RE: The repeated/quoted text in your message

["Cindy K. Kight" <Cindy -dot- Kight -at- Marconi -dot- com>]

With all due respect for Mary's viewpoint, here is my response:

I did not say that some writers are doing everything right and don't know it
- I was just making the case that it wasn't absolutely necessary to know the
formal names of all of the rules to be a good writer.  A writer may look at
a sentences written in passive voice and think, "this is too wordy and
indirect" and reword it into active voice successfully without ever having
heard of such a thing as active voice and passive voice.  

Someone can write, "If only we were to treat each other's opinions with more
tolerance and respect, the world would be a friendlier place."  They know
that they are expressing hopes for a better future and that this is how such
things are worded.  One does not have to know the rule is to apply the
subjunctive mode in order to write this type of sentence or to know that the
sentence communicates clearly.

I'm not trying to argue against knowing grammar, punctuation or anything
else of value.  Professional writers should learn these things as they can
improve writing ability.  

Or, heck, maybe they learned it in a past life and just forgot. <g> (No
California jokes, please ;)

Cindy
<In response to Cindy Kight:

I would like to meet a technical writer who is doing everything right and
doesn't know it. In my too many years of experience, it just does not
happen. Technical writers who know to use active voice got writing training
somewhere, and they know the difference between active voice and passive
voice. They may have learned it in school. They may have learned it in
college. Or they may have learned it from an editor.>


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