonize it when someone uses it on you. It's
not polite and euphemistic, it's bureaucratic, pseudo-intellectual, and
bullying.

------
nixpulvis
Re: pronouns.

They suggest the use of "you", but I feel pretty good about using "we" in its
place quite often.

For example: "we can now see that x is in fact greater than 10" sounds a lot
less demanding than "you can now see ...".

I, the author, am also a reader.

~~~
dan-robertson
I think this construct is quite formal and quite unfamiliar to people who have
not read the kind of academic literature where it is common

------
zumu
I'm curious how much of this applies to non-American English writing as well.
It is no secret the style in American English is to be causal and direct. But
has this trend come to prominence in other parts of the Anglosohere?

------
nixpulvis
I'm enjoying this read, however one example stood out to me. I personally
find:

"Although Mr. Doe was found to be eligible for this position; all of the
positions in Boston had already been filled by our personnel office prior to
receiving his application."

to sound much better than:

"Though we found Mr. Doe eligible for the position, our personnel office had
filled all positions in Boston before we received his application."

YMMV

~~~
mrob
And from [https://plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/conversational/use-
must...](https://plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/conversational/use-must-to-
indicate-requirements/) :

Before: "The applicant shall be notified by registered mail in all cases where
the permit applied for is not granted, and shall be given 30 days within which
to appeal such decision."

After: "We will notify you by registered mail if we reject your application.
You must file an appeal of that decision within 30 days."

That changes the meaning to make it sound like appeal is mandatory. It should
be something like "If you choose to appeal that decision, you must file your
appeal within 30 days."

------
nixpulvis
I was caught thinking about set builder notation yesterday, and I can't help
but draw parallels between active/passive voice, and my arguments in:
[https://nixpulvis.com/ramblings/2020-03-16-set-builder-
notat...](https://nixpulvis.com/ramblings/2020-03-16-set-builder-notation)

Im quite sure this post needed editing however ;)

------
ucarion
All of plainlanguage.gov is a treasure trove of good advice on writing --
definitely a site worth exploring!

------
adamzegelin
When is it best to use formal (bureaucratic) vs informal (conversational)
language?

When writing reports and documentation I prefer formal language, but for blogs
I switch over to informal.

~~~
combatentropy
I would say never use either. Strive to be plain. By plain, I mean both clear
and unpretentious. This kind of writing doesn't have to sound informal.

This advice is not my own. It is ancient, and you could say it is the gist of
books like _The King 's English_ by the brothers Fowler (1906), _The Elements
of Style_ by Strunk and White (1959), _On Writing Well_ by William Zinsser
(1976), and _The Sense of Style_ by Steven Pinker (2014).

Bureaucratic language to me means wordiness, vagueness, and indirection.
Conversational is often wordy too and likewise short on substance. But while
bureaucratic sounds like it came from a robot, conversational puts the writer
too much in the spotlight.

The reader comes to a piece of writing to learn something. The purpose of
writing is to help the reader, as quickly and clearly as possible. The
techniques in the books I mentioned, or on plainlanguage.gov, are meant to
help you do just that.

~~~
Veen
This is generally good advice, but there are occasions in which the signalling
value of jargon, formality, or complexity outweighs the value of clarity. If
your primary goal is to appeal to an audience that values formality, it makes
sense to be formal. Clarity is important, but it doesn’t override “write for
your audience”.

------
wespiser_2018
Good advice! Although there are situations were the passive is best, using
simpler, more direct words makes the text much clearer.

------
dang
I changed the URL from
[https://plainlanguage.gov/resources/](https://plainlanguage.gov/resources/)
to the item on the list that has the most information.

Lists tend not to make great HN submissions because there isn't much to
discuss beyond the lowest commmon denominator of the items on the list. That
leads to generic discussions and specific discussions are better.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20denominator%20list&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20discussion&sort=byDate&type=comment)

------
draw_down
The thing about avoiding passive voice drives me batty- not just here, that
admonition is everywhere. Sometimes it's useful, that's why it exists. Using
it does not (necessarily) indicate a moral failing.

~~~
sharedfrog
> that admonition is everywhere

Generally speaking, I think it's because this advice is very easy to remember
and repeat. Passive voice is easy to spot. Someone reading to look for errors
can easily go "Aha! You did a naughty here." because they were once told that
"passive = bad".

~~~
msla
> Passive voice is easy to spot.

A whole list of evidence to the contrary:

[http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/grammar/passives.html#passivepostlis...](http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/grammar/passives.html#passivepostlist)

For example:

[https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1504](https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1504)

> "On religious tolerance, he gently referenced the Christians of Lebanon and
> Egypt, then lamented that the 'divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to
> tragic violence' (note the use of the passive voice)."

The only way that statement is in the "passive voice" is if you want to ding
the speaker for not blaming someone specific; that is, it's only in the
passive voice in the political sense. Grammatically, it's in the active voice.

Here's a piece on what the passive voice is:

[https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2922](https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2922)

