Boxed Wine and the Passive Voice

Take a look at how active language frees up space in this pair of sentences: BzzAgent was hired by Black Box last fall … to “increase awareness … and impact sales.” Black Box hired BzzAgent last fall … to “increase awareness … and impact sales.” Black Box is a company that sells boxed wine

Dashes, Design, and Complex Sentences

The following sentence about Apple computers very elegantly demonstrates how dashes set off information in a sentence: How did he take a commodity — to borrow from the novelist Tom Wolfe, the “veal gray” plastic boxes that once weighed so heavily on both our desks and spirits — and turn it into one of the most iconic and desirable objects on the planet? — business analyst James B. Stewart, “How Steve Jobs Infused Passion into a Commodity,” nytimes.com, October 7, 2011 The core of the sentence amounts to, “How did he take a commodity and turn it into an iconic, desirable object?” The dashes surround and emphasize a quote that explains why that transformation was remarkable

What’s a Comma Splice?

This correctly punctuated sequence of sentences about the iPhone 4S is a perfect illustration of how you can avoid a comma splice: Apple introduced its long-awaited new iPhone on Tuesday. But it wasn’t an iPhone 5. That will have to wait

Three Tips toward Correct Hyphenation

Very few business writers know the basic guidelines for when you do and don’t type a hyphen. Your writing can create an especially careful and polished impression when you grasp these three guidelines: Don’t add a hyphen after most prefixes. Don’t type a hyphen after a word that ends with -ly

Oyster Packing and the Passive Voice

Three of the verb forms in this sentence are a great illustration of how the passive voice can be the best fit for a sentence: Shucked oysters packed in their liquor will keep up to a week if kept quite cold. Here’s the same sentence recast in the active voice: If you shuck oysters and pack them in their liquor, they will keep up to a week if you keep them quite cold. The passive voice usually streamlines a sentence by making it clear who does what