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[Pedant]

CC adjunct--You're very good as a writer, very clear. Passive voice is a choice, not an error.

We Pedants object most to those who confuse you're and your, and they're/their/there, and who don't use apostrophes or capitalization, and who use a plural subject and a singular verb.

CC, you are not the problem. Your mama trained you well.

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[WritingProf]

Heed the spirit of Pedant's post. Many of these "rules" are in fact useful as rules. But many (I haven't counted) are better dispensed as warnings that may, in some situations, be ignored, while a few are just plain wrong. *Fowler's Guide to Modern English Usage* has articles on most of these "rules" and makes wonderful subway reading. I suggest a brush-up before distributing your handout.

Even then, be aware that students' verbal habits are typically calcified. I find that it takes 3-4 weeks of instruction to help most students correct a sentence fragment, and that addresses just *one* of the "rules." Think about it. If all most people needed to improve their writing was one simple handout, pedants would be out of a job.

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[Pedant]

I can't resist pointing out that Writing Prof thinks pedants (plural) have one (singular) job. Tsk tsk.



WritingProf wrote:

> If all most people needed to improve their writing was one
> simple handout, pedants would be out of a job.
>

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[WritingProf]

Ouch! This is what I get for yielding to my urge to add a parting shot, which I composed rather quickly. Seriously, I can write really good. Er, gooder. More better than that, anyway.

Pedant wrote:

> I can't resist pointing out that Writing Prof thinks pedants
> (plural) have one (singular) job. Tsk tsk.

[Langprof]

CC adjunct wrote:

> I don't even know what some of the errors are, like the
> passive voice.  Most of the things I write professionally are
> in the passive voice, I think.  Of course, I only know that
> because my spell/grammar checker used to go crazy until I
> eliminated the rule.  

Passive voice is a great example of a sensible guideline evolving into a stupid rule.  Some writers have a tendency to overuse the passive or use it in ways that make their sentences harder to understand, thus writers are advised to avoid overuse of the passive.  This advice somehow got turned into a hard and fast avoid-the-passive rule in many people's heads.  There is nothing inherently wrong with the passive and there are situations in which the passive can be clearer than the active.  But considering each sentence on a case-by-case basis is just too hard for some people and thus we have the anti-passive crusaders.  

I teach a foreign language that uses passive voice rather frequently and regards it as a characteristic of good, intelligent writing.  There is always at least one student in every class who asks why we are teaching them passive in another language when they've always been told to avoid it in English.  I also had one student in a translation focused course who absolutely refused to translate passive sentences from the original language into English passives because he insisted that passive sentences were grammatically incorrect English.

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